Art or Porn?
Art or porn? Many media networks and social media networks seem to have a hard time deciding, because they are pandering to a culturally conservative, or more tersely put, stunted, segment of society.
Stephen Colbert of "The Late Show" demonstrates how ridiculous this censorship can be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkJS0IzZREk
The problem exists for living artists, as well as those represented in museums. A number of artists I know have fallen afoul of this small mindedness, had their accounts suspended as punishment, and then re-enabled under threat of swift retribution should they cross the imaginary line again.
Why does it matter? Social media sites such as Facebook, have such a strangle hold on your access to your own audience, that should they see fit, and turn the lights out on your profile or page, that's it, the show is over, as you won't have access to the contact details of the majority of your fans.
A large part of the problem lies in the existing culture of today, where you are forbidden to offend anybody, intentionally or unintentionally. The artists I'm talking of have Facebook profiles in the order of hundreds of thousands of fans who love their work. Yet it all it takes is one disgruntled prude, or some one with spiteful intent to make a report, and BAM! you're profile is down.
What are the alternatives or options? Few, and none with the reach. Investing time into getting your social media fans to subscribe to your newsletter should be a priority, even if you're not being banned, even internet giants topple and die (MySpace).
The final option would be to a willingness to try other social networks, such as SteemIt, and see if it reaches the critical mass to make the likes of Facebook dispensable.
As for the broader social issue of people's immaturity, that one is a long long wait. Given that world is going through rapid changes today, it's hard to say how the story will unfold. But, by not surrendering to the Prude Police, we may keep the world alive and vibrant with different ways of looking at things.
(Photo Credit: "Michelangelo's David, 1501-1504, Galleria dell'Accademia (Florence)" Jörg Bittner Unna - Own work, CC BY 3.0)
have you seen a lot of porn on steemit ?
hmm no (so you know what happens on other media like steemit too)
And actually that's the same on Facebook, it isn't much censor from Facebook (why would they censor porn, as it is a big cash machine ?), but rather from some of its users who complain to get such and such posts removed.
Yes, that's my point in the article, but sometimes people's definition of "porn" goes too far. On certain networks you could be banned for posting an image of "L'Origine du monde" an oil-on-canvas painted by French artist Gustave Courbet in 1866, that hangs in Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
In Europe, they don't have a problem with this and seed the difference between art and porn. Yet, in the USA, things appear to be more prudish. It is in the USA that many of these networks have their headquaters, and so, American morals are exported to the rest of the world.
Good article. I agree with everything you said. People need to be so touchy about the world around them.
bot ? (lol your answer is so general you must be a bot)