Porn on Steemit - How I Am Approaching It
Late last night, I started noticing a couple posts in the “new” feed with pornographic images right in the thumbnail. @erotic was the first one whose posts I browsed. I noticed that they have been doing this for quite some time with little flagging from the community, and I started to wonder where I stood on this.
It’s clear to me that, as an investor, user, and believer in the platform, I need to do all I can to keep Steemit amazing. There are many various niches throughout the Internet that Steemit alone can’t possibly address, and pornography may just be the biggest one of these. Whether we like it or not, pornography is a huge part of all Internet activity.
Can you imagine what would happen here if porn users on other sites found out they have a financially incentivized way to share porn? What if a few major porn sites decided to acquire an ungodly amount of Steem Power to try to push their content and similar content to the top of trending?
Personally, I don’t want to see porn on Steemit. I believe we need a separate platform that is specifically used for pornographic material, that requires users to be 18+ to sign in, in order to comply with the law. Having users post that content here, when users can and do sign up at any age, is likely a potential legal risk for our company.
I now strongly believe that I need to flag blatant pornographic content for the sake of this platform. I have already started doing this right before posting, and I am starting to regret not getting this all going before bed last night.
I also would like to add, that although I will take this stance on porn posts, this is in no way a condemnation of the industry. People can do what they would like, but I am just going to keep doing what I feel is right for Steemit.
I previously made a post outlining how I would be voting on this platform and I view blatant pornographic material to be a “net negative to our investment, Steemit”. If you disagree with my strategy on how to handle this, please let me know. I am open to changing my perspective, but I just don’t see how it benefits the platform.
Edit to add:
@tombstone pointed something out to me that I was completely unaware of:
When tagged as NSFW, posts will by design not show up in any of the feeds. One would have to explicitly go into the NSFW tag to see such posts. So it's not necessary to flag them if they are tagged properly.
I will now no longer be flagging properly tagged NSFW posts.
Improperly tagged NSFW posts can still fek off though :)
If your flagging content tagged NSFW on an uncensored platform your deserved to be flagged to -7 yourself.
unless it is in the thumbnail in the main list and people see it without opting in. You are correct though if the thumbnail is not NSFW and the post is tagged NSFW it should be left alone. Though a lot of them I just looked at were also potentially copyrighted things... some clearly labeled Playboy and such.
Not sure if we want lawsuits killing us before we get too big to kill.
Just because the front end hasn't been developed for NSFW content support yet doesn't give you the right to false flag content because of a thumbnail. That is censorship pure and simple. I wish there were flag overrides and steem power penalties for such false flags implemented.
It is known if the thumbnail is NSFW it is going to get flagged. YOu also shouldn't expect to be able to force that upon people against their wishes. You are correct there is no way to do it now, but I've seen those enforcing things warn of this. So your opinion isn't going to change it. I do not think people should be flagging NSFW posts that are clearly marked and the initial thumbnail is not offensive. Allow people to opt in. Also porn does NOT bother me, but I respect the rights of other people not to see it.
EDIT: I saw a 14 year old doing an #introduceyourself a couple of weeks ago, and there are also religious people, and even perhaps others. It also appears some of the content I looked at is copyrighted. That could open a can of worms before we are ready to fight off the big fish that come looking.
First I've ever heard of it. If the post is tagged NSFW it should be fine. You don't get to choose if there is a thumbnail or not or pick which pictures are used. I've had it use the 3rd pic in a post before. I believe the devs do have plans to give you the option to enable/disable nsfw content. It's beta so for now you just have to live with it. That's what an uncensored platform is.
Yeah I edited my response while you were typing yours...
As to when I heard about the thumbnail. the first week I was here when animated GIFs were still working in the thumbnail (seems to have changed) there was a pretty explicit animated GIF blow job floating around out there. It was actually the first time I ever saw a post with negative votes. I didn't know the flag existed, so I was like "how is that negative?" and that's when they told me where it was and why it was flagged.
Nesting limit... thumbnail is always the first picture. So post a picture with some clothes on, or something as the first one... and the thumbnail will be safe.
EDIT: I've only had it choose the third picture if I posted it and that third picture was the 1st. Then I edited it and added more photos before that. It stuck with the original one. That doesn't mean it can't happen. I just haven't seen it happen. Yes and I agree on the BETA thing. It will be addressed.
It's not always the first picture. https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@fubar-bdhr/diaspora-shattered-armistice-battlestar-galactica-space-combat-simulator its the third pic. I had to edit it several times to try to get the right pic to show and move things around.
I agree. I will not flag porn posts, so long as they are titled NSFW and do not include the image in the thumbnail. The thumbnail aspect of it is what set me off, and after thinking about all these replies, this seems like a much more reasonable course of action.
You can't tell it not to put an image in the thumbnail or even specify what image it uses.
I know that I can't tell people what to post. This is why I titled this post, "how I am approaching it". They can do what they want, I can do what I want. Also, I am providing transparency to my decision. I could have just downvoted like crazy and not said anything, at least I am being up front with my approach, while simultaneously being open to the fact that I may be wrong.
Pornographic thumbnails that say NSFW don't cut it, IMO. Voting is subjective, and at the end of the day I am just trying my best to bring value to the platform, how I see fit.
Voting is not supposed to be subjective it's supposed to be reserved for special cases. Plagiarism, Spam, NSFW not tagged properly. Not for if you can see the NSFW with the system currently in beta.
Well, we're going to have to disagree. There are no rules to voting. This is why I made my post outlining how I would be voting. I made this post to continue to be as transparent as possible with my flagging. And, as I said, I am open to changing my position, but I've yet to see a valid argument.
As I said, I am not censoring, the content is still on the blockchain, I am simply trying to reduce its visibility on the Steemit site. SteemPorn can better open those windows up someday.
Do you think the users joining this site are joining for the porn? I don't.
Sorry, @fubar-bdhr, I can't reply below, so I'll reply here:
I'm not calling for censorship. It's still on the blockchain. In full. You can go see it at steemd.com, freely.
I came here to get away from censorship only to find people like you calling for it.
But no one using steemit can that's a big problem when steemit is supposed to be uncensored. How would you feel if a group of people agnostics decided to flag any post containing a religions thumbnail? How about vegans flaggina all posts with thumbnails of farm animals or cooked meat?
Also, I don't believe that I am censoring anyone. Their content is still on the blockchain, and as @dwinblood pointed out, can be viewed from other windows. I am merely making it less visible on Steemit, because I feel it is best for Steemit. Please let me know how this perspective is wrong, because I will stop if I am indeed wrong.
Steemit is advertised as uncensored and you are censoring content I don't see how it can be more blatantly obvious than that.
If it's still visible on the blockchain, then how is that censorship? I am reducing visibility on Steemit in an attempt to discourage that behavior. I want this site to cater to everyone, but at the same time I know the masses will be more hesitant to join if this become a new porn hub. This is why we need different windows, as @dwinblood said, to the steem blockchain that can view niche content, like porn, that doesn't fit Steemit's culture.
I agree.
I agree with your stance on porn. I think the stakeholders of this community should be aware of legal risks steemit may incur.
I think that this aspect is extremely important as an investor. I know I'm not a whale, but I plan on acquiring a lot more as the price drops a little more. So, someday soon, I will be a much more influential curator. This is why I want to be as transparent as possible.
Now you sound like Facebook to me.
First off, we won't be able to keep porn out. Second porn is actually a big part of the web and steemit could very very empowering to women.
I think instead we need to find ways to channel this stuff, so that it can coexist with other things.
Either way it will be very nice to see how this plays out.
By the way I have not seen any pornographic stuff on steemit only soft and pretty erotic pics, so so far the censoring is working quite well
I agree and I was completely unaware of the NSFW tags as @tombstone pointed out. I have changed my approach to reflect this knowledge and will only flag NSFW content that is not properly flagged. I'm sorry for my confusion on this topic.
You will not be able to stop PORN from being on this platform. The idea is that there is no censorship here. However, it should NOT be visible in the thumbnail and it should be labeled as NSFW. This doesn't just go for porn, but extreme violence and anything you'd potentially get fired for if it came up on your screen at work needs to be flagged NSFW. If it isn't then it should be flagged.
As far as censoring that stuff. The only way that is going to happen is for someone to build another website viewing the same block chain and perhaps making all NSFW stuff invisible. That is doable. Steemit.com is simply a window into the blockchain, so I fully expect to see more "windows".
Maybe I'm wrong, @dwinblood, and I really respect your views, so please help me better understand flagging. If I flag something, I am making it less visible on Steemit, but the content is still on the blockchain. I did not touch the content at all. How is that censorship?
Until other windows to this stuff open up, this seems completely logical from my view, as Steemit has a diverse array of users, even kids as you pointed out, and as far as I can tell, if you have porn available on your site to kids under 18, you're going to have some legal issues. As I've been saying, I'm more than happy to change my approach to this, so let me know where I'm missing a step. Thanks!
When tagged as NSFW, posts will by design not show up in any of the feeds. One would have to explicitly go into the NSFW tag to see such posts. So it's not necessary to flag them if they are tagged properly.
Oh wow, I'm sorry, I missed the boat on that one. I should have known better that the guys would already be on this. Thanks for pointing this out!
Thanks @derekareith I respect you as well, @damiancraymond whom I also respect has mentioned you numerous times in our various exchanges. I wasn't ignoring you, simply was asleep. :)
Damian's the man! When we started talking about anarchism for the first time, his eyes lit up and I could tell right away he was getting what I was saying. That's just so rare when bringing it up with most people. He ran with it on his own from there and I am thankful for the great conversations we have both in real life and on the site.
Yeah the word Anarchy is another one of those politically high jacked and conditioned words to mean chaos to most people. Once people realize what it truly means, and they think about it, it is a big AH HA type moment. "Why are we not doing that?"
Answer: "Some people think they should have the right to control other people, and they tend to currently have risen to prominent positions in the governments that do exist. They would resist this idea ever being attempted."
It is this same mentality that is really the single thing Anarchistic systems would have to keep a watch for, because some people get off on controlling, manipulating, and bullying other people.
I could not disagree more. Eventually viewing NSFW material will be opt in or opt out. That it's not already is simply a function of the fact that developers have had higher priorities. Seeing porno thumbnails is simply a function of this present limitation that will be resolved in due time, hopefully shortly. Flagging sexy images that are properly tagged NSFW due to a present limitation of Steemit itself seems very unwise and counterproductive to me.
I appreciate you reaching out on this one. I was unaware of NSFW tagging as @tombstone pointed out. I just was imagining a young kid making their first post surrounded by porn posts under new and wondered about legal risks and whether that activity would benefit the site. I just don't want to see Steemit run into legal troubles before we even get going. Now that I'm aware of the NSFW tag and how that removes that content from all feeds, I think flagging NSFW content that isnt properly tagged is the best course of action. I edited my post to reflect that. If this position is still wrong in your view please let me know. Thanks!
Thanks. I appreciate you weighing my argument and, in this case, buying it.
I'm very anxious for the devs to release the NSFW filter. Not sure what's taking so long since this seems like an easy thing to do. But I'm not a coder so I'm sure it's more difficult than it seems.
What if any big company decides to do that !!?!?!
I actually don't mind companies investing in this platform to help promote their brand. I shouldn't talk about this yet, but I've actually been in talks with a brewery about doing just that. Say you have one of their beers and absolutely loved it, you can take a pic, post it here with a quick review along with tagging their brand name, and they would upvote you as a way of saying thanks. This seems a lot better than ads that are forced down our throats that we don't even want to see. In my eyes, it's a more organic way to grow your brand.
If any company abuses this, and spams their stuff, it will hurt their brand's reputation and people will likely flag them for abuse. These same fundamentals hold true for any company, but in this post, as I said, I was looking at Steemit as an investor and trying to figure out how I should curate NSFW content in response to what I saw as content negative to the site. I did an updated post to clarify my new views, after learning how little I knew about the topic.
I said this before and will continue to repeat it...People have a different opinion of what NSFW is . As long as there is no nudity involved (obvious one) that is SFW , but that is my opinion only.
Dont get me wrong , i agree there needs to be a way to protect underage people.
I actually don't get this, personally. I've never seen any convincing evidence that exposure to nudity or sexual imagery does lasting harm to children.
I, like I assume many others, surf steemit at work... And porn in thumbnails is not a good thing. But NSFW tags and work safe thumbnails I am all for...
So NSFW thumbnails bad but stealing time from your employer is fine.
I agree
This is interesting. I would like to say that I learned about steemit today from a friend. I started clicking around, and I don't know exactly how but I wound up finding some #nsfw posts pretty quickly without ever asking for that tag explicitly. I have no idea the path that I followed, but I actually got the impression that this was a somewhat trashy social network that was overrun with porn. This post puts it in perspective, but it is definitely possible currently to get to #nsfw without going to that tag explicitly (again, I don't know the path I followed).
The team is currently working on implementing the NSFW filter. They push updates frequently, so my guess it won't take much longer for that to go live. I am glad you hung around and didn't let a bad first taste turn you off to a wonderful platform. We are doing big things here and I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised by your stay. And welcome, btw :)
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I know some things are kind of hard to figure out on your own. http://www.Steemtools.com and http://www.steemit.chat are great resources to make your experience more enjoyable. Take care!
@derekareith and @fubar-bdhr : Making content less visible is a form of censorship imho - albeit a weaker form. We could call it "soft censorship".
When Google is criticised for the order in which results for some contentious search term are shown they are routinely accused of (soft) censorship, and rightly so, since results on the first page are viewed orders of magnitude more frequently than those on, say, the 50th page.
We can also think about the issue in terms of accessing vs. finding. Soft censorship might not prevent people from accessing content, but it prevents them from easily finding it.
Hey @pussycat. I updated my perspective on the issue with my next post here:
https://steemit.com/mybad/@derekareith/porn-on-steemit-my-updated-view
I believe soft censorship is done through curating on this platform. They gave us flags to help soft censor content detrimental to the platform. With my updated view post, I hope you see how I am just trying to be transparent about how I flag content that I find detrimental. I am doing this so that discussions like this can open up and I can fine tune my approach, in the best interest of the platform.
Now that is an interesting point: curating = soft censorship
I had not looked at it that way but you are absolutely right.
The logical conclusion is that, where there is abundance of content, (soft) censorship is inevitable ...
A lot of the discussion in the comments seems to focus on porn, but what is your take on fine art nudes and the like? I'm a photographer who does fine art nudes and (for lack of a better term) "regular" photography. I may on occasion post some nudes and other times not.
Also, I've noticed that photo posts sometimes pop up with a generic thumbnail of a flying saucer, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason for when it does and doesn't appear. This thumbnail would be good for any nude photos, but I can't figure out how to control when it does and doesn't get used. Any ideas?
(I'm fairly new to Steemit, so any advice would be appreciated).
I upvoted @katecloud's post on body painting. Artistic nude expression, especially like her work, is stunning. I am referring more to the daily posts by NSFW porn accounts that I thought would mix in with all the other posts. After learning how I didn't understand what was going on, I decided to make a new post reflecting my new views: https://steemit.com/mybad/@derekareith/porn-on-steemit-my-updated-view
As far as getting your pics sorted properly in your posts, I'm probably not the best person to ask. I use the editor and use the add image button as I make my post. I haven't had any issues so far, but I have seen some people struggle with their thumbnails and their pictures showing up as UFO's. @missjessica had it happen once, but she re-uploaded the pic and it worked fine. Check out http://www.steemit.chat and ask around as I'm sure someone's got the answers if you can't find them by searching.
Happy to follow, by the way.
PS - I'm assuming Dark Star is a Grateful Dead reference and as a lifelong Phish fan, you know I loves me some Dead. :)
Darkstar -- Definitely a Grateful Dead reference, but it's this strange word that has popped up in numerous places for me. I finally got the idea that the universe was throwing me a hint, so I adopted it as a name for myself and my endeavors.
The editor... I'm guessing you mean the built-in editor when you hit the "Submit a Story" link at the top? You know, it's funny... I use that and I've seen other people talk about the Add An Image button, but it doesn't show up for me. I have to use a URL for the image to get photos to embed in a post. I'm guessing this might be a browser issue? I'm using Firefox.
Ah, I'm glad to see you are just talking the real deal porn. I can still see why artistic nudes should be hidden for work purposes, though. I might have to experiment a little. I used to have posts on another blog auto-post to Facebook, and I would use a 1x1 pixel image in posts first so Facebook would pick that up as the thumbnail (so the post looked like it had no thumbnail) and title it with NSFW, to warn people what the content was. That worked great for Facebook, so maybe a similar approach would be good here.
I use Chrome as well as Brave, which I highly recommend checking out. Here's how it looks in editor for me:
This site is so new, it's going to be an ongoing learning process for all of us. Each day I'm learning so much, and I still feel like a total newb sometimes.
In the end, we'll make this platform the best it can possibly be and this is why I am glad to have conversations like in this post to help ensure I am not hurting the site with my actions.
Oh wow.... you know what? I have that too, except mine by default comes up with the Markdown setup. I didn't even notice the Editor switchover link until I looked at your screenshot and compared it to my setup. Now I feel like a doof... lol!
Oh well, at least I learned something new today. XD