"explicit content"

[topaz]

So one of the new LJ features is the "explicit content" flag: users can flag their own journals and posts as containing "explicit content."  Content that's flagged as "explicit" can't be viewed by users under 18.  Users can also flag other people's posts and journals as "explicit", but that doesn't automatically lock the content; if several different people flag the same post or journal, LJ's "Abuse Prevention Team" (or whatever) gets notified so that a human can review the flag and see if it makes sense.

And now the whole LJ userbase is up in arms.  I have seen people recommend flagging LJ's news posts as "offensive content" and flag their own posts about shopping and parenting as "adult concepts".

I don't really get what all the bitching is about.

There seem to be two complaints about this, more or less.  One, it censors potentially valuable explicit material from youngsters; two, it opens the possibility of abuse by having people repeatedly flag unremarkable material as "explicit" or "offensive".

The censorship argument is nonsense.  Sorry.  lottelita is right when she points out that this will not actually block minors from viewing forbidden content, but encourage them to read it while logged out or to lie about their age in their profiles.  In other words, it is an ineffectual attempt at censorship.

People!  Isn't ineffectual censorship the best kind of censorship there is?  I don't want my reading to be censored effectively!  I want it to fail completely!  I am really entirely okay with their implementing an easy-to-circumvent mechanism for content filtering.  If age filtering is gonna happen at all -- and you better believe that it will -- this really seems as mild a result as we could want.

Being able to flag someone else's content as "offensive" or "explicit" is a different matter and it's a question worth taking seriously.  Nevertheless I think their solution is a reasonable one, on its face.  Here's why:

Journals flagged by third parties as being explicit or offensive are not automatically filtered from the LJ community.  The flags have to be reviewed by LJ staff.  The combination of "multiple independent reports" and "human oversight" essentially amount to using the entire LJ community as a first-pass, coarse-grained filter for sexually explicit material.  Having human staff or 6A volunteers (and, for the sake of argument, let us assume that these are reasonably intelligent adults) review user-flagged journals for content applies a degree of sanity to the process and prevents a small group of determined vandals from being able to hold LJ hostage.

This is not a feature I would have requested.  But assuming that it had to be done?  Believe me, this solution beats a lot of the alternatives all to hell.  Frankly, I think Six Apart deserves some credit for
applying some thought to the problem and coming up with a good compromise between investor pressure, freedom of expression and limited resources.

Comments

[ckd]

Hey! No sane, rational, logical discussion! This is USENETLiveJournal!

[jss]

> for the sake of argument, let us assume that these are reasonably intelligent adults

History this past calendar year alone shows this assumption to be unfounded, incorrect, incomplete, and otherwise just plain wrong.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

That's one of the biggest issues with this. There's just very little evidence to support the idea that LJabuse will deal with flags resonably, and lots of evidence to support the idea that they'll be looking to hide content for very, very slight reason.

The major reason this bugs me is because it makes it much less likely for anyone not on LJ to read anything on LJ. If, say, my journal gets flagged as an adult content journal - which it well might - that would mean that anyone not on LJ who came upon it would see nothing but a page of lj-cuts, and not informative lj-cuts, but ones that say only "This may be explicit material." If you came upon a web page and the only thing it showed you was a list of links with absolutely no information about what was behind them - would you bother clicking around? And even if you did, the next thing you would find would be an "I certify I'm over 18" button. By that point people have given up and gone away.

So if you don't want someone's writings read, get them flagged. LJ will say it's not censorship because they're not deleting anything, but probably you've cut the readership of it in, say, half. I suspect this will start getting abused for political reasons, in, oh, negative one hour.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

True, I've heard complaints about the LJ abuse team. But then the objection is not that this is an ineffectual or inappropriate mechanism for classifying content, but that the particular people who are tasked with handling abuse are not doing so effectively. I think it's a separate problem and, frankly, potentially a more serious one.

If you came upon a web page and the only thing it showed you was a list of links with absolutely no information about what was behind them - would you bother clicking around? And even if you did, the next thing you would find would be an "I certify I'm over 18" button.

Believe me, there is no better way to get me to click through into a web site than by putting it behind a link that says "This may contain explicit material" and a button that says "I swear I'm really over 18".

I also don't expect this to become subject to widespread and blatant abuse for the reasons cited above. If I don't want someone's writings read, I can try to flag them, but I expect that even the LJ abuse team would recognize a baldly fraudulent attempt to get someone's political writings flagged as "offensive content."

[nacht_musik]

Yes. One must bear in mind that the majority of LJ users are, in fact, highly reactionary teenagers who are prone to getting up-in-arms about anything that rocks their boat.

[lcohen]

the person they just hired who is responding to the discussions about this is actually a friend of mine and a very intelligent adult. i don't know that they will wind up reviewing the user-flagged journals, but if so then it's in good hands.

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

Actually I just want to have my posts come up with a little 'XXX' by them or something. I was really disappointed when I found out it didn't do anything graphically. :P How will anyone know my posts have adult content in them without little graphics? How will I falsely lure people in with promises of explicit content that I don't deliver on (mostly)?

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

That's what your user icon is for - make yourself a little XXX icon.

[vokzal.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better, your cut tag promises adult content. I have no idea what you're doing, but it's really odd to have all the cut tags suddenly be "adult content".

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

That's really weird. I'm not seeing it. I logged out and checked the bad_sex community, and confirmed that I'm seeing the "adult content" flags, but I still didn't see it on my journal or on that post.

[opadit.livejournal.com]

I think some knucklehead is flagging every single post to the philadelphia community. All the recent posts are noted as having explicit content, but the posts themselves are completely inocuous.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Ineffectual censorship is something i can support if it's done cynically as a sop thrown to the ravening hordes. It is not something i support when it's done purely out of fear, without understanding what the consequences will actually be. If i thought Six Apart was actually being wise about this rather than just being the typical chickenshit corporation they've proven to be this year, i might agree with you.