Pre PR discussion - adding image import support to the asset editor about pxt

[Jaqster]

Hi @talkol - I will chime in here. One of the main reasons we didn't want to go down this path is for child safety. Currently, we only scan content when a project is shared - and even then we don't scan images. When we open the gates for 3rd party media uploads, we need to be very careful to put in place content scanning and review filters. It's a big chunk of work. Also, slightly less of a reason, but something we've talked about, is that we want to encourage children to be creative in MakeCode and author their own art/music/etc. Happy to have a further discussion on this topic, but wanted to give you the background context and our reasoning behind not offering this capability.

[juliekol]

I understand the concern about child safety, but if somebody wanted to doodle an obscene picture, they still can. Moreover, the image importer https://github.com/riknoll/pxt-arcade-asset-tool allows adding custom images to games as well, so anyone set on creating abusive content would find a way.

Sharing a game has the "report inappropriate" functionality which helps mitigate these issues.

I still think preventing image upload is not the way to go. It's like preventing Google Slides or Powerpoint from uploading images for the fear that children may upload an abusive image for a presentation they make for school. Censorship is not the answer.

Almost all game makers, https://scratch.mit.edu included, have this functionality built in. This creates a glass ceiling pushing young developers away from MakeCode when they want to incorporate a bit nicer graphics.