Potential Rule 8 Question: Regarding the Recent Anti-NSFW Content Bans...

[Scopas]

Hello; I wanted to ask if it was alright to set up a thread that discusses the ongoing trend of online hosts and providers banning NSFW content outright or making it difficult for NSFW creators to operate. I understand that this is an issue with political dimensions, but considering the nature of the board, it seems like discussion about Gumroad, Patron, and most especially Google's recent rule or enforcement changes would benefit the user base.


Please let me know if this is a valid topic for discussion here.

 

[MissileTeatime]

That's a good point, actually. We already have some threads dancing around it....

The most important thing to remember about Rule 8 in my experience, is that underlying the wording is the principle "the mods are here to run a porn forum, not moderate or referee [esp. politics] fights". It seems to be possible to talk about anything, so long as you do not violate that principle even by accident. (We have a cooking thread, for goodness sake!) I could see a lot of really interesting discussion coming out of such a thread... but it also would be fairly easy to fail to thread the needle, and any such failure would tend towards the catastrophic.

 

[alethiophile]

This is a topic that bears sufficiently on the board's purpose that it's probably worth the potential of political derails. Making a thread for that is fine.

Of course, you should avoid actually getting into the political aspects of it.

 

[AztecCroc]

Hello; I wanted to ask if it was alright to set up a thread that discusses the ongoing trend of online hosts and providers banning NSFW content outright or making it difficult for NSFW creators to operate. I understand that this is an issue with political dimensions, but considering the nature of the board, it seems like discussion about Gumroad, Patron, and most especially Google's recent rule or enforcement changes would benefit the user base.


Please let me know if this is a valid topic for discussion here.

Click to shrink...

Wait? What did Google do?

 

[Scopas]

Wait? What did Google do?

Click to shrink...

So, yesterday, there was a big hue and cry because a professional adult writer was letting it be known via Discord that Google had locked their access to their Drive and Docs and had cited Google's rules on acceptable content as the most probable reason. This exchange was screenshotted and shared via Instagram, and then onto sites like the Geekiary and SpaceBattles' War on Porn thread, which was where I first heard about it.


People begin freaking out and backing up everything.


However, a few hours later, whispers started going around that indicated that the writer who had started the panic had, in fact, been harboring CP in their Google Drive, and that one of their betas had discovered this and reported them, prompting the lock.


I don't know how much truth there is to any of that. No clue if that allegation has even a grain of truth or not, or if Google is indeed locking down people who use their services for NSFW purposes and coincidentally happened to find a person with illegal content in the same sweep.

 

[sinereal]

However, a few hours later, whispers started going around that indicated that the writer who had started the panic had, in fact, been harboring CP in their Google Drive, and that one of their betas had discovered this and reported them, prompting the lock.

Click to shrink...

I've heard that it wasn't actual CP, but written loli/shota, that the beta themselves reported.
Considering that to our knowledge, this person hasn't had the feds kicking in their door, it stands to reason that this assumption may be justified, for now.
Essentially, if there were actual CP, there are systems in place for that.
Google (and others) have programs that scan for hashes of known CP images/videos. Yes, the same CP images and videos the FBI keep in a secret 'evidence' server farm to compare against, expressly for that purpose.​
So, if it was something already in the database,
Step 1: it would've auto-flagged when it scanned the contents and found the relevant hash
Step 2: reported it to the feds, who would have then manually reviewed it
Step 3: Google would have silently not let the file go through and then done nothing, or locked the account from the outside but allowed the owner to log in/seem to do things to avoid tipping off the suspect, which is IT SOP for these sorts of things.
Step 4: fedbois would've been knocking down her door in a few days to weeks if it were real.
If it was something new, some newly made CP, start at step 2.
But the fact that google moved on it and shut down the account almost immediately kind of tells us there's probably not actual CP on it.

Personally, I'm more concerned with Mastercard's most recent declaration of war against NSFW.
Seeing as they've joined the likes of paypal, stripe, and patreon, how long until Visa decides to follow suit?

 

[94000130 FFF70000]

I've heard that it wasn't actual CP, but written loli/shota, that the beta themselves reported.
Considering that to our knowledge, this person hasn't had the feds kicking in their door, it stands to reason that this assumption may be justified, for now.
Essentially, if there were actual CP, there are systems in place for that.
Google (and others) have programs that scan for hashes of known CP images/videos. Yes, the same CP images and videos the FBI keep in a secret 'evidence' server farm to compare against, expressly for that purpose.​
So, if it was something already in the database,
Step 1: it would've auto-flagged when it scanned the contents and found the relevant hash
Step 2: reported it to the feds, who would have then manually reviewed it
Step 3: Google would have silently not let the file go through and then done nothing, or locked the account from the outside but allowed the owner to log in/seem to do things to avoid tipping off the suspect, which is IT SOP for these sorts of things.
Step 4: fedbois would've been knocking down her door in a few days to weeks if it were real.
If it was something new, some newly made CP, start at step 2.
But the fact that google moved on it and shut down the account almost immediately kind of tells us there's probably not actual CP on it.

Personally, I'm more concerned with Mastercard's most recent declaration of war against NSFW.
Seeing as they've joined the likes of paypal, stripe, and patreon, how long until Visa decides to follow suit?

Click to shrink...

Visa joined Mastercard in their attacks long ago, mate. The pornhub nuke? That was Visa and Mastercard.

In other disturbing updates (that I got from SB):

1. to my understanding, DLSite ALSO got told by Visa and Mastercard "remove all 'objectionable content' or we wont let anyone pay you" and provided a list of 'objectionable content' (of course consisting of enormous amounts of their catalogue). DLSite said 'okay' and then basically instructed users to rename things to other things as "acceptable substitutes" (without actually changing the content). Visa and Mastercard said this was unacceptable and they wanted ALL fictional content that didn't meet their stringent standards removed. End result, DLSite can no longer accept payments from Visa and Mastercard.

The only ray of hope is that American Express hasn't joined their war yet.

2. Arizona legislature passed their own age-verification law in the state. It hasn't gone over the governor's desk yet but it probably will. E621 is hosted in Arizona and is being threatened. Given that they already had to lock out North Carolina users, this bodes very badly for the fate of the site itself.
Crossposting from SB's War on Porn (or the PGification of the Internet) thread:

So...Arizona's legislature passed a bill that would basically force websites to either verify people's ages through IDs or purge itself of all explicit content in order to avoid that.

http://[URL]https://twitter.com/FSCArmy/status/1774921466930159892

[/URL]
And since E621 operates in Arizona, they'd have to comply with it should it become law.

Regardless of how one may feel about E621 in particular, this is a dangerous precedent to set as it could easily lead to other forms of censorship. So, for anyone living in Arizona, I suggest you start calling your governor.

Click to shrink...

Contents of the image is the news banner on E621:
April 2nd: The politicians in Arizona are about to sign into law a bill that would mandate sites like e621 to either impose age verification on all users or be at a risk of lawsuits. Such system would be required to go through third party vendors, who in turn must go through a government database to verify every user's age. This is not only a major violation of privacy, but it also opens up a very real danger of identity theft through phishing schemes and other methods, not to mention that we would not be able to control any of that information to make sure it is permanently deleted after age verification is complete.

Unfortunately, Arizona is the state out of which e621 operates, which means that this law will almost certainly affect us if it is to pass. If want to help us ensure that this site can continue to serve you without being required to know who you are, please ask the Arizona governor to veto this bill.

Please, help us get the word out by letting others know about this issue.

For some further information on what the bill does have a look at https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/bill/arizona-hb-2586/

EDIT: The governor vetoed it, whew.

---

As a side note, also crossposting from SB:

Kind of interesting to see whats happening in conservative states in the US with the porn sites. I live in Canada and all the political parties here want laws in place to make accessing porn stricter in terms of verification. Most of the arguments are couched in protecting the children but thats a pretty thin justification. Its most likely a given that its eventually going to pass in law since our senate has already introduced it as a bill.

The main thing is going to be how these sites are going to verify a person. Use a gov ID? create new digital ID? whatever the case, its going to be invasive as hell.

Click to shrink...

So basically the entirety of Canada is planning to pull this bullshit too.

I couldn't find any threads about this besides the existing various sites getting purged threads and I don't have the kind of time to wrangle a thread as the OP.

As an additional question, what will QQ itself need to do to protect itself from liability? Or is QQ hosted outside the USA?

 

[Akuma-Heika]

Or is QQ hosted outside the USA?

Click to shrink...

Would that be enough to protect them (at least from being banned in the US)?

 

[JohnWolfie34]

Okaaaayyyy. I am now concerned for mah smut platform. Mods/ChAdmins? Please answer us, we degenerates fear the loss of our happy fun time writings!

 

[Megaolix]

Okaaaayyyy. I am now concerned for mah smut platform. Mods/ChAdmins? Please answer us, we degenerates fear the loss of our happy fun time writings!

Click to shrink...

Right now, there is nothing happening. Trust us to handle that if something DOES happen.