One of the admins at lemmy.blahaj.zone asked us to purge a community and all of its users because they thought it was full of child sexual abuse material, aka CSAM, fka kiddy porn. We assured them that we had checked this comm thoroughly and we were satisfied that all of the models on it were of age.
The admin then demanded we purge the comm because they mistook it for CSAM, and claimed that the entire point of the community was to make people think it was CSAM. We vehemently disagreed that that was in fact the point of the community, but they decided to defederate from us anyway. That is of course their choice, but we will not purge our communities or users because someone else makes a mistake of fact, and then lays the responsibility for their mistake at our feet.
If someone made a community intended to fool people into thinking it was kiddy porn, that would be a real problem. If someone of age goes online and pretends – not roleplays, but pretends with intent to deceive – to be a child and makes porn, that is a real problem. Nobody here is doing that.
One of the reasons we run our instance the way that we do is that we want it to be inclusive. We don’t body shame, and we believe that all adults have a right to sexual expression. That means no adult on our instance is too thin, fat, bald, masculine, old, young, cis, gay, etc., to be sexy, and that includes adults that look younger than some people think they should. Everyone has a right to lust and to be lusted after. There’s no way to draw a line that says “you can’t like adult people that look like X” without crossing a line that we will not cross.
EDIT: OK, closing this post to new comments. Everything that needs saying has been said. Link to my convo with the blahaj admin here.
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It is within their right to defederate from anyone as they please.
Totally. They even have to right to be dead wrong about the reason, which they’ve exercised.
So if an adult has a childlike appearance, they are not an adult; they are considered a kid. What even is this shit?
Well shit. As a horny queer person I am active on both of these instances and I’m not sure how to feel about this.
As a horny queer person I, too, wish that this had gone a different way.
If you really want to you can just make an account on either side of the divide. They’re free.
I actually already have accounts on both. It’s just one of those weird things of federation that I can’t see one side from my account on the other anymore.
This is genuine issue with the fediverse. Many instances could gang up and defederate from an instance and all the voices on that instances are essentially censored, like a typical centralised social media
It is not censorship to say that I will not let you use my resources that I bought, pay monthly fees for, and spend a chunk of my life to maintain, so you can to spread your message. That’s fucking unhinged. Come back to reality.
Is it censorship when I choose not to click on a link? What if I have a live stream and people are watching me, is it censorship then? No??? Same fucking thing. My hardware. My server. I get the last say on what runs on it. That’s not censorship, that’s not even close.
As requested, the correspondence between me and the blahaj admin, posted with her permission. It started with this message (her* original message is on the bottom, my reply is on top):
- I had used “they” for Ada earlier, which was mistaken. My apologies.
At this point Ada apparently had some communication with @gavi@lemmynsfw.com on Matrix, to which I was not privy. He told me, and I said that I had responded to Ada via Lemmy message. He had to step away, so I took over correspondence with Ada via Matrix.
Echoing the statements elsewhere here, you handled yourself very well, and it’s quite a different primary source representation from what was being described on their announcement post of why they were defederating.
I think your goof was the “I can’t be held accountable for your mistake of fact”. I believe they’re clearly the one in the wrong regardless though.
It sucks but it is what it is.
I think it’s been an interesting debate. You both make good points. Ads about how “it’s similar to Loli in that it is trying to look underaged” and you with “we don’t discriminate against youthful looking adults”.
I guess I see it like DDLG kinks. I find it gross. I can see why people would want to ban it because they say they’re pretending to do something illegal like CSAM, but a lot of links pretend to do something illegal. BDSM pretends to tie people up and torture them but people don’t look at it and say “hey, you’re intentionally trying to look like you’re torturing people against their wills”.
People seem to have a gut reaction to illegal things with children moreso than illegal things with adults and I guess that’s why some people have this reaction to wanting to “purge” communities like that as opposed to ones that do things like CNC, BDSM, etc. But hey, as long as everyone involved is an adult and consenting that’s totally fine.
I found that “mistake of fact” retort hilarious.
She obviously took it as a personal insult, but the whole debate is based on her own mistaken identification. So it is hard to address the topic without also seeming to target the person.
Well, I’m not familiar with who Ada is before this, but it honestly just sounds like she it’s taking a very hard gut-felt position on simulated child porn, and explicitly refusing to consider the problematic implications of her gut feeling. Consenting adults of any body type can and should be able to be “adorable” as a kink or non-kink nudity or other expression. Even if I completely understand the need to heavily dissuade CSAM, that sub just doesn’t fit that.
It looks like the turn in the conversation was the use of “mistake.” It was accurate but clearly triggered Ada and she stopped listening at that point. I’m sure she is a good person worthy of respect, but she’s in the wrong and I hope she reconsiders.
If you see how she runs her instance it’s no surprise. I’m sure the ban list for their instance is long and will eventually include the entire fediverse.
Fun fact, if you click the “Instances” button in the bottom right of the page on any instance, you can see what other instances it’s connected with, and if you scroll down far enough, which ones are blocked/defederated.
For reference, the instance we’re on, lemmynsfw, has 4 instances blocked.
That exchange is absolutely bonkers. I’m sorry but I have far less respect for Ada after reading that text exchange. Glad I don’t use that instance.
To be clear, Ada has her own imperatives and her own community, and I’m not here to judge how she runs her instance. lemmy.blahaj.zone means a lot to a lot of people, and as a queer weirdo myself I appreciate that a place like it exists on the lemmyverse.
Hey, you’re an instance admin and this kind of collegial statement is entirely appropriate given your role here.
Me? I’m a newbie here. I don’t have much to lose. My assessment of that exchange is: she bonkers. But that’s just me.
Huge respect for the professionalism you’ve shown through this situation and in the way you run your instance. The quality of the content here is already impressive, and it’s been the thing that’s allowed me to cut my last cord with Reddit. Cheers.
Wow that was all something… Anyways sorry you have to moderate all this. Thanks for the transparency it clears up the misunderstanding(?) for me.
word.
I asked her to post the chats as well for transparency.
Not going to pass judgement on any side on this one… Just hate weird he said she said types of situations when everyone can just read the actual disagreement and go from there.
Now I can go back to other places in the Lemmyverse.
Edit: Ada confirmed the conversation is accurate and full. https://sh.itjust.works/comment/1425547
You had handled this as perfectly and professionally as one could.
It is unfortunate that she could not accept your reasoning and still chose to defederate.
Why do those images stay the same small, almost unreadable (to my eyes) size no matter how far I zoom in?
As far as the back and forth, to be honest both sides are right after browsing that community.
I took a quick glance at the community in question, and while theres a lot of people who are clearly adults and being adorable… they shouldnt be prevented or banned for being adorable adults making porn… But there was also, just from my quick glance, several posts that leaned super heavily into looking underage and look barely a day over 14. . and I don’t care how much you say they are verified and over 18, The people coming here looking at those pics arent thinking that. All they are thinking is they found a pedo safe haven.
and that makes my skin crawl.
And posts like that should fall under the same forbidden purview as Loli content, for the exact same reasons.
Why do you care if an 18+ year old who looks youthful does NSFW stuff? Take an extreme example, what if Hasbulla did nudes? He is 21 but looks extremely young. I can’t see how telling him he isn’t allowed to make nude content because of his appearance is anything other than ableist and body shaming. You don’t have to like the content or even like the people who would look at it to think the content is acceptable.
If everyone is a consenting adult then everything is fine.
Its real life lolicon, and should be banned for the same reasons that that lolicon is banned. It doesn’t matter if shes actually 300 years old if she looks like a 12 year old. Its literally the same shit, people getting off to the fantasy/idea of a child, trying desperately to hide themselves behind the argument of “its just a drawing!” or “they’re really an adult!”.
Anyone would mistake those 2-3 images for child porn. Just looking at them made my skin crawl, and thats after the admins claimed they were verified, and your argument shows thats all you care about. You don’t care about community. You don’t care about protecting the website. You care about keeping your pseudo-maybe-wont-get-you-thrown-in-prison child porn.
if you want that shit, go back to reddit and join Spez.
I’m not subscribed to that community. It’s not my thing. I’m not into Loli either. Frankly, I do see a problem with Loli. I guess to me it is because the Loli “excuse” of “she’s actually 3000 years old but just looks like a child” but then they proceed to portray them exactly as someone would portray a child. They (generally, I’m sure someone has counter examples) don’t portray them as some wizened elderly woman in a child’s body. That’s why Loli generally feels disgusting to me.
Age verification is the correct thing to do. In the broader internet where things are less strict I’m sure you can find actual underage actors (who are possibly even being trafficked) where it could be avoided with proper age verification. Frankly I think that’s just a super important thing (even apart from this specific discussion). An assumption I’m making (and I guess everyone is) is that the admins’ age verification is adequate. So, assuming it is, I don’t see a problem with allowing creators who appear young to make NSFW content of themselves. If it’s not adequate then there’s a much more important discussion that needs to be had. Based on some of the sticky posts over the past few weeks it seems like they’re serious about it.
To your point, a lot of content makes my skin crawl. I just ignore it. If there’s any I think is actually illegal I’d report it. Maybe I haven’t seen the specific ones you’re talking about so maybe that’s why I don’t feel the same way. I briefly went to the community when I heard about this and just now to see what the fuss was and it just seemed like legal but youthful looking people. Or just folks in their mid twenties just trying to look cute or wholesome. I didn’t see anything that makes me feel the need to report anything as CSAM. That’s just me. I believe you should report content you think is CSAM, I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t.
I know I said it before but I really do view this whole thing similar to folks who may not understand forms of kink are consensual. It’s not a one-to-one thing, but it is similar. Seeing a consensual rape-play session may make people question what the fuck is happening and may make their skin crawl. But if everyone is consenting then it’s fine. I understand why people would have a hard time accepting that (especially if they themselves have been abused).
Lookism is gross, as long as people are grown adults it doesn’t matter what they look like nor should it ever matter
This reminds me of how they essentially banned sex work of women with small breasts in Australia because of a poorly written law
Some people can’t help but project their filthy minds onto other
Breasts of all sizes are perfectly healthy and normal
I haven’t looked for that comm and won’t, but it sounds intended to attract viewers with pedo tendencies. Whether that’s a safe outlet or a red flag, idk. I do know that Reddit and other sites go apeshit banning even erotic fiction with underage characters. I have heard they do that not from concern that the fiction could be illegal per se, but rather that they don’t want to create a pedo magnet that could then bring the pedos into contact with actual underage users.
OTOH, I know that AO3 chose not to have such a rule. IDK if that has led to any bad stuff in real life. I hope not, of course.
that comm has 2.1m members on reddit.
every poster already needs to prove that the person in the post is an adult and that the person posted these nsfw pics in full consent.
“I don’t know anything about this and I won’t educate myself directly, but I’ll give you my uninformed hot take nonetheless…”
They said that you were okay with the fact that users were specifically trying to make it seem like they were underage. Good to hear the other side of the story.
I explicitly denied that several times, as you can see.
The thing I don’t get is they seem to host plenty of nsfw material themselves that would fall under that category of “child-like”. I’m not going to argue the specifics on where the line should be drawn, but I feel like they should at least moderate their own communities properly before such action against content that’s no worse than theirs
I mean, the real issue is that it’s entirely subjective. Once they confirmed that the material in question was in fact legal, that should have been the end of it. I already think that regulating hentai is dumb, but taking issue with real women’s bodies like Australia did?
I mean seriously, what’s the point of drawing the line at 18, if you’re gonna ignore the line because women don’t magically shapeshift on their 18th birthday? The whole premise of legality is on age, not appearance.
you’d think a trans instance would understand that small bodies/tits don’t mean child porn
should they ban us trans girls with smaller goods because we’re just starting on HRT or aren’t at all???
???
I really don’t see how being a trans community qualifies one to judge adult content. I think their objection, incorrect as it was, was based on overall aesthetics and framing, not just cup size. Apparently pearl-clutching is universal.
I’ll take “discussions I won’t get into with a transwoman unless I know her incredibly well and probably not even then” for $1000, Alex.
Discourse like this sucks. Of course they are free to defederate but presenting this server as a place that allows abusive material is a gross misrepresentation.
I’m assuming the post in question was the one of imcherryblossom. Two seconds of Googling shows that they are a OnlyFans/Fansly model and proves they are above age, and she pretty clearly looks it too imo.
Equating that post with essentially abuse doesn’t sit right with me. Especially when this server has done a good job imo of banning even borderline content while mod tools improve.
like, damn, let petite people exist and be sexy ;-;
kudos to the admins/mods here as they’ve been absolutely fantastic when I have issues
I’ve seen both of these posts now, and it leads me to wonder what is the community? because this sounds like the same situation as the jailbait subreddit a long time ago, and if it’s literally a jailbait community then i’d have to agree with their decision to defederate. hosting jailbait porn is gross, equating that position to bodyshaming is insane.
I’m not sure that’s equivalent comparison. I’m not sure of the community either, but my understanding is that everyone involved is an adult.
R/jailbait was hosting sexualized content of literal children.
This is closer to blocking a community because you feel that the models under the “teen” category look too young, even though they are all technically adults.
Jailbait is by definition people that are under legal age, or at least pretending to be. If someone is of legal age they by definition cannot be jailbait. The appeal there is the violation of the statutory taboo, the allure of the forbidden fruit. That is not OK and we won’t tolerate that.
If a grownup has a round face and is wearing braces, which is the post that I suspect launched this whole kerfluffle, that’s just how they look. I’m not going to tell them that they can’t be sexy, or you that you can’t be into them being sexy, because of their face or their dental work. Now, you can see why someone might be concerned that someone that has braces might be underage, since many people that are underage have braces. But once we’ve confirmed that they aren’t underage, that should be the end of it.
So much drama about something so silly. If their concerns were valid about the subject models being under age, or trying to appear under age, then that’s one thing, but this is starting it boil down to a difference of opinion on what looks like CSAM…
They say yes, you say no, it’s a whole thing of everyone having an opinion.
That’s fine. Can’t control what others decide to do with their servers. They’re free to defed if they feel that’s the only way to handle it.
IMO, it sucks to see this splintering of the federation over something like this, but it is what it is.
I believe their argument is that the community is a gathering place for stuff that looks like CSAM as opposed to any of the content looking like CSAM or not. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing, but it’s important to represent people’s arguments correctly.
I appreciate this; I don’t disagree with you.
Some would counter with “if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck”; which is a reasonable argument in and of itself. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to suspect that if things are being said that is CSAM affirmative, then it’s possible or even likely, that the individuals in question are probably participating in the viewing, distribution, or even production, of such material.
One of the good things about the internet is that it becomes harder to have a group or community so isolated that it’s not able to be inspected at a moments notice by anyone with an internet connection; Especially if the content is of a questionable or illegal nature, and the perpetrators of that content’s production and distribution are not very intelligent (and bluntly, most don’t seem to be). It becomes harder to “hide in plain sight” as it used to be, especially when trying to further your questionable or illegal goals. At some point those individuals need to poke their head into the public spaces to try to recruit more people who are sympathetic to their goals, and by doing so, they can readily be found, investigated and hopefully charged and imprisoned for their activities.
If there is any CSAM on any lemmy instance, or people perpetrating CSAM via lemmy, I hope the individuals who are engaged in any related activity are caught, charged and imprisoned for their actions.
Yeah, like I’m 20 but based on my face some people think I’m 16, and other people don’t. Does that magically make my partner a pedo?
It can make pedos attracted to you even though they know you are 20. How. to react to that is of course up to you. But it is something to be aware of.
Apparently, according to some, yes.
It’s dumb. But, they have an opinion, so…
💀 honestly, it feels like sometimes they are so strict on it because they want to prove they aren’t
Honestly, while there was a lot of progress on calling out abuse and exploitation, everything around teenagers has gotten so charged that not vocally decrying anything that is even in the neighborhood is enough to get piled on. Pornhub now pretends the teen category doesn’t exist in their research analytics, most search engines block porn searches for teen, even though it’s always referred to legal 18/19 year olds (or late twenties depending on how petite they are).
Like, I don’t miss “creepy uncles” being a thing that everyone brushed off, but this hair trigger response is way too much.
Yeah their reasoning for defederating is kinda dumb, but luckily anyone can just make a separate account for lemmynsfw so nothing really is lost. I kinda don’t even see why someone would leave nsfw enabled on their main account, like do you wanna have sexy photos mixed in with your news, cat pictures, Hobby-communities?
There are a couple nsfw communities on lemmy.blahaj.zone. It’s a very lgbt, sex positive server. I will miss being able to see them from here though
