julesjones (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
julesjones) wrote2007-11-30 10:41 am
julesjones) wrote2007-11-30 10:41 am
LJ "adult content" censorship
So LJ have decided that they're going to implement "adult content" tagging:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/243697.html
Now, I'm all for offering a facility that allows people to voluntarily tag their own posts as adult content, so that they won't be displayed unless the viewer makes an active choice to look at them. But this goes a step further. It allows other people to tag your posts as adult content -- in other words, it's voluntary except when it's compulsory, and other people get to make the decision for you. As currently implemented, being tagged by someone else won't automatically get your posts put behind the censor wall, but enough people tagging a post will attract the attention of the abuse team.
I have two problems with that. One is that I object to compulsory labelling of this sort unless it's on a website that's clearly designated as a space where such is expected. LJ was not such a site when I signed up to it, and I imagine that many of the people who paid out for permanent membership are not happy with yet another shift in the direction of making us all responsible for conforming to other people's notions of proper behaviour. The other problem is that this is subject to gaming, and it's subject to the whim of the abuse team. I can see this very rapidly turning into auto-approval of any request that someone else's post be pushed behind the censorship wall.
ETA: further experimentation confirms that if you don't give a date of birth at all (as I hadn't up until 30 seconds after making the original post), you're assumed to be under 18. If you claim to have been born on the first of January 1901, you're an adult. Quite what all this is supposed to achieve other than something to point at the next time they're targeted by a one-woman campaign against sex, I don't know.
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/243697.html
Now, I'm all for offering a facility that allows people to voluntarily tag their own posts as adult content, so that they won't be displayed unless the viewer makes an active choice to look at them. But this goes a step further. It allows other people to tag your posts as adult content -- in other words, it's voluntary except when it's compulsory, and other people get to make the decision for you. As currently implemented, being tagged by someone else won't automatically get your posts put behind the censor wall, but enough people tagging a post will attract the attention of the abuse team.
I have two problems with that. One is that I object to compulsory labelling of this sort unless it's on a website that's clearly designated as a space where such is expected. LJ was not such a site when I signed up to it, and I imagine that many of the people who paid out for permanent membership are not happy with yet another shift in the direction of making us all responsible for conforming to other people's notions of proper behaviour. The other problem is that this is subject to gaming, and it's subject to the whim of the abuse team. I can see this very rapidly turning into auto-approval of any request that someone else's post be pushed behind the censorship wall.
ETA: further experimentation confirms that if you don't give a date of birth at all (as I hadn't up until 30 seconds after making the original post), you're assumed to be under 18. If you claim to have been born on the first of January 1901, you're an adult. Quite what all this is supposed to achieve other than something to point at the next time they're targeted by a one-woman campaign against sex, I don't know.
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The thing is, giving us the ability to self-flag I think is a good idea. I don't post that much that I'd consider warranted it, but some of my cover art posts are borderline, and if the cover art got any steamier I'd put them behind at least a cut-tag. I generally just put up a url or use a cut-tag for stuff I think it rude to inflict upon people without warning, but the flag system could be very useful for a lot of people and communities.
It's the way they've made it ever so much easier to report someone you don't like that's the problem. And I do mean "someone", not "a post", because that's what will end up happening. You can report dodgy posts right now, but it requires a certain amount of effort, which tends to filter out trivial complaints.
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Exactly. And while they blithely say it needs several flags before the lj team look at it, all that's needed to get around that is a nutter with several sock puppets.
While I think they deserve points for trying, as usual they haven't thought it through properly.
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Also I really really do get annoyed by the constant lumping of sexual content in with violence. The former is an enjoyable, perfectly natural human activity whilst the latter is definitely undesirable. But of course I don't need to tell the people here that!
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