People who trade in images of abuse should be punished on some level; however, they are the smallest part of the problem, the people who actually abuse children for the purposes of taking pictures are the real problem and I highly doubt you're going to catch them by scanning text messages.

It's completely wasted effort and does nothing to stop pedophiles or to protect children.

Yep, in 2010,the Australian communications minister Steven Conroy literally said this to a journalist who question his child abuse internet filter. This is after a leaked draft of this black list came out with sites like wikilealks on it...

Said something like "I don't support opting in to pedophilia"

Yeah. Which is why we should treat it as the smoke and mirrors it is. Just completely ignore their justification and avoid repeating those words on every news report.

These politicians couldn't give less of a fuck about children. Politics and children do not belong in the same body of text. Finding the words "child", "terror", "drug" and "money launder" in any political text is evidence of bad faith and a perfectly valid reason to completely dismiss whatever's being said. It's almost certain they're trying to manipulate people into giving up freedom for false security by appealing to the eternal bogeymen of society. Communists were that bogeyman once.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

That's really smart.