Like others who live in a real community and have a reputation, I helped many kids from my real life community to join Steemit. My next door neighbor is 13 years old and I convinced her and her mom to join Steemit. By continuing to have hardcore porn on the main facing page of Steemit, this actually impacts my own standing in my community. This site does not say you have to be 18+ to open an account. If that were the case, then I would not care at all. But that is not the case, there are kids on tis site, kids that I helped to get on here. By refusing to follow the rules of putting the NSFW as the first tag, I don't understand how this site can really legally stand behind the fact that kids are on here. It's actually a legal issue: only sites that are 18+ can have hardcore porn on them. Obviously the developers need to find a solution to this or else there could be a legal mess in the near future. I have nothing against contributions to the site as long as the NSFW tag is used first so that children are not seeing this. I am not alone in this either, as Cryptoctopus raised identical concerns. Words are very different from hardcore graphic porn images. You really cannot unsee them.
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I encourage you to read up on the latest in legal developments in the US. What you say does not seem to have basis in law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_Internet_pornography#United_States
if the 13 years old owns a smartphone or has access to a pc with Internet, he/she will watch porn either way. doesnt matter where.
Removing things from so-called Trending breaks the voting and reward algorithm and was an ill-considered and inappropriate mechanism to address NSFW content that may be offensive or inappropriate for some users. Better would be a user-option to enable such a filter when appropriate and desired; this could even include locking such a filter under the control of another "parent" account. However, even this mechanism would fail to protect children when inappropriate, illegal, or offensive content is posted and mislabeled.
As a stakeholder, and an adult, I need to see in context the complete list of most voted and rewarded posts (aka Trending) to assess whether the reward pool is being allocated appropriately. Likewise, as a curator, and an adult, I need to see the entire unfiltered stream of New, Hot and Active posts to assess whether those posts are appropriate to upvote or downvote.
If your neighbor has signed up for the site then they do not see Trending as their front page; they see their Feed as the front page. I would highly doubt that it would be appropriate for a child to "follow" @alexanova (nor other adult-content-oriented accounts which might be likely to resteem her posts) and therefore she would never appear on their Feed. It would also likely be inappropriate for a child to view any of the global pages, which could contain any manner of inappropriate, illegal, or offensive content, including those which are unlabeled or mislabeled, before those are downvoted (assuming they eventually are).
Some sections of this site are appropriate for children (i.e. choosing appropriate bloggers to "follow"), but many are not and never will be.
I agree with you that "child-proofing" steemit is not a good basis for what does and does not appear on the global feeds.
My issue with material like this in the global feeds is an issue of the most comfort for the most users. To me, porn is like anchovies. Even if you really, really like anchovies, theyre pretty disgusting when paired with most other foods. They simply don't go with a lot of things.
Youve said (in another thread) that there are billions of people who like porn, and that its a huge industry. And you're correct. But ask yourself this. How many successful websites or other communication media do you know of that routinely offer porn side by side with non-sex-related topics, and are taken seriously for their non-sex-related content?
Take a look at a real, paper-and-ink playboy one of these days. Nude photographs take up maybe 10% of the pages, if that. In fact, its one of the best paying periodicals for (mostly non erotic) fiction and non fiction writing. Yet its a nudie magazine. Most people would be uncomfortable reading one of those well-written articles at work, or around their children, even if their children could not see the pictures. In fact, the guy who says "I read playboy for the articles" is a sitcom joke -- a ridiculous cliche.
How many men do you know who wouldn't be uncomfortable reading a playboy, with the magazine opened to a non-photograph section in a public place like a coffee-shop or hanging out with their girlfriend or around their neighbors. I wouldnt, and i give less of a crap what people think of me than most.
Would you take investment advice from a financial website that had a live stream of one of their brokers giving it to a girl boiler room style under the stock ticker. Would you hire a doctor if she had x-rated pictures of her encounter with "moe the monster" under her CV on her website. (and lest i come off as a misogynist, i also wouldn't hire a dude with pictures of his moe the monster encounter below his CV)
Take a look at a real, paper-and-ink playboy one of these days. Nude photographs take up maybe 10% of the pages, if that. In fact, its one of the best paying periodicals for (mostly non erotic) fiction and non fiction writing. Yet its a nudie magazine. Most people would be uncomfortable reading one of those well-written articles at work, or around their children, even if their children could not see the pictures. In fact, the guy who says "I read the playboy for the articles" is a sitcom joke -- a ridiculous chiche.
Now, i don't speak or vote for everyone, i just speak and vote for me. Me, personally, i watch porn. I have no problem with it. But i have a particular time, a particular place, and a particular headspace where i am comfortable with it. Just like the playboy reader has a time and a place where hes comfortable reading playboy.
Im not necessarily comfortable in starbucks looking at a trending page with articles about alexa tying up moe the monster, even if theyre greyed out and even if I don't click on them.
Now, am I a middle aged american white guy who lives in the suburbs? Sure. And maybe im just super sexually repressed and out-of-touch with mainstream sensibilities. But i feel like there are way more potential users coming from the same headspace I am. To me the refrain this site has a bunch of porn on it. if you don't want porn don't click on it is one thats apt to chase a lot of potential users away.
Just as a side note, up until now, Karl Hungus has always been my go to generic male porn name. But from now on, its going to be Moe The Monster. TIL a cool new porn name.
I'm entirely comfortable with viewing a Trending page in Starbucks that shows a SFW first image and a headline that clearly states "NFSW, uncensored". I just won't be clicking on that post at Starbucks. YMMV.
Look I'm not opposed to features that allow people to customize what they see, and create a family-friendly or work-friendly view if that's what they want. But global view that are intended to show everything that is on the platform (e.g., for curation purposes) should actually show everything that is on the platform (unless specifically customized otherwise).
That said, I also believe that the users you think will be alienated are already well-served by Facebook, etc. If we can also accommodate them by providing filtering and customization, fair enough, but focusing excessively on that market is probably a big mistake.
I am pretty sure that the fact it is not handing "nsfw" if it is the 2-5 tag is actually a glitch in the code. There is an open GitHub issue for the fact that tags are not working correctly, and the nsfw logic is a large part of it.
The community has requested that @alexanova use "nsfw" as one of her tags - which she is doing. IMO, your issue should be with the site, more than with @alexanova. She is following the rules that were given to her by the community.
That aside though, I think that the best solution is to allow each user to chose whether or not they want to view this type of content. It should be hidden by default, and users can enable a setting if they want to view it. That is basically what is being discussed / proposed in https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com/issues/827.
I am not sure it actually is a glitch. Or at least if it is a glitch, it one that seems to make sense on its own terms.
To me, a nsfw tag that is the primary tag (the one that determines the URL) indicates that the primary focus of the content is the NSFW aspect.
Something like sexy santa, or photography that incorporates some nudity, OTOH even though there is a NSFW aspect to it, the NSFW aspect is incidental to the post.
So basically the difference between art and porn. ANd before you ask, i determine the difference the same way potter stewart did.
the solution you mention in your last paragraph seems reasonable to me.
That said, the "issue" with people that elect to downvote this material is an issue with the site as well, and the entirely fictional representation of the downvote as a flag.
What you said about it being the intended behavior makes sense. It could be that way by design. I am hoping the change to allow each user to filter for whether or not they want to see that type of content goes through. It seems like a good compromise that would make both sides happy.
Why should anything legal be hidden by default? Furthermore, who decides what tags are hidden by default? Asking for a friend.
In my opinion Steemit should be a censorship free community where users can post whatever they want. I am not even 100% against 'illegal' content being posted, although I am on the fence about certain types. Who am I to decide though.
Being able to freely post and view content censorship free does not necessarily mean that everyone has to view it though. Being able to chose for yourself whether or not to view something (without having a say in what others can/should do) still falls within the bounds of a censorship free community (IMO).
If we put NSFW content out there without the ability for users who don't want to see it to block it, we are going to alienate a large portion of our potential user base. I would agree that the people that are saying "NSFW content shouldn't be allowed here" are probably better elsewhere, but people who are just upset at not being able to hide it from their kids or co-workers are not necessarily people we want to push away.
There are a lot of ways to make the system more robust and elaborate (like degrees of NSFW content) but I don't think that is really necessary. Just having one "nsfw" tag that allows users to have some control over what does/doesn't get shown by default, seems like a viable solution. There are some gray areas, and a big rabbit-hole to go down as far as "what is really NSFW" - but I do think that a lot of it is fairly black and white. Given the right tools - I think the community can handle it.
[citation needed]I'm not sure if I understand your comment. Are you trying to say that what I said as far as potentially alienating a large portion of our potential user base is just my opinion and may not be factual?