Not just sanitizing, but sanitizing to US social mores. Showing a naked boob is considered porn and banned on most of these platform while public toplessness is perfectly legal in many jurisdictions worldwide. I guess it's lucky that at least these companies are not based in an even more restrictive society like China or we would see further restrictions become commonplace.
Ironically some liberties offered even less than a decade ago are eroding away because of the new internet overlords, often under the guise of some trumped up reason like "security" or "social" cause.
These day they don't even try to hide their true greedy objectives anymore, as seen in the removal of the YouTube dislike button or manifestv3.
While my example gas nothing to do with the internet it might still be interesting.
When I grew up nudism wasn't uncommon in the GDR, but after being unified with western Germany not one generation later it is more than fringe.
We only see unified filtered body types and the normality of seeing many different bodies in a non sexual way. While on the other hand even non nude bodies on Instagram often are sexualized beyond belief to maximize engagement.
We denormalized nudity, the regular body but commoditized the stereotypical filtered body.
[1] is a decent documentary about the weird and inconsistent standards applied by the MPAA. But yeah, violence is fine, man-focused sex is passable, woman-focused sex is bad, homosexual sex is RIGHT OUT, etc.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Film_Is_Not_Yet_Rated
As an aside, it turns out my phone dictionary does not contain the word "nudity".
But, it’s worth realizing the two categories are different, and they are regulated differently (either legally or socially) for good reasons.
Sexual images have a propensity to make you horny.
Violent images do not have propensity to make you violent. At least not as acutely.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topfreedom_in_the_United_State...
That said, I found it very interesting. I honestly had no idea it was legal anywhere outside of private or 'cordoned off' places.
That said, in my opinion people working in such a workplace reading a post "Why “go nuts, show nuts” doesn’t work in 2022" should be savvy enough to not click links, or read the post in the first place.
Also, ironically, the fact that we have to mark such links (to Wikipedia!) as NSFW is exactly what this particular comment chain is about, no?
It was definitely a valid remark, and in this case, it was useful at least for me.
This is more to say that this is a disagreement between you two at the object level, not someone overthinking a simple matter.
Boobs on the screen isn't the greatest look at work or any public location, and I don't really think it requires going any deeper than that. I can appreciate the pointless debate here and there, but this isn't some great philosophical question we have here lol.
Like it or not, there are plenty of jobs that would be very unhappy with you viewing said images in an office setting.
It generally isn't. The map image in the article colors a state blue for "legal at the State/Territory level". But that's not where the laws banning nudity come from anyway, so it's almost purely uninformative.
This was all back in the day, long before trans awareness even hit the mainstream.
I have nipples, Greg. Can you milk me? [Meet the Parents]
Like it or not, in some US workplaces, a background shirtless man isn't probably a big deal.
A front and center topless lady in a thong probably is.
I'd make the same declaration if it was a front and center pic of some dude in a banana hammock.
I'm making no judgement on laws or society, just trying to give a heads up to folks who might not expect that from a wikipedia link.
Sort of. Many states don't have laws specifically against it, but some of the ones listed as legal on that map may not actually be (PA should be marked yellow at best). Most of these states also do not appear to restrict localities from enacting their own ordinances (obviously excluding under the jurisdictions where the courts have ruled).
Take Youtube "content-creators" as an example making a living from ad revenue: Aussie / Scottish other native-English-speaking contributors face "de-monetisation" for presenting their natural selves and instead are asked to present according to US cultural norms in order to use the platform. And this isn't unique to Google/Youtube - the same applies to content-moderation across the internet.
Some people does the content anyway but publish in non-US platforms, or at least somewhere small that can't curate content.
Some channels (e.g. RealLifeLore) even gate their videos on more controversial topics (e.g. war) behind a Nebula or Patreon subscription, with the rationale that they would get demonetized on YouTube.
I'm not sure what you mean and imagining people in AU going through accent training to sound like they're from the US... please tell me it's not that bad
I'm self censoring here because this is a US-run site and I'm afraid I'll get shadowbanned if I use it in full. I am not from the US and this word does not carry the same weight for me.
Also, I find it funny that "cunt" is considered a gendered slew in the US (according to one of the parent comments). Being a cunt has nothing to do with gender, and everything with a character.
Surely you see, though, how it could.
Let's stick with 'asshole'.
Context matters. Intent matters.
Google has fired many an engineer that mentioned that.
It's more about cultural norms of acceptability - curse words are the obvious example but there's broader & more subtle cultural considerations w.r.t. what's acceptable to discuss and how it should be approached.
I have no evidence to support the following, but looking at what causes this problem on mainstream platforms I would strongly suspect Rumble to be even worse. The cause of this problem is socially conservative US advertisers: Youtube's demonetisation algorithms are tuned to language that their advertisers feel it's acceptable to be associated with. My instinct would be that the subset of these advertisers who use Rumble would be more, not less, socially conservative.
If I'm wrong in my guess above, it's likely a result of scale. Rumble being smaller might simply not have reached the scale whereby algorithmic demonetisation is a thing. In which case it's only a matter of time.
Better one hundred guilty people go free than one innocent be convicted wrongly. Something is horribly broken about our current system.
Yep. Im wondering when will countries start preventing US tech platforms from enforcing US laws and US morals on the people of those countries.
What it sounds like you're proposing is, if Denmark has carte blanche topless legality, that websites that want to operate in Denmark must respect their liberalism and allow said content. Which is far more draconian and intrusive. If a site wants owner wants to err on the side of conservative social values, that's their prerogative; create an alternative to fill the niche if you feel it's lacking. OnlyFans filled an entire void in that manner.
1 - "Two hundred twenty-two million users live in the US, which makes up 48% of the Reddit community." / https://thrivemyway.com/reddit-statistics/#Reddit-Usage-Stat...
2 - "The United States of America has at least 83.4 million active Twitter users" - https://datareportal.com/essential-twitter-stats
3 - "While Tumblr is used worldwide, the vast majority of its users are based in the U.S. Domestic visitors alone account for 42% of its overall traffic." - https://cloudincome.com/tumblr-statistics/
That will enforce less monopoly in social media, I am perfectly fine with that.
tl;dr: your last point didn't add anything to discussion, but is likely to offend
There’s also a reason we don’t dictate platforms and content.
We don’t force people to attend or partake in topless/nude beaches despite allowing them to exist. We don’t force people to join political protests despite them being a protected activity.
In the same manner, we don’t force newspapers to publish content against their goal or audience. There’s no difference for a site platform. There’s no reason “ChristianGram” should be forced to host nudity for Danish (and other) Christians, simply because Danes are allowed to be naked if they like.
The fact that you don’t see how that’s equally tyrannical and intrusive is, honestly, terrifying.
> The fact that you don’t see how that’s equally tyrannical and intrusive is, honestly, terrifying.
I don't think you know what tyrannical means.
That's precisely what I'm saying.
> Americans
The platforms will need to apply a different set of filters and moderation tools to anyone connecting from within inside the US. Just like they will do for those who connect from within Denmark.
Your entire basic argument is fallacious. If tumblr stopped showing nipples due to US censorship, that’s one thing. There’s no law barring this and no one is bending to the US legal system, the site owner themselves made this choice to appeal to the largest, most valuable chunk of their demographic. And you, as another person, can make an equally capable site minus that restriction. If people demand it (as they did OnlyFans, Twitch, VK, etc), they will switch.
Its not a random nation. Its that nation in which that site owner wants to operate. If he or she wants to operate there, s/he has to obey that country's laws when reaching out to that country's people. Its as simple as that.
> And you literally don’t see how that’s the same as limited content for a nation such as China.
I see it. Every country will limit their content per their own laws to the extent they want to do. That's what law is.
> There’s no law barring this and no one is bending to the US legal system, the site owner themselves made this choice to appeal to the largest, most valuable chunk of their demographic.
That means that basically those corporations just complied with the existing social sentiment and laws 'willingly' to avoid persecution. They can do the same, 'willingly' for other countries for 'appealing' to the users in those countries.
...
If you already 'willingly' comply by the legal and social paradigm of your country without the specter of the law coming down on you, you are not 'willingly' doing it in reality. You are doing it because you have to do it. 'Wording it differently' does not change the reality.
Anyway the opposite is already true, all US based companies that want to operate within the EU all follow the GDPR. It, and a lot of US online moral codes, are IMO good for society as a whole.
If you still want to look at NSFW content, there's plenty of sources for that everywhere.
No, the service will apply the filters and moderation tools to users from any given country separately. If the law in the US allows enough boobs and the US users post boob pictures, that's totally that legal ecosystem and userbase's thing.
This makes zero sense. How do you force anyone to not follow a law? Do you, say, force anyone to post nude pics just because a jurisdiction does not allow anyone to post them? How would that even work?
I'd imagine it be an ultimatum - if you enforce another country's laws on our citizens then you're also in violation of our local laws and will be fined, unable to operate in our country, etc
This makes no sense at all. Unless you're violating your own laws, which is not what you're arguing, then you're just complying with your own jurisdiction. Yo can't possibly be advocating punishing anyone for not violating laws in multiple jurisdictions.
I don't really think this is about laws, but even in that arena, companies already do their best to avoid those within the US, nevermind internationally. See e.g. recent Patreon controversy for an example of this. There's man others. So I don't really think law is the problem here.
> US morals
This is the real issue and unfortunately these are finely weaved deep inside US corporate culture itself - they're part of culture fit for hiring in US multinationals and are thus highly unlikely to ever be disrupted from within the workforce of those companies.
If companies 'willingly' comply with the existing social and regulatory landscape proactively, that's not something that happens 'willingly'. Its mental gymnastics to claim that they are doing it freely and not out of being obliged to.
I wonder if parents do the same these days, and if they share them online like how they used to pass around the family photo album?
I promise you.
Only Fans was about to be kicked off the banking system entirely and would have been ruined but the publicity caused the bank to back down so OF could continue as normal.
Worth noting that the Tumblr "porn ban" was already well into the planning stages months before the AppStore kerfuffle. That just brought it forward, not into existence.
Theory goes like this:
Some platform, be it payment or social allows something unacceptable to people, let's say racism, full nudity for the sake of argument.
People who really, really, do not want anyone to see this, start phone and email botting the companies that place ads using these networks, or take payment using these networks about the issue
The companies that place ads, do not need this headache and ask the platform, wtf? We will move our advertising dollars if you don't do something about this.
Platform, who's sole purpose in life is to make money, says ok!
Now, include very heavy hitters like Blackrock, Vandguard, etc. that control members on boards of 1,000s of companies and a relatively small group of people only need to persuade another relatively small group of people ... that may not even be the people running the platforms!
I agree, but even with that preference where does it stop? If I make my money via porn (I don't, but as an example) do customers not want to have bank accounts at banks where pornstars bank? How about sharing electricity from the same company that a porn company uses to power shoots? How about using that same kind of iPhone that a pornstar uses?
Of course all of those are absurd, but you get my point. There is clearly a line where commingling is acceptable. Reddit, for example, has some pretty hard NSFW content, yet people still place ads on other boards (or maybe those too, idk). And there is no widespread hue and cry from "consumers".
It is very, very specific people, companies, and groups that seem to be targeted and those tend to be whatever the current popular social-think flavor of the month is or just ones that certain people don't like in general (racism, drugs, bigots, etc). And you will note, that only one of those groups is actually illegal, the others are just distasteful.
It can be quite difficult for sex workers of all stripes to maintain their bank accounts. They regularly have accounts frozen because they receive payments from porn-friendly payment processors. This is not just "porn stars" but people that do things like OnlyFans.
So yes, sex workers have trouble accessing banking even if all they do is show their titties on camera because prudes go pitch a fit to banks.
If you're selling baby shampoo the last thing you need is some parent posting on Twitter about "Why is this baby shampoo brand advertising on a sight that promote horror movies about human centipedes?"
https://stephenfollows.com/which-mpaa-rating-earns-the-most-...
PG-13 is far and away the leader in terms of both highest-grossing films and percentage of box office revenue; R-rated films are actually the second in terms of highest-grossing and, depending on the year, bounce around between second and third. G-rated films, by contrast, are at the bottom across the board.
There is a difference between “family entertainment” and “adults-only” which matters in terms of the discussion around Tumblr’s content. If we’re using MPAA ratings as an analogy, Tumblr’s “no porn” position isn’t “everything must be G-rated,” it’s “nothing can be NC-17.” One can argue about whether the latter is a good stance to take, but it’s important to be arguing about the actual restriction.
In a world where no one allows smut (or drugs or semi-racist content), the first one who relaxes these rules will attract anyone and everyone with an interest in that particular content. And before you know it, smut is all you have.
It's a self reinforcing process, and the only way to stay out of it is to align with everyone else. The only way to break the process is if everyone relaxes the rules simultaneously.
And there was recently an editorial in the Chicago Tribune saying Chicago should shut down its remaining bars licensed to stay open till 4AM (most must close at 2, all get an extra hour on the weekends), because they're too wild. Yet NYC has probably hundreds of neighborhood bars open till 4 without a problem, since 4AM licenses are basically the default there.
Pornhub did a panic delete when the credit card companies withdrew because they realized three quarters of the content on their website may have been uploaded non-consentually - or at least, they didn't know there was consent involved. Revenge porn is a big issue, and will be even more now that everyone has an internet connected camera phone from a young age.
And this is the public internet; on top of that is the peer-to-peer internet of whatsapp, telegram etc, and the dark web of tor and co.
Some sure, but most would likely say “if it’s legal and makes me money, it’s a go”.
Ironically, that set of jurisdictions includes all US national parks... See, for instance, https://www.tripsavvy.com/visiting-limantour-beach-1478617 - it's a lack of federal laws against public nudity.
The disturbing thing is that the hives of scum and villainy you find there are for the most part no more subversive than reddit in 2010. And they are actually fun which is more than I can say for _anything_ on the regular web.
I somewhat agree, but might characterize it as meeting the tightest western restrictions. I have tons of cookie pop-ups now that GDPR happened, but that doesn't really apply to the US. So the influence isn't fully unilateral. Considering the companies started in and are headquartered in the US, it makes sense they follow US regulations more closely.
Not to US social mores, to some weird averaged out amalgamation of Western social mores. In the US, firearms are very normal and a regular part of life, but try doing a YouTube stream or channel about them and you'll quickly find yourself "sanitized" anyway.
Probably because a lot of kids use these platforms aka social networks.
Naked humans are too scary for us.
But ad hominems aside, he had a point. It's really disturbed when you think about it: the degree to which an influential subculture in America elevates and defends violence while censoring and degrading women's bodies exposes a sick preference for death over life. Even if portions of it claim to be "pro-life" they are, to all intents and purposes, a death cult.
but if you know any relevant studies claiming that nudity is not harmful for kids, please show them to me.
This reasoning is sometimes used hastily in radical-left politics, eg in some forms of anarchism where any power relationship is subject to justifying its existence. But, and I’m saying this no longer an anarchist, you don’t need to be a radical or revolutionary to see it play out.
This is essentially exactly how many cannabis legalization efforts have worked. After decades of dedicated effort to establish plurality support for questioning the status quo of prohibition, the question of whether prohibition is justified becomes scrutinized at a policy level and it the justification isn’t there. The only remaining barriers are weak pluralities and successful counter-marketing. If either of those are absent, the unjustified status quo has been changed.
Which is all to say, the onus isn’t on anyone to unjustify something that’s wrong, the onus is to motivate people to know and care that it’s wrong, and to agree that it matters. From there, the onus is the same as GP said: you’re making the claim, you defend it. Otherwise the assumption is just, like, your opinion man.
That's literally every law.
"Which is all to say, the onus isn’t on anyone to unjustify something that’s wrong"
The onus would be to show that "something" is wrong for that logic to even apply. As you said "you’re making the claim, you defend it.". Society already decided that it was wrong and formed a law, so now it's time to hear why it shouldn't be (I'm interested in research on either side).
This is a gross misinterpretation bordering on trolling. I'm not sure how you could even come to this position.
Please show me how what I've actually said is illogical and dangerous. Please remember that in the scenario we are talking about neither side has provided evidence one way or the other. Somebody would need to provide evidence one way or the other to shift the status quo, as shifting that requires flipping the convictions of the population, or at least the leaders.
Now I've honed this to the point where my kids just hear me go into that tone of voice and realize that they should drop the subject before the old man goes on another one of his 45 minute lectures. They've got more fun things to do.
I agree that seeing a range of nude people [in completely non-sexual contexts] is good for one's personal development.
It seems like the ones who are most concerned about nudity are the ones we should be the most concerned about. I don't know whats going on in their heads, but it must be pretty sick stuff from the way they overreact. I just don't feel like it should be our burden to keep their demons at bay.
I guess parents in the US make their children wear a swimsuit when bathing them?
Somehow I doubt Americans will be any more ok with this pretend nudity than actual nudity.
I've lost so much respect for this company and it's actually made me also take a step back from social media in general. All of these companies can abuse you at any point without any transparency, and I'm not willing to take the risk anymore.
Moral puritanism in any form seems to be an extremely harmful to any society it shows up in to those who aren't fellow moral puritans. I think most of the post-enlightenment democratic machinery exists to keep moral puritan types in check more than anything else.
For some reason I wasn't there, and it's a good thing because I'd probably still be lecturing the kid for it.