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Comment by jxcole | Hacker News Reader

Please change the title to include the string NSFW.

[EDIT: Thanks for updating. Nudity, no matter how innocent, should probably have this warning.]

Just out of curiosity: what is it that makes you think the pictures aren't SFW? Is it the nudity? This a serious question, as I suppose you're saying it's NSFW in the US, but I don't think there would be a problem in my country.

Thanks.

EDIT: Okay, from the comments so far I now understand it's not so much that there's nudity in some of the pictures, but that some of them contain children. Even though it's still nuts I think (not all pictures containing nudity are pornographic, and none of the ones here are even close to pornography), I get the idea now. Thanks again.

NSFW means Not Safe For Work. There are places where nude photos on a work computers can get you fired immediately.

So people must live in fear of clicking on links that contain a few nipples?

[Edit: Presumably just female nipples?]

Yes, alas.

Startup opportunity?

Yes, American employers are pretty terribly paranoid when it comes to nipples. What it boils down to is they adopt a strong policy as a defense against lawsuits, so if they are ever dragged into court by an employee claiming a 'hostile work environment', they can point to their policy enforcement as proof that they aren't a 'hostile environment'. In practice the policies don't just ban porn, they ban anything that could possibly make anybody feel uncomfortable or objectified, so swimsuit calendars or even dirty jokes can get you fired.

So the upshot is, if a site isn't careful about identifying links to naked photos, it is no longer safe to read it at work. Even some sites that sometimes have racy ads are best avoided at big companies (who tend to have bigger legal departments, lawsuit exposure, and stricter policies).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_environment_sexual_hara...

Ouch. Sometimes, the US sounds like how DDR would have been if it had been run by conservative christians.

Sigh. It's feminists he's talking about. People hate conservatives and Christians with an irrationality I just can't understand.

They meddle. The only reason I ever know what somebody is is because they told me (annoyed me), or otherwise made their issue my own.

I don't hate buddhists. Do you know why? Because they don't go out of their way to bug me regularly.

Regarding Christians anyway, you might be interested in John 15:18-19, and the following verses, assuming you're not aware of them. We expect a certain amount of irrational hate.

No criticism intended.

What strikes me as odd about that is this:

- Free Speech is (over?)valued, things that are forbidden as insulting/hate-speech etc. over in DE are 'okay' and free to express in the US. Something the people I talked to were proud of and regularly pointed to as the fundamental freedom.

vs.

- Careful what you say, it might get you fired. We had the swear words discussion lately, now we're talking nipples / nudity and references to those.

I understand that these issues are not the same. It just feels like the Freedom of Speech is reduced(?) w/o actually touching the constitution, is it really still that free?

To answer your last point, the constitution only protects from government restrictions on free speech, it says nothing about what private parties may require from their employees at work.

Not just in the US, but also in Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Syria and Iran.

Also in Australia, at a bare minimum. I'm remembering the banker gaffe from a few months ago.

Meh. I had two jobs in Australia, and in both places people would call everyone at work to look at funny porn they have been forwarded. Men & women.

He didn't lose his job in the end: http://www.smh.com.au/business/dave-the-banker-keeps-his-job...

Photos of topless women are usually not suitable in most western workplaces.

The one in this specific example is likely ok in most western workplaces, outside of the US. Europeans don't freak out nearly as much over this kind of stuff as Americans do. It isn't porn, as anyone with a pair of eyes can clearly see.

True, but in America the the 'before' photo is especially problematic. Though it clearly isn't pornographic, a topless (presumably) under-aged girl is potentially job-hazardous.

For example, I'm a public high-school teacher; I'm quite glad I waiting until I was home from work to check out the link. Having that image in my work browser cache is a risk I'd prefer not to take.

Also, we are very litigation happy over here. If I were a workplace, I'd be worried about a lawsuit over a 'hostile work environment' to be honest.

There is not one 'European attitude'. French attitude would be different from British attitude. Despite what the Daily Mail says, UK is 'European'

I've never claimed there to be a singular European attitude.

Americans, in my experience, don't "freak out" about it. It's really all about litigation.

Litigation because of freaking out.. but I just have the image of the Simpsons in my mind 'who will think of the children'. The U.S., love 'em, admits violence but is prudish. Always found it a strange thing but hey, it's cultural so we'll accept their quirks. The internet is mature enough to handle not forcing cultural change.

No, wyclif is right. The people who "freak out" over this kind of thing at work are really just looking for a payday. Anyone can be easily offended if money is involved.

Hm, I'm not so sure. Some of us come from cultures where reason and responsibility are widely-held ideals, and come before making a quick buck on the expense of others.

It's more a question of the legal environment than culture. No matter what the culture says there will always be people ready to exploit these kinds of situations.

Are you saying this as an American or as a European?

I've lived in the UK, Australia and US. I wouldn't want to be seen browsing naked images in any office I've worked at. It's not like I work in stuffy corporate offices either; more than one of them ran "adult" focused services on the side.

I'm lucky to work in an extremely liberal work place in London, to the point of unlocked computers being sabotaged with a fairly well known website showing old men conducting sexual acts on other old men.

Saying that, I've worked in other places were I'd defiantly avoid looking at anything featuring the nsfw flag.

In Scandinavia we couldn't care less.

Right. In Sweden a guy was fined for collecting manga comics with drawn (!) pictures of creatures that resemble naked kids.

We were talking about work, weren't we? Also, child pornography is another matter.

And I would hope drawings are another matter yet.

Not if you work in a museum

In the US, it's entirely possible that an image on that site could get someone charged with possession of child pornography.

I don't think anything on that site qualifies as pornography or child pornography in the US. "Pornography" is not a legal term, but is generally defined as "intended to cause sexual excitement" [1]. "Child Pornography" is a legal term, with similar definition in law [2].

If you look at the pictures there are a lot that show topless or covered-nude young males. They are not child pornography because they do not display "sexually explicit conduct." It's not illegal to take pictures of your naked baby [3]. If the under-age males in the photographs were depicted performing fellatio on a sex toy it would be child pornography, no matter how much clothing they had on. Nudity != Pornography.

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography

[2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/usc_sec_18_00002256----000...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_by_region#Child_por...

As with all things even remotely approaching the label "child pornography", caution is better than not. The fact that a charge wouldn't stand up in a court of law is one thing, your reputation and life is another.

Being accused of anything even remotely like this is enough to end one's useful life. Our society can't give two shits that you were exonerated, they just care that you were accused.

You are living in fear. There is an entire rational society in the USA that is alive and well. Its just not as large as the ignorant, irrational one.

Will the rational people ride to my rescue? If not, I fail to see what your point is. So, some people will be rational enough to see through the bullshit, but the vast majority of the world will not, and unfortunately one doesn't have much control who he/she runs into in their lifetime.

Well, you might have to move.

It's not at all irrational to be wary of a system that can ruin your life if you run afoul of it. It's a shame that the situation forces self-censorship, but the situation is a reality in the US, and it's irrational to pretend the risk isn't real.

Here's an article that stuck in my mind when I read it a few years back: http://www.salon.com/2006/07/18/photos_18/

It discusses (after the writer's personal horror story of being investigated for child porn after taking photos of his kids nude on a camping trip) how the laws intended to keep kids safe are actually causing many unsubstantiated reports, which in turn must be investigated, which in turn has disastrous consequences for many completely innocent parties. It also takes a stab at estimating how many people this actually happens to.

Would you to have all of your co-workers, neighbors, etc. interviewed about you due to child pornography charges? Be forced to take your own children into child protection services to be asked leading questions about good touches and bad touches? That damage isn't fixed when the charges are dropped.

I'm a parent, and perfectly comfortable with breast-feeding, nudity, and all that. My daughter loves running around naked, and that's awesome. But I don't put any photos online that would put me or anyone else at risk, and would never send them to a photo lab, in the US or any other country I've lived in. It's just not worth the risk.

This is particularly true for those who work with children. Once rumors start circulating that your kid's 4th grade teacher "got busted for child porn", there's a high likelihood they'll never be able to teach again, even if the investigation clears them or the charge is thrown out. Sure, some parents will be understanding, but it only takes a few to cause a frenzy.

It's also important for those of us who browse the internet with our children present. If your first grader tells his friend he saw a naked picture of a little kid on daddy's computer, and an adult overhears, that's probably going to bring child protective services (or SRS or whatever it's called in your area). Once CPS is involved, your entire life comes under intense scrutiny.

Point being: exercise caution. Use NSFW labels whenever you link to nudity, especially child nudity, even if it's totally non-sexual.

I suggest using the http://nsfw.in/ shortener and safer linking service for such NSFW links. (Disclaimer: Site run by my team.)

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