cross-posted from: …soulism.net/…/multiverse-has-defederated-fedinsf…
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.
AcesFullOfKings@feddit.uk 2 days ago
eh, I checked the linked community. They have a rule that posters must link to the model’s verification that they’re overage on every post:
Seems fine to me. This sounds like a whole lot of virtue signalling and pearl-clutching.
There’s a very clear line in the sand to me: don’t post anyone underage. Posting overage girls is fine to me no matter what they look like. Should the “small boobs” community also be banned because people might mistake a 25 year old with As for a 15 year old? Come on.
What a whole lot of nothing.
adhd_traco@piefed.social 2 days ago
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.
AcesFullOfKings@feddit.uk 2 days ago
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” and I doubt anyone would bat an eye.
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.