Comment by yellowapple

> It's a far better argument to me, to suggest that the societal utility in using the material to identify and remove paedophiles before they have an actual victim far exceeds the utility of any sort of "freedom" to such material.

Or at the very least: flag pedophiles for further investigation, including one's social network. Even if a given pedophile hasn't actually harmed any children, one probably is acquainted with other pedophiles, possibly ones who have harmed children.

Softening the punishment for CSAM possession in and of itself could actually help with investigating the creation of (non-simulated) CSAM by this logic, since people tend to be more cooperative to investigators when they think they have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide.