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.
It’s not just about the age of the performers, though. I also think most people here care more about actual harm than legality.
To me it looks like it’s about platforming the indulgence of the sexualization of minors. In a fictional sense, but still. Should they allow written rape fantasies of minors?
I’m gonna lean towards that this is rather normalizing and harm producing than helping people. I would love to read science on this, but this is not my field, so hard to research myself.
I just looked at the actual posts in the community, since I didn’t before. Most of them don’t even look that questionable tbh, although a couple do. But they’re all just naked people posing for the camera. It’s not like they’re dressed as school girls or anything. And every post has the age verification as required by the rule, and most of the images have company watermarks on them. They’re professional shots, not amateur candids. There’s nothing about the posts that implies that the models are underage other than the title of the community. As someone else said, they could be listed as “legal teens” instead and I doubt anyone would bat an eye.
Well this post is specifically about the legality, trying to frame it as illegal content. But, that aside, I just don’t see the “actual harm” being done. If visitors are fully aware that they’re looking at adults, and every post explicitly reaffirms the age of the specific model shown, then I don’t see the harm there.
No, because that’s illegal.
I just don’t agree with the slippery slope argument. It comes down to saying that “well if they’re looking at 19 and 18 year olds, then next thing is that they’ll be looking at 17 year olds and then 14 year olds!!”. Like I said, there’s a clear line, and getting close to it isn’t the same as crossing it.
Alright, I don’t care about the legal argument. That’s for other folx to deal with. I care about a nice more or less ethical porn site.
And btw. Multiverse also agreed with the law, and I can see why.
I get the point of slippery slope arguments. So here’s the potential harm I see, which I think you’d agree with is passing a point on the slope we don’t want to cross: normalizing indulging in the sexualisation of minors, or just straight up normalising the sexualisation of minors.
If the community calls itself fauxbait, the mental process is one of sexualisation of minors, even if it isn’t what’s depicted. Just like a written story is just ink on paper and no performer is hurt, it’s about the mental process.
They are not looking at these adults and thinking about fucking an adult. Just like the brain would do with a fictional story.
You’re just taking offense to the community being called fauxbait? So if the community is called tiny titties it’s all good?
If somebody posts a swastika, and uses it to critically talk about the nazi history, or the fertility symbol aspect of it, it’s not the same as if you’re posting it without comment in the context of a debate about racism, or in a PoC forum, etc.
Context matters and changes what it is we’re looking at.
Is it desirable to platform a community that basically says “jerking off to underage girls, but legal”? To put it another way…
I would like to imagine fedinsfw as something beyond the boundaries of ordinary porn sites. It can be so much better. And I say this regardless of this aspect we are talking about, though, just to keep in mind.
To put it plainly I was asking if the context matters more than the content, because I think it does. I agree the faux bait community shouldn’t exist but if you’re going argue that content shouldn’t be posted in the first place I’m going to disagree. Not because it’s my kind of content, at to be clear it very much is not, but because I think that’s the slippery slope. That would be saying small flatchested women porn is CP which means men who like those kinds of women are pedos and those women are essentially jailbait. I think that’s stupid.
I think if we to improve the state of NSFW content we also need to be very specific in our wording of the criticism because how criticism is worded can change the context and as we agree, context matters. And that’s what I want from this discussion, clarity on what people are criticizing. Because the other person is right that the content there is not the problem, but he’s wrong because the reason to defed wasn’t because of the content itself but rather how it was framed. And I think you also blurred that line with the fiction story example.
Looks like we effectively agree.
Agreed! I think Multiverse made quite the effort and did a decent job. Misunderstandings and mistakes still happen, which is why just talking like this to get to our goal can be useful :)
Thanks for the feedback. Reading it again now, I wouldn’t know how to express it differently. But I can see how this might not be clear to people not living in my head. Useful to know.
Unless all the guys arguing against you in this thread are teenagers, then they’re just trying to justify their own creepy behavior.
Maybe. But for anyone reading who might be changing their minds. I’m not trying to step on anyone’s toes and guilt trip them or put them down.
Because right now, we can look forward to how good fedinsfw can actually be. It just seems like the fediverse has a beautiful opportunity to re-imagine internet pornography. And it’s realising this opportunity that I am arguing for.
Yeah I like porn but im scared of feddinsfw becoming what reddit is for porn.
aye. same.