cross-posted from: https://multiverse.soulism.net/c/soulism/p/51754/multiverse-has-defederated-fedinsfw-app-for-hosting-child-pornography

Hello MULTIVERSE users and off-site visitors alike. We have recently defederated fedinsfw.app due to ongoing child pornography concerns which the fedinsfw admin team are aware of, and do not intend to address. Before I explain the key issue, I’d like to define a few terms:

  • In Australia, Child Pornography Material is legally defined by the Criminal Code Act 1995, section 473.1 as:

(a) material that depicts a person, or a representation of a person, who is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age and who […] is engaged in, or appears to be engaged in, a sexual pose […]; and does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive;

[…]

© material that describes a person who is, or is implied to be, under 18 years of age and who […] is engaged in, or is implied to be engaged in, a sexual pose […]; and does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive; or […]

  • Jailbait is a slang term for pornography depicting subjects who appear to be of age (adults), but are in fact underage (children; adolescents)

  • Fauxbait is faux jailbait - pornography depicting adults who appear to be children who appear to be adults.

According to the legal definition of child pornography material here in Australia, fauxbait is child pornography material, because of the implication that the actors depicted represent underage persons. And frankly, we here at MULTIVERSE agree with the law here. Fauxbait is disgusting. Legally and in our opinion, pornography depicting adult women who appear as adults is completely fine. But if someone posts a picture of an adult woman and calls it “fauxbait”, we are disgusted and the law is interested. Reality is not objective - the same legal picture of an adult person becomes illegal child pornography when it’s posted with a particular framing.

fedinsfw.app hosts a community, !fauxbait@fedinsfw.app, which is for Fauxbait. I have contacted the admin of the site, @lemmyposter212@fedinsfw.app, both privately and in public, pointing out that the community breaks the site’s rules 1 and 8. The admin disagrees. Although they dislike the community, they don’t believe it breaks the rules, and do not wish to violate their impartiality by banning the community.

We here at MULTIVERSE have no such impartiality. The admin inaction on child pornography violates our Rule 3 on Restricted Violence, in that it’s fucking nasty. It’s degrading to the women being posted to call them fauxbait, it’s dangerous towards the users to expose them to risks of committing sex crimes, and it has the potential to desensitise people to child porn, making them more likely to re-offend in worse ways. We are joining the growing movement of instances defederating fedinsfw.app, and we ask if your instance has not, that you speak to your admins and ask them to do the same.

  • Robbo@feddit.ukEnglish
    42·
    2 days ago

    There’s an interesting discussion to be had around stuff like the fauxbait community. But if you approach it in such bad faith as screaming “CP!! CP!!!” it just comes across as ragebaiting to try to invoke the same sort of “but think of the children!” misdirection that we’ve seen so much of in governments recently.

    Look, that sort of content isn’t to my taste but I will defend its right to exist. It’s legal. The people posted there are adults. There has always been a thriving category of “barely legal” content - look at reddit’s “legalteens” or pornhub’s constant barrage of “18 year old does this” and “barely legal loses V” etc. Same product, different name. It sounds like the only objection is the relabelling of 18 year olds as “fauxbait” instead of “legal teen”, which I agree is distasteful but that doesn’t make it CP. You can look elsewhere if it’s not to your taste but you can’t deny that it’s legal content.

    I agree with the others about needing a clear distinction between what is legal and what isn’t, and we can debate all day about whether 18 is the correct line to draw, but for now you can’t call posting 18 year olds and 21 year olds “child porn” just because they have small bodies or are close-ish to the legal boundary. That is approaching the discussion in bad faith.