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Comment by publicfig | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, most of the arguments (at least that I've seen, could be non-representative) aren't against big C "Censorship" in the way that this comment implies. It's not an argument as to whether or not Oath/Verizon/Tumblr CAN remove the content and be within their right to do so, it's that it's a poor idea from either a business or a community based point of view (often both). While they are able to manage their community in any way they seem fit, it's that the users of the platform are coming out (and I have absolutely zero data to say whether it's a vast majority or vocal minority) to say that they disagree with the decision that is being made. When phrased in the way that you did, you seem to imply the black-and-white view of "Porn is obviously bad, why shouldn't Tumblr remove it" though ignoring most of the discussion and nuanced views that make a discussion like this worth having.

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> you seem to imply the black-and-white view of "Porn is obviously bad, why shouldn't Tumblr remove it" though ignoring most of the discussion and nuanced views that make a discussion like this worth having

You've effectively changed what he said. He said something much simpler: there are children that use Tumblr; because there are children that use Tumblr, removing porn from Tumblr should not be controversial.

A "nuanced" reply would assess the risk of exposing children to the fascinations of various alternative communities that do not dabble in child porn. I don't see "Porn is obviously bad", but I do see exposing children to porn is obviously bad.

It's more than a porn ban, though, it's an "adult content" ban. IMHO because Tumblr chose to make the ban broad instead of focusing on commercial pornography, this made the controversy a lot stronger than it needs to be.

As it stands, Tumblr is not just banning someone's stash of hardcore sex videos. It also is banning, say, a casual vacation photo taken on a beach where topless sunbathing is acceptable (due to the explicit ban on female nipples except for a few narrow contexts). On a more "adult" level, it is also banning stuff in between the two categories, like say boudoir photography (which is usually adult in nature, sometimes erotic / titillating, but is usually not explicitly pornographic.)

Even the "any content that depicts sex acts" seems vague. Would something like, say, Rodin's "The Kiss" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_(Rodin_sculpture) -- be flagged? I don't know, it depends on what the auto-algorithms sees as a "sex act" I guess. Certainly if you were an artist that dabbled in any sort of erotic drawing / painting, the vague definition would probably be a worry IMHO.

(Tumblr is already 13+ already. Commercial crass porn is one thing, but I personally don't think there is any problem showing a 13+ year old this Rodin sculpture or a casual beach shot where topless sunbathing is acceptable.)

It is even simpler, he literally just made a “will somebody please think of the children” argument. Which is so that inane it doesn’t even need a serious reply.

Do you have kids?

As a parent, the idea of exposing my kids to the internet is frightening. There are so many paths by which they can get exposed to stuff they shouldn't be exposed to. I, personally, think that attempts to make more of the internet child friendly are good. The internet as it exists today is like walking down the Main Street of some town, except that people surprise you by randomly jumping out from behind mailboxes and shrubs and engaging in hardcore sex on the sidewalk. It's insane.

If you’re worried about your kids being exposed to that stuff, set up internet filtering in your home. It’s pretty effective these days, and you’ll actually get way closer to the result you want with that approach than with trying to change the internet.

My kids are young, so it's not something we've had to seriously get into yet. Honestly curious, though: how does filtering handle sites like Reddit or YouTube where all requests are via https, which makes the specific content on the page not visible to filtering which takes place at the network connection level?

Install a local root CA so you can MITM.

I understand there are a lot of “nuanced” rationalizations against Tumblr’s decision-and of course it’s great that they’re discussed and cases are made, so that fair minded people rightfully reject them. We live in a free society- Tumblr is not a monopoly- and now a competitor can freely scoop up the obvious niche community that Tumblr is choosing not to support anymore.

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