Digital Satanic Panic; or AI isn't killing the kids, we are

For seven years and fifteen million dollars, the state of California prosecuted seven preschool teachers for crimes that did not happen, and at the end found no one to convict. The McMartin trial is remembered as a failure of justice. It was not. It was the operation working exactly as designed. The point was never to find satanic abuse rings. The point was to look for them, with cameras present, in front of an anxious public that needed something to do with its anxiety. The verdict was incidental; the vigilance was the product.