Give me your useful/artistic explicit blogs!

[weirdbr]

Earlier this week, Google decided to band 'porn' from Blogger. This led to a rather vocal fight about whether porn is bad or not and, as of yesterday, a decision from them to revert that policy. However, one key lesson from this decision is that a lot of what can be considered as 'educational, documentary, scientific or artistic' (EDSA) content would had been banned as being 'porn' simply by nature of being 'explicit'. [1]

From talking to a lot of people, while intuitively we could agree that this policy would affect said type of content, we couldn't come up with good examples of that type of content to exemplify why this policy is so broken. So, I ask for everyone's help - what sort of blogs (hosted on blogger, tumblr, wordpress or others) could be lost if policies like these were to be enforced?

[1] - One possibility that we could come up with and agree with were blogs about transgender issues - those blogs can include 'explicit' images of before and after gender reassignment surgery that can be considered as 'porn' depending on who looks at it. Others that were suggested included sexual education blogs that used 'explicit' (depending on who you ask) pictures, but we lacked real world examples that we can point people at to try to tweak their policies and/or algorithms.

 

[Red7227]

From talking to a lot of people, while intuitively we could agree that this policy would affect said type of content, we couldn't come up with good examples of that type of content to exemplify why this policy is so broken. So, I ask for everyone's help - what sort of blogs (hosted on blogger, tumblr, wordpress or others) could be lost if policies like these were to be enforced?

This is only content on unregulated blogs like Tumblr? It would not be much of a loss. The bloggers might have to come up with something interesting rather than endlessly re-posting thew same boobs or pictures they have stolen from each other.

 

[Sevrin]

Earlier this week, Google decided to band 'porn' from Blogger.

That's like so yesterday.

Google is serious when it says that “from time to time, we may change our content policies.”

Just days after taking a tougher stance against sexually explicit material on its blogging platform, Google now says it won’t ban bloggers over sexually explicit material in most cases. Google never gave a clear reason why it suddenly decided to remove explicit material from Blogger. Other tech companies like Yahoo 's Tumblr have tried to set stricter boundaries, too. Google said its reversal came in response to feedback from bloggers who were concerned about their freedom of expression.

 

[weirdbr]

The bloggers might have to come up with something interesting rather than endlessly re-posting thew same boobs or pictures they have stolen from each other.

This is the type of content that we agreed we could lose without causing harm because that's pretty much intended for arousal only.. Personally I would still prefer that type of content would be allowed everywhere, but the sad reality is that a non-negligible part of society in the US and western countries hates that type of content, so we need to fight to protect 'useful' content.

 

[weirdbr]

That's like so yesterday.

The fact that this policy change was temporarily put on hold doesn't mean the fight is over; the type of data I am asking for is intended to steer the discussion away from 'porn is bad and should go away' to a more reasonable 'censoring all explicit content regardless of context is bad because it can and will affect real people'.

 

[Sevrin]

That's like so yesterday.

The fact that this policy change was temporarily put on hold doesn't mean the fight is over; the type of data I am asking for is intended to steer the discussion away from 'porn is bad and should go away' to a more reasonable 'censoring all explicit content regardless of context is bad because it can and will affect real people'.

I think you're preaching to the choir.

 

[weirdbr]

I think you're preaching to the choir.

Yes, I know I am preaching to the choir and thats why I am asking for this data here.

I tried to get my coworkers to try to come up with examples, but thanks to our sexual harassment and code of conduct policies that can be seriously misinterpreted , they (understandably) weren't willing to potentially admit to visiting sites that could be interpreted as porn. So that's why I am asking here for opinions/links that I can use/forward to people in a position to shape this debate and hopefully avoid sending useful information down the drain thanks to a non-justified vendetta against porn.

 

[Red7227]

Carol Seleme's (I forget her real name) Blog http://moorslorac.tumblr.com/ Her old blog was much more sedate and mostly about her own art and friends - she has since discovered LSD

Lots of good stuff and dicks http://ghost-al-qaeda.tumblr.com/

A beautiful model's blog https://roswellivory.wordpress.com/

Mostly pretty things with the occasional poon http://paradiselxst.tumblr.com/

Mostly pretty things, with the occasional ass fucking http://extravagantfrivolity.tumblr.com/

There are a couple more, but they are basically just lesbian porn full of boobs, butts, pussy licking and Kristin Stewart.

 

[zippypinhead]

America sure does love its horizontal censorship. Land of the Free, unless there's a chance you might offend an old lady in the Bible Belt or an oversensitive suburban liberal.

Well, here's a response by Fantagraphics, crossposted to their Tumblr page, regarding a little row that's been sparked in New Mexico, featuring accusations of "child pornography" in Gil Hernandez's graphic novel, Palomar.

http://fantagraphics.tumblr.com/post/112257331102/bang-zoom-ka-blow-comics-arent-for-kids

There are a lot of things that are inherently wrong about wholesale censorship of "explicit material". First of all, there's the fact that "explicit" is ironically a vague term. So, in order to conform to all possibilities of what "explicit" may possibly mean, the solution tends to be censoring everything, regardless of context. Nudity tends to be the first to go. There are already several major social networking sites that have wholesale bans on skin, both explicit and implicit, despite the context. I just read a case where a woman was suing Youtube because her video was flagged and taken down based only upon the tags she'd associated with it. The content was in no way "explicit", but the association with the idea of "explicit" material was apparently enough. Another case I had just written about in a paper involves the ongoing case of a French art teacher who is suing Facebook over the censorship of Gustave Courbet's painting, The Origin of the World. This sort of censorship has led to some interesting protest movements. There's the #freethenipple movement, which is levied against Instagram and Facebook, and has gained some popular attention and support due to celebrity involvement. It rightfully posits that nudity on its own is not sexually-explicit content, and the double standard of banning topless photos of women should be addressed.

Horizontal censorship, and this constant, fucked up relationship that we have with nudity, profanity, sex, and protecting delicate sensibilities (especially when children are involved) is really incredibly concerning for me. Actually, to put it more succinctly, it's fucked. It's based upon what I call the politics of outrage, and it's the sort of activity that leads to the Charlie Hebdo incident, when the outcry fails to achieve the ends of censorship, deadlier actions are taken in order to get the point across. And from there, censorship does actually happen. Where Charlie Hebdo still holds up the flag of outrageousness, outrage itself managed to keep others who reported on the incident from printing the cartoons that had triggered the attack in the first place, out of fear of repercussions. Like I said, FUCKED.

It doesn't surprise me that Google would try to make such a move. They've been actively scrubbing up the content that passes through their very wide net of influence for a long time. For them, it's a business maneuver. Outrage equals loss of revenue to them, so controversy should be avoided. It's actually a pretty damned boring reason to make such moves, but it is par for the course. The issue is that this black-and-white solution to something that can only really be unraveled on a case-by-case basis just leads to assholes calling local news agencies and crying "kiddy porn!" when they see a contextually innocent drawing of a shirtless little girl in a graphic novel. More dangerously, it also leads to news agencies simply reporting on the story as if it actually is a case of pornography, without giving it proper context, because "kiddy porn?! in OUR school libraries?!" is salacious and feeds the outrage machine.

 

[eclipse76]

From talking to a lot of people, while intuitively we could agree that this policy would affect said type of content, we couldn't come up with good examples of that type of content to exemplify why this policy is so broken. So, I ask for everyone's help - what sort of blogs (hosted on blogger, tumblr, wordpress or others) could be lost if policies like these were to be enforced?

This is only content on unregulated blogs like Tumblr? It would not be much of a loss. The bloggers might have to come up with something interesting rather than endlessly re-posting thew same boobs or pictures they have stolen from each other.

Plenty of fine art photographers and models alike post on Tumblr because it's the only place (w/ Blogger) that allows unrestricted NSFW content and networking with their communities.

edit: And yeah Roswell Ivory is great

 

[KatVonnegut]

I post artistic nude photos and short porn videos I find sexy on my blog.
Kat-landia.tumblr.com

 

[LoonaVision]

I am now looking for new blog since blogspot is not an option anymore.
What would u suggest tumblr or Wordpress or is there something else?

 

[Red7227]

I am now looking for new blog since blogspot is not an option anymore.
What would u suggest tumblr or Wordpress or is there something else?

Tumblr and Wordpress are both fine. Wordpress will be where people find you by searching your name, whereas with Tumblr it will more from people sharing your content.

 

[Sevrin]

I am now looking for new blog since blogspot is not an option anymore.
What would u suggest tumblr or Wordpress or is there something else?

You can stay on blogspot if you like it and it works for you. Google has reversed the ban on adult material.

 

[NataliaGrey]

Not sure if these fit what you're looking for, but here's some things that came to mind.

http://www.barereality.net/blog/ (breast acceptance campaign)
http://www.erikamoen.com/blog/ (sex positive artist)
http://wwww.lacigreen.tumblr.com/ (feminist youtube star)
http://halt-the-body-hate.tumblr.com/ (body positivity)