
Sex censorship killed the internet we love - coding123
https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/31/sex-censorship-killed-internet-fosta-sesta/
======
apo
What happened was we failed to consider the consequences of centralization:

\- Google with its search

\- Tumblr (or Medium) with its blogging platform

\- Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram with their connection to friends, family,
and news

\- Starbucks with its roaming internet access

\- Youtube with its ubiquitous video distribution

\- PayPal with its payment network

\- Apple with its walled garden App Store

It's no accident that these are all American companies. When American
companies control the internet's major centralization points, American
cultural norms will rule. Like most cultural norms, they are inconsistent and
downright ridiculous if examined closely enough. But that's beside the point.

AI and Mechanical Turk workflows enabled these companies to scrub content that
violated norms at massive scale.

The article hints at, but fails to go for the jugular on a far more important
point. Porn and sexuality are classifications. To an AI or Mechanical Turk,
classifications are pretty much interchangeable.

Entire areas of human knowledge have become easy to censor by decree. Vast
swaths of scientific research, political discourse, and news coverage can now
be branded as "fake," "offensive," "privileged," or "deplorable," and censored
at the drop of a hat.

Sexual censorship is just the tip of a monstrous iceberg.

~~~
darkpuma
It's not just American sensibilities that are in play. When you allow people
to upload pornographic material you have to deal with the risk that they'll
upload illegal material (shit that's illegal in Europe too, it should be
pointed out. And we could dive into a tangent to discuss the topic of ISP-
level content blocking in America and the UK if you wish..)

If you're unable to effectively filter that stuff out the next pragmatic
option is often to ban all pornographic content categorically. That's what
happened to tumblr. For years they were an American company that allowed
pornography, but they were unable to deal with the burden imposed by their
users uploading illegal pornography.

If I had to guess, reddit is probably next. Does reddit check the ID of every
user who decides to upload a nude of themselves? I doubt it. It's probably
only a matter of time before reddit finds themselves in hot water too and
decides to axe all their NSFW subreddits.

~~~
tripzilch
> It's not just American sensibilities that are in play. When you allow people
> to upload pornographic material you have to deal with the risk that they'll
> upload illegal material (shit that's illegal in Europe too (...))

Umm, disagree. If you allow people to upload beautiful, tasty delicious
regular porn, they're not going to automatically upload ugly scary bad
disgusting child porn, too. It's not like porn is a "gateway drug" (another
American term, btw) to child porn.

Similarly, if you allow violent action movies with strong language like Die
Hard, you're not automatically going to get snuff clips of beheadings like
ISIS.

The point that you're trying to make is about moderation of uploaded material
in general.

It's still American sensibilities if you're somehow going to treat "not nude"
and "showing a female nipple" differently.

~~~
ropelike_object
Consider the premise of pornography's capacity to motivate violence.

This is an often neglected concept. But we see it readily emerging as a
cognitive awareness of real denial and promoter of outsider self image, and
depersonalization.

So, individuals suddenly notice that they have no access to real sexual
gratification, they are only permitted participation as distant observer. They
live isolated from the inside of the fishbowl where everyone else has sex, and
on the outside of the aquarium glass, desolation.

In frustration, they lash out, violently. Those invited to the party are
treated fairly and receive sexual favors as rewards for status, and they are
not. Due to ugliness, poverty, or some other outsider status.

This is made plain to those who only consume internet pornography, but shall
never realize absurd and unattainable sexual fantasies that internet
pornography might provoke.

See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel)

~~~
jumpman500
I reject that this is porns fault. The man was young and disturbed. There’s a
lot of things about present day society that drive people’s insecurities. Porn
can be one. Porn addiction can definitely be a problem. It sounded more like
this guy needed a real friend or therapist to talk to.

This guy could have spent 5000 dollars on having sex with a very attractive
escort, rather then guns and shooting up a place. Maybe society shouldn’t make
paying for sex a humiliating and degrading thing. Sex workers can be good
people and people that pay for sex don’t have to be weak or sad people. The
man was convinced sex and women would be forever alien to him and that didn’t
have to be the case.

------
dathinab
Sometimes I wonder how (un-)realistic it is to fill a complain with the EU of
google misusing it's quasi monopoly on search to actively discriminate
against:

\- People with open opinions about sex (e.g. down ranking there blog posts
etc.).

\- People which had been victims of sexual violence (and similar) by making it
harder for them to inform them self/get help.

\- Sex workers.

\- etc.

(note that this is a unordered list!)

Same goes for other platforms e.g. PayPal.

Sure there might be a difference if you use a platform to display pornographic
content to people without appropriate age checks. But non of this applies for
Google (search) or PayPal (payment).

Lastly people might argue that they are just following US law (e.g. for
PayPal) but if they operate in the EU then they will have to follow EU law and
discrimination against people for _any_ reason is illegal, this includes
excluding a blog from search results because it openly speaks about porn or
people _legal_ earning money with videos of their naked body.

Well but then I'm not a lawyer and didn't really think this through either
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
thaumasiotes
> if they operate in the EU then they will have to follow EU law and
> discrimination against people for _any_ reason is illegal

This is totally incoherent. Lack of discrimination is _the problem that Google
solves_. Search results can't all be first; that would be the same thing as
not having a search engine at all.

~~~
LeanderK
i don't agree. Google ranks, but shouldn't be allowed to treat one group
unfairly. For example, google shouldn't be allowed to downrank one ethnicity
and prefer another. Similiar, google shouldn't be allowed to "forcefully"
downrank one's blog, just because it doesn't like some thoughts about
sexuality (I don't know if it does though).

It's not that google has the total freedom to adjust the search-ranking like
it sees fit.

I don't know how the law is implemented, but I bet they have a good definition
what illegal discrimination actually is. For example, I don't think google
would be allowed to rank results (or, as you say it, discriminate) based on
gender.

~~~
thaumasiotes
The comment I responded to explicitly states that "discrimination for _any_
reason is illegal".

That doesn't work and can't work; it's not even meaningful. By that standard,
the existence of Google is, in itself, criminal.

~~~
seba_dos1
No, it isn't. You're just using the wrong meaning of an overloaded word.

Definition of discrimination

1a : prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment racial
discrimination b : the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating
categorically rather than individually

2 : the quality or power of finely distinguishing the film viewed by those
with discrimination

3a : the act of making or perceiving a difference : the act of discriminating
a bloodhound's scent discrimination b psychology : the process by which two
stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently

([https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/discrimination](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/discrimination))

------
aussieguy1234
Since I heard about Tumblrs new policy a week before it was implemented, I've
been hard at work building Libr ([https://librapp.com](https://librapp.com))
to replace it.

A large amount of art that isn't porn, but that qualifies as "adult content"
under the new policy has been all but purged from the internet.

It's impossible to ban adult content in a cost effective way without also
banning a large amount of legitimate art.

Libr is about two thirds of the way there (source is on GitHub) and I have
posting, content search, blog feeds and content authoring of video/images and
text posts done. Following, liking and the main feed are next.

This will be a Progresive web app - No app store needed, meaning no app store
bans.

~~~
Freak_NL
> This will be a Progresive web app - No app store needed, meaning no app
> store bans.

Why do you call it an app instead of a website?

The word 'app' to me strongly implies that whatever the service does can only
be meaningfully accessed via an app on Android or IOS, and that the publisher
has reasons (often for monetization purposes) to keep the software client
proprietary and exclusive.

~~~
gbear605
This usage of “app” I believe denoted the category of websites that would have
been desktop applications ten years ago. For instance, Google Docs is a web
app.

------
foolfoolz
This doesnt make sense to me. Core internet community experiences to me have
always been about smaller sites, message boards, mailing lists, chatrooms,
voice chat groups, etc.

Seeing large corporation websites like tumblr, reddit, facebook crack down on
content doesn't stop any of that. it just means you need to get out of your
internet bubble.

~~~
bad_user
The problem is that platforms and web hosting services are engaging in
censorship too.

The article gives Cloudflare as example. Hosting porn content, even if it is
art, can get very expensive because most services have an explicit no porn
policy.

Also without Google Search and without presence on a big social network,
you’re essentially invisible.

The situation for mobile apps is even worse, as Apple doesn’t allow porn
content in its App Store and Google started banning such content as well.

Also the article mentions the by-law censorship of articles in which sex
workers are interviewed due to FOSTA-SESTA.

So the smaller websites you’re talking about are being pushed off the web ;-)

~~~
Mirioron
I think you bring up some very good points and frankly, it's quite depressing.
A decade or two from now the internet will be exactly like cable TV.

~~~
pishpash
It's always like that. TV and radio were quirky in the early days too, but as
soon as you go mass market it changes. It's not the medium, it's the people on
it. Time to keep moving and get away from the mainstream.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Is it really "people on it", or is it just the ad-based business model? Sure,
mass market means lowest common denominator, but people generally don't mind
weirdness as long as it doesn't force itself on them. I feel most cases of
censorship or self-censorship of weirdness on the media has always something
to do with some advertiser not wanting their ads associated with weirdness.

~~~
watwut
TV was heavily regulated. So it is not just market, but also politics and
governing.

------
Sharlin
Tangentially related: Holvi [1], a digital banking service, just froze the
account of a Finnish BDSM association without warning, referring to a clause
in their terms of use that forbids "items that are considered obscene, or
sexually oriented materials or services". The phrasing, especially the word
"obscene" makes me suspect that the policy is dictated by big payment service
providers (that is, credit card companies and PayPal) and Holvi is just
covering its bases here; I doubt the company itself cares very much at all.

[1] [https://about.holvi.com/](https://about.holvi.com/)

------
sgt101
The real "original sin" of the free internet is the curation of the experience
of using neutral information systems to drive engagement and skew users
decisions away from their own interest towards the commercial interest of the
web sites. Routine deception and manipulation mean that there are no clear
lines or defensible moats of freedom. There is no rule of law or communal
standard of fairness on the internet. This article fogs that truth.

When ever I turn off the filters on my search engines explicit content is
served instantly. I think that the censorship that the author is referring to
is either self imposed, imposed by commercial decisions (tumblr) or due to
legal constraints (child porn, rape, worse things than that).

Consensual sex work is mentioned, my perception is that the vast majority of
sex workers are not doing it because of free choice, but rather because of
exploitation and pressure. Drug and alcohol addiction as well as a history of
abuse are often cited as drivers, and I hear of no stories where people have
found happy and fulfilled lives as prostitutes. The "women speaking truth" can
only every have authentic voices if they are speaking from positions of power
and security; I do not believe that this is the case for prostitutes anywhere.
The illegality of prostitution is not because people are prudes, it is because
prostitutes are routinely destroyed by their work.

~~~
logicchains
> I hear of no stories where people have found happy and fulfilled lives as
> prostitutes

Here's one: [https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-majority-
of...](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-majority-of-sex-
workers-enjoy-their-job-why-should-we-find-that-surprising-10083175.html). "In
fact, when you ask sex workers about their job satisfaction and working
conditions – as a study led by Leeds University just has – the majority of
them are happy. When asked to describe their work, respondents typically
selected positive or neutral words. 91 per cent of sex workers described their
work as ‘flexible’, 66 per cent described it as ‘fun’ and over half find their
job ‘rewarding’.".

That aside, have you heard many stories where people have found happy and
fulfilled lives as coal miners? As Amazon warehouse workers? Lots of jobs
suck, but we don't ban them.

>it is because prostitutes are routinely destroyed by their work.

[https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/159/8/778/91471](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/159/8/778/91471)
found a standardised mortality rate of 1.9 for American prostitutes (almost
twice that of the average member of the population), similar to what
[https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.54.5....](https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.54.5.758)
found for coal miners, but we don't ban coal mining. For prostitution,
violence was one of the "predominant causes of death", a situation that would
be significantly improved were prostitution legal, as prostitutes could then
rely on police protection without fear of being arrested for their work.

~~~
ben_w
Sex work is legal in Germany. I don’t know where to look for the equivalent
statistics in Germany, but that would settle the question of if legalisation
would solve the problem of violence.

~~~
logicchains
[https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002680)
conducted a meta-analysis of studies looking at the effect of legalisation and
found "Together, the qualitative and quantitative evidence demonstrate the
extensive harms associated with criminalisation of sex work, including laws
and enforcement targeting the sale and purchase of sex, and activities
relating to sex work organisation."

------
fdggdfsvscvsd
"Because it is women, people of color, LGBTQ communities, writers and artists
who compose the majority population of sex communities"

While it seems her concerns are warranted, that kind of writing just puts me
off. It seems also unlikely that women are more concerned with sex than men.
And it is not nazis and incels taking over the internet and censoring sexual
content, but presumably US puritanism. And also, presumably, liberals who
worry that porn is exploitation of women. Google and Facebook are dominated by
SJWs, not by nazis (unless you admit those amount to the same thing).

Maybe Puritanism simply won - their work ethic resulted in creating Silicon
Valley, so now they get to establish their puritan rules in the global digital
network.

~~~
marvin
Agree with this; I'm a straight guy that actively supports LGBTQ+ rights
(actually being an active, paying member of my country's organization and
participating in the Pride festival every year).

I strongly support sex positivity and oppose censorship, but this routine of
calling out small and troubled minorities, or even the male gender or
masculinity in general as the bogeyman, really needs to stop. It excludes
close to half of everyone who would otherwise enthusiastically support the
cause.

------
jimhefferon
When I was a kid there were very few black people on television, and no major
black characters (I'm from the US). Likewise there was no sex; Laura and Rob
Petrie slept in separate beds, etc. There were three majors-- CBS, NBC, and
ABC-- and people with names like Pastor Bob from Decent Society Now! would get
their folks to pressure network departments, and these departments found it
easiest for business to just not run this stuff. All very comfortable but all
very wrong.

Google, etc., seem a lot like the majors of our time. Sure they are private
businesses acting according to the business environment they find themselves
in, but the outcome may be, in the long run, bad for all of us.

~~~
bksenior
Google been a defacto monopoly for a long-time. I always just assumed it was
to keep regulation from some states backwards religious
senators/congresspeople at bay.

~~~
robertAngst
Aside from the privacy, google has been the best company of my life.

But I'm one of those, dont care about privacy people with mild porn habits and
I'm starting a non-profit. I don't have much to hide, especially given the
good I've accomplished with Google's support.

(Also I get 200+ website visitors from google daily)

~~~
pnw_hazor
Privacy is about the least of google, et al. evils.

It is the legion of researchers and engineers that leverage personal
information to build dark patterns and Digital Skinner boxes is where the
danger and harm comes from.

------
ben_w
The sex-bad-violence-good meme confused me at least since I became aware of
its existence aged about 14.

I was 16 when I got a letter published in a UK national newspaper on this
topic, pointing out the absurdity that deliberate murder could be shown in a
cartoon aimed specifically at young kids (i.e. BBFC rating Uc), but people “my
own age”[1] couldn’t see pictures of uncensored sex even though we could
legally[1] perform those acts.

I’m now in Berlin, where “Dildo King” is advertised on rotating billboards in
the City Centre next to adverts for kid’s dentists and nobody bats an eyelid.

In the other direction, I also remember being shocked when I first visited the
USA and seeing “to my dad” and “to my daughter” Valentine’s Day cards in the
supermarket.

[1] My own age at the time being the age of consent in the UK: 16

~~~
tnolet
Ah yes, the good old “Dildo King” ads always put a smile on my face and remind
me that Germans (and Berliners even more) are not yet 100% sucked up into the
US / SV stance on morality and censorship.

I noticed in Berlin startups that this is sorta changing. Seems the exported
“culture of being offended” is slowly taking hold of, surprisingly, mostly
younger people.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Surprisingly? I'd expect _any_ cultural shift to take place among young
people. Older people already have their culture.

~~~
tnolet
I guess you’re right, just weird to see young people turn to a form of
conservatism.

~~~
oosjc9a5
I think it's normal. We now live in a world were liberalism is being shoved
down our throats at all levels (mass media, education, ...). Young people are
rebels by nature, so now, young people are moving to the right, especially in
Europe.

What I mean to say is that this is not the result of US puritanism moving to
Europe. Instead, I think it's a natural, homegrown trend, unrelated to
religious sentiments.

~~~
ben_w
Left/right is a seating arrangement, literally as well as metaphorically.

Free-market/command-economy is different axis to dynamic/conservative is a
different axis to populist/evidence-based is a different axis to
moralist/libertarian.

If you just tried to transplant the UK’s Conservative, Labour, Liberal
Democrat, SNP or Green parties to the USA, they not only would be unelectable
“socialists” for supporting the NHS, but also all support policies the USA
considers unconstitutional (variously: ‘guns are bad’, ‘censor more’, ‘the
Queen should disolve the government every so often’).

Likewise, the UK’s Labour Party is currently wobbling on the left side of the
UK’s Overton Window, despite being a moderate centerist by the standards of
several EU nations.

------
faissaloo
On the contrary, pornography killed the internet I loved. Every chan gets
infested with it, it's gotten to the point where 8/b/ has had to limit it to
two threads because nothing but pornography was being posted and it's a great
way to instantly derail existing threads. This is one of the reasons why I
straight up don't allow images on Ratwires.

~~~
pmlnr
This is also true - as always, there are two sides to a conversation.

I remember altavista being ruined by the porn industry. I also remember not
needing to go through loops to see "uncensored" fantasy (the D&D type)
artwork, where female upper bodies might be uncovered.

To overcome this the actual content needs to return to it's origin:
personal/organisational websites, with their own forums, and for legislation
writers to leave them alone. In the meanwhile, the rest of the world needs
moderators, not automated, bad upload filters.

------
bad_user
What's interesting to me is how Americans don't bat an eye on all the violence
exposed in movies, music and games, but then become prudish when it comes to
sex. And these are the traits of the exported American culture.

In my European country it is perfectly normal to have pictures of your
children naked. It's also OK for them to see a nude body now and then, like at
the beach (and yes I am aware that I'm not talking about all of Europe, some
countries ban nudity in public). But do that in the US and you risk being
labeled as a pedophile.

I love how freedom of speech is protected by the US constitution, certainly a
model to follow for the rest of us, however banning adult content while
allowing violence, white nationalism and xenophobia is a huge double standard
that gets exported to the rest of the world too.

So as a citizen of an EU country that's not prudish about sex, why do I have
to suffer from the censorship of US companies?

And honestly, do you like it when you see actors like Tom Cruise not kissing
the girl in his movies, possibly because it needs to be played in China?

~~~
koonsolo
Another thing I saw in US is that they can't make the distinction between
hardcore porn, soft porn, erotica, nudity and showing some cleavage.

I used to work at a European game company that made erotic games for PocketPC.
Our biggest market was US, and most negativity also came from US. Video
striptease is labeled as "porn".

What they preach is very different from how they act. You cannot say fuck or
shit on tv or internet, but in real life everyone does it.

When Janet Jackson show a nipple on TV, it's a huge fuzz. But having a
colleagues gathering in a striptease bar is normal.

I'm pretty sure the prudish public behavior enforces the excessive private
behavior.

~~~
oefrha
> You cannot say fuck or shit on tv

What TV shows are you talking about? Kids shows? American television in
general is full of profanity. Some shows have way higher profanity content
than what’s observed in real life, they always makes me wonder if certain
demographics really fucking talk like that all the time.

~~~
koonsolo
Beeping away words is something you will never see/hear in European
productions. "What the _beep_ are you talking about you son of a _beep_ ".
Jerry Springer comes to mind.

European movies also have no trouble showing fully nude males, something you
will never see in Hollywood.

The sensoring in texts like f*ck is also seen a lot online.

~~~
oefrha
You’re right, some cable networks do the beep thing, others don’t. Guess I’ve
been self-selected to be biased towards the latter category; I haven’t heard a
beep for quite a while.

~~~
__david__
_All_ over the air networks don't have profanity (ABC, NBC, CBS, CW--you know,
the big ones) because of FCC rules. Cable is not covered by FCC laws and their
shows can freely swear (though I was surprised by the most recent seasons of
Happy and Mr. Robot not bleeping their F-words on cable as it used to be
verboten just a couple years ago).

------
bambax
In general, superstitious behavior tends to win over non-superstitious
behavior, _even if it is a small minority_.

For example, say there are two communities in a given town; one of the
community has decided that black doors were evil, and won't go through them.
The other community doesn't care.

Shops that have black doors lose the business of the superstitious community;
even if that community is small, it simply makes no sense for a shop owner to
keep a black door, whereas if the door is another color, it will cause no
problem with anyone. And so, pretty soon there will be no black doors
anywhere.

This may appear controversial, but the fact is _you can 't fight superstition
with openness_ because openness accepts superstition and lets it grow and
conquer everything. The only way to combat superstition is to actively fight
it.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Depends on the superstition, if it were "you should say 'black door' every
time you see one [and you'll have good luck]" then it would make no
difference. It would neither inhibit nor encourage those of the out-group.

Let's look at religion: if my religion says "give money to orphans" then you
don't need to fight it, it doesn't harm you, if it says "make everyone who's
not part of our group subservient or dead" then you must fight it.

Actively fighting a superstition that is not harmful would count as it's own
superstition, it's not logically driven.

~~~
kgwxd
"give money to orphans" is harmful to you when the target is your 90 year old
mother for her social security check that would otherwise allow her to be
financially independant. Doubly harmful when a very small percent, if any,
actually goes to helping orphans and instead supports the continuation of the
predetory practice.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So you mean when it means something entirely different?

If it were "force others to give money to orphans" or "steal money that's set
aside for orphans" then you'd perhaps have a point.

Unless, you're trying to say it's impossible to have someone hold a
[superstitious] belief that doesn't impact others negatively?

------
readingnews
The author seems to equate facebook, google, twitter, etc with "the internet".
I agree, those are some major heavy hitting players on the network, but it
seems the author wants the internet of yore, where it was the wild wild west.
That internet still exists, you just can not get there from facebook, google,
twitter. So why do we continue to use those services?

~~~
Riverheart
Too be fair, these silos are the internet for a vast swathe of people. Google
has always been a gateway to discovering new places on the internet and as she
pointed out, they are actively suppressing search results they don't like.
They don't know there are or can't find the places outside the silos.

~~~
krapp
Is that really true enough to be considered axiomatic, or is it just an
expression of the tendency of technical people to assume the typical user is
little smarter than a ham sandwich?

Using a small number of sites doesn't mean you don't know other sites exist.
Consider the olden days of the web when discovery was, arguably, more
difficult than today (the problem search engines emerged to solve.) Did people
not comprehend that the web existed outside of Geocities or Yahoo? No, they
still knew it was there. They may not have been able to find it, or cared to
find it, but they still understood there was more "internet" out there.

Nowadays, meanwhile, almost every business has a website. Authors have
websites. Political leaders, countries, movements and offices have websites.
Celebrities have websites. Fandoms and communities have websites. Have you
ever paid attention to just how many URLS you encounter outside of the silos,
in real life, throughout the day? People are _inundated_ with them. And, those
silos tend to be content aggregators which let people post content from third
party websites.

There may be some truth to the premise, but I suspect the extend is overstated
in order to sell the narrative that the web is existentially under threat of
corporate control and political censorship.

~~~
progval
All student organizations at my (small) university have a website and an
active public mailing list.

Yet, there is a constant push from their members for maintaining an account on
Facebook. They know Facebook is evil, but "everyone is on Facebook and we have
to be there to be visible".

And unfortunately they are right: announcing an event on Facebook makes it
more popular.

------
crazygringo
Again and again I see the comments of how crazy it is that we allow violence
in films/TV/anywhere, but not sex which is peaceful and harmless -- as if this
were some kind of idiocy or hypocrisy.

There's a good reason we try to draw lines between areas where sex is
"allowed" and "not allowed" \-- because it's _arousing_ and has the potential
to be greatly _embarrassing_. It's _private_ , in a way that violence isn't. I
seriously don't get how so many people seem to willfully ignore this.

When I Google something in a meeting or in front of my mother, I do _not_ want
sexual results to appear because some term has an alternate meaning. When I
watch a movie with my parents, nobody's going to squirm from the violence, but
we certainly don't want to watch a steamy sex scene together. That's just how
human beings are wired. We're not prudes, there's just a time and a place.

So having major internet services like Google and Facebook default to being
non-sexual seems like a pretty smart move to me. And then there are still
countless sites on the internet devoted entirely to sex. Keeping them largely
separated seems smart. And while what happened to Tumblr was very sad, I'm
sure other sites will replace it... it's the internet after all.

~~~
hobs
That's completely a cultural artifact though, there's no reason to be
squeamish about sex and to accept violence.

Plenty of cultures have much looser taboos around this than yours, its not how
human beings are wired.

~~~
mberning
I would love to know in which cultures a teenage son watching soft core porn
with their mother is perfectly comfortable or possibly even celebrated.

~~~
saagarjha
If you consider nudity to be in that category, then many European countries.

~~~
crazygringo
I don't think too many people are confusing general nudity (like the nudist
lifestyle, totally non-sexual) or a few topless advertisements with softcore
porn. They're completely different things.

So no, I don't think Europe counts as an example here.

------
mac_was
The artist claims that internet killed porn then switches to Yahoo News and is
able to find what she is looking for, so it seems that she is unhappy that it
is not reachable on Google. Another point is that when she worked with
teenagers their biggest question was how to prevent diseases, pregnancy, one
quick question- how would they find answers on porn sites? All the answers are
available publicly on health related sites like the NHS for example, you do
not need porn and sex-museums for that.

~~~
renholder
>All the answers are available publicly on health related sites like the NHS
for example...

I hate to put it like this but the NHS is, largely, unknown to the Americans.
They have their own version (e.g.: Department of Health, Surgeon General,
etc.) but I think you skimmed on something that is a byproduct of that
cultural mentality: Sex and nudity is bad; therefore, any education around
that is bad.

People might be able to go and find that information on the NHS' website, if
the actual act of doing so wasn't - itself - stigmatised.

There are ripe examples across the internet of people up in arms about sexual
education in American schools (this used to be something largely concentrated
to the Bible Belt, but as demographics move, has been spreading wider across
their country)[0,1].

Then, you have the "think of the children!" crowd.[2, 3]

I think someone paying for advertisement time to say, "If your parents,
school, government is failing you, try to look for the information elsewhere -
say the NHS," might go a long but - even then - you might be "unpatriotic",
"unamerican", "literally the devil", etc. for even doing so.

Fighting the herd mentality isn't without it's own plight.

[0] - [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-education-controversy-
erupt...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-education-controversy-erupts-in-
omaha/)

[1] - [https://pjmedia.com/parenting/2017/03/31/parents-protest-
gra...](https://pjmedia.com/parenting/2017/03/31/parents-protest-graphic-and-
explicit-sex-ed-curriculum-in-calif-schools/)

[2] - [https://www.hli.org/2018/04/comprehensive-sex-
education/](https://www.hli.org/2018/04/comprehensive-sex-education/)

[3] - [https://www.lifezette.com/2016/12/evil-in-the-classroom-
sexu...](https://www.lifezette.com/2016/12/evil-in-the-classroom-sexuality-
education-kids/)

~~~
mac_was
I dont know how it is called in the USA as I dont live there... sorry.

Sex and nudity are not bad, porn might be.

There are several researches about it like this one:
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hero/201603/is-
porn-...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hero/201603/is-porn-good-us-
or-bad-us)

Sex !== porn and we should all remember about it.

------
jancsika
1\. Read article

2\. notice that r/dragonsfuckingcars isn't 404'd

3\. Disagree with article

~~~
miguelmota
Warning: that sub is sort of NSFW and cannot be unseen once seen.

~~~
anextomp
Was that... not obvious?

Really, what were you expecting?

~~~
saagarjha
Subreddit names aren’t always very indicative of their contents. There’s a
whole set of “porn” subreddits that happen to be pictures of nature or people
using fountain pens.

------
stinos
There's nude art subreddits, no? And Vimeo has a bunch of channels featuring
nudity on stage, nude art performances etc. It's video though, and maybe not
super popular on a global scale, but just mentioning this to counter the 'all
is lost' feeling the article sometimes gave me while reading through it.

For the rest though I wholeheartedly agree: the input (keyboard) and in
between (servers) and output (search results/sites) being censored - with the
majority of people not even realizing it - is quite terrifying.

Question: I do remember Nerve, but find it a bit hard to believe there is
really nothing like it anymore, is there?

~~~
eloisant
It's shrinking. Tumblr is down. How long do you think reddit will resist?

Also you can launch a website like Nerve if you want, I'm sure you'll find
servers to host it.

But who will know about it if you're not in Google's search results, and
Facebook doesn't allow linking to your articles?

~~~
pmlnr
> But who will know about it if you're not in Google's search results, and
> Facebook doesn't allow linking to your articles?

When I was a teenager, underground things that you only heard about through
word of mouth, were cool, and I think it still is. The ones actually
interested will find these things beyond Google or Facebook, which is the in-
your-face mainstream in 2019. However, there is no money in it, like it should
be with communities.

------
tim333
> It's just that Google's 2018 algorithm upgrade filters out news with the
> word "porn" in it. Like articles about porn performer suicide, tips for
> revenge porn victims, parents who oppose porn website age-verification

I'm puzzled - I searched for "porn performer suicide" and the other two in
Google and it returned relevant searches in each case. I don't particularly
want Google bring up porn results when I'm not looking for it and it seems to
work ok if you do want to look.

------
IndrekR
_" Google News shows one lonely result for "porn," an article that is 26 days
old."_

Must be a regional thing. Gives plenty of fresh (less than a day old) articles
when searched in Estonia.

Edit: this is for Google search "news" tab. If I go to Google News
([https://news.google.com](https://news.google.com)) and search from there,
get no results.

~~~
aussieguy1234
I've confirmed this happens in Australia. Except it's zero results, not one.

~~~
woogiewonka
Same in Japan. Zero results for "porn". On a different note, I can't believe
how terrible google news UI looks. It used to be easy to find things, now it
looks like some designer had to prove something so he wouldn't be let go. Ahh,
maybe I am getting too old for this - first they ruin Gmail, now they spread
that vomit they call material design to the rest of the web.

------
Mirioron
I think the author brings up a good point, but most of those are simply due to
us using Google's services instead of other services.

> _In 2014 Google Play banned sex-themed apps_

This point, however, I think is slightly different. It's difficult for the
average user to get apps on their android phones without the app being on the
Play Store. On the other hand, people go to great lengths for sex stuff so I'm
surprised there aren't very popular alternative app stores for android.

~~~
fdggdfsvscvsd
There are many other app stores. Most phones are locked down, so you can not
simply use another app store, though.

------
DavidVoid
"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." \- H.L.
Mencken.

------
nopriorarrests
Whats the point of this article?

Tumblr is supposed to be monetized. You can't monetize porn content, so tumblr
has 'no pron' policy now. Sorry, this is how the world works. Boo.

Meanwhile, any kind of porn is plentiful if you go to the different url. Enter
any keyword and have porn catered to your interest, in a good quality,
abundant. Seriously, this was unimaginable 15 years ago, and yet author claims
that someone "killed the internet we love". Come on.

Maybe the right claim would be "For some unknown reason, VC does not fund
unprofitable sites we love anymore".

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
I don't understand why the corporate monoliths refuse to slap their ads on
porno. Porno has got to be the most popular kind of content on the internet.
Why cant my porno be brought to me in part by pepsi cola?

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'm guessing, but one consideration may be that they're afraid of "moral
panic" from their non-porn-watching customer segment.

The situation is ridiculous, though. Plenty of companies, including Pepsi and
other FMCG brands, car manufacturers, tobacco manufacturers, etc. advertise
themselves with clips so sexualized they're borderline pornographic. The
market doesn't seem to mind. Avoidance of porn seems hypocritical.

~~~
ndnxhs
Journalists actively go out of their way to find adverts on controversial
YouTube videos and then they email the companies involved as well as
publishing it on their website to shame the companies who did not pull the
adverts from YouTube.

------
mirimir
I don't see this for Google, using a German IP. But I do see it for Startpage,
until I turn off the family filter. Searching for "porn start suicide". First
hits:

Google: Fifth porn star dies: Drugs, suicide factors in deaths - The Mercury
News <[https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/fifth-young-porn-
star...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/fifth-young-porn-star-dies-
drugs-despair-suicide-factors-in-deaths/>)

DDG: Fifth young porn star dies: Drugs, despair, suicide factors ...
<[https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/fifth-young-porn-
star...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/fifth-young-porn-star-dies-
drugs-despair-suicide-factors-in-deaths/>)

Startpage: Did porn star August Ames really commit suicide because of cyber
... <[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6544965/Did-porn-
st...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6544965/Did-porn-star-August-
Ames-really-commit-suicide-cyber-bullying-shoot.html>)

Searx: Suicide Girls Porn Videos | Pornhub.com
<[https://www.pornhub.com/video/search?search=suicide+girls>](https://www.pornhub.com/video/search?search=suicide+girls>)

It _is_ interesting that Searx (using Bing, I think) returned Pornhub as the
top hit, rather than one of the news stories. But maybe that was just
randomness.

------
phreack
I've had an idea for an adult oriented app, that many many people have told me
they'd pay for and support, but it'd need push notifications to work
(preventing it from working in a browser), and Apple is such a walled garden
that you can't even sideload an app the way you can in Android (or any desktop
OS). It's quite frustrating to see the way they get to shape culture.

~~~
perilunar
You can do push notifications in browsers. See:
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/Push_API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/Push_API)

~~~
phreack
Yeah, but it's not supported on iOS' Safari. You need the user to install a
native app for them to be able to receive notifications, and it looks like
they're years away from implementing that on a browser. So it's App Store or
bust.

------
Eli_P
_We are not to tell nature what she’s gotta be.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public
relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

Richard Feynman_

So, humanity's greatest minds are chugging their assess on unsolved game
theory problem: how to chop down the overpopulation tax and cram all pieces
into everybody's asses, so after adding up again the tax sum is zero, and
everybody's happy and nobody suffers/dies.

Bad news, can't be done. Good news, can be solved in higher dimensions; add
human stupidity, weaknesses, incompetence; thus sexual and cultural
differences can be spared... Stop. This still looks like kind of eugenics. No,
no, no, I'm outta here. I'll leave it to the best game theorists from Google.

 _/ me returned to 18 tabs with porn on Twitter_

------
meshr
Mad world: It is ok for the US president to pay prostitutes, restrict sex-
redistributing websites and it is ok for the first lady to sell body. What is
not ok is to do web search for this kind of activities that they did. They
just don’t want us to have the same rights.

------
Tsubasachan
Sadly the big internet companies are all American. That means American law and
American culture.

I mean I'm sure we would all prefer it if globalization meant degeneracy and
atheism for all Dutch style but that has never been the majority position in
this world.

------
protomyth
“Advertiser friendly” killed the internet we love. Sex is just one aspect of a
poor excuse.

------
Too
\- "Tumblr can't tell a potato from a boob."

\- "Google Drive scans your files and deletes what it believes to be explicit
content."

Think about that twice before choosing where and how to back up your data,
regardless if it's explicit or not.

------
drngdds
This is one of many reasons that hypercentralization is bad. You can't have
one company arbitrarily decide to kill 12.5 million blogs if those blogs
aren't hosted by one company, or even any company at all.

------
zeckalpha
This isn’t a new phenomenon. The great Usenet renaming was over 30 years ago.

------
black-tea
I wonder how long this woman spent finding the next thing to complain about.
Her real gripe is quietly dropped in the third paragraph where she claims porn
is about "women". Porn is made by men for men on the whole. I despise porn
personally and while I don't support censorship I certainly don't want to use
a service where I constantly see news about porn. Porn is not about "people".
It's just something almost every young man is addicted to because it simulates
the feeling of mating with multiple women.

~~~
scottlocklin
She's a bay area sex writer, and is probably kind of butthurt that work and
fame ain't what it was some years ago. The internet actually was much better
when "Violet Blue" was a bigger deal, but it has little to do with the number
of porn search results in google news.

------
Knove
I think as an adult, we should have the right not to be prohibited.

------
jmsmistral
These types of articles are a great reminder of how prevalent censorship is on
mainstream services like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Question - what other tech/services exists out there that supports freedom?
Would that be in the form of distributed tech like mastodon, for example?
Could these be leveraged to trigger tech giants to revert censorship?

Meh... It's demotivating to see that everyday services that everyone uses
essentially limit perspectives on how life happens.

------
marvin
With all this censorship, isn't there now a massive unmet demand for a service
that allows uncensored distribution of relevant, sex-related content?
Necessarily located in a European country and avoiding any US-based platform
that censors such content.

------
hindsightbias
America's Puritan streak can be supressed, but never strangled.

------
Lazare
Yeah. The article is accurate, and it's horrifying. It's nonsensical, harmful,
and is, literally, killing people.

Worse, I don't really...see...a fix? The people being hurt by this are the
least powerful and most vulnerable; they're not going to force a policy
reversal. And everyone else just doesn't care that much, and even if they do,
what can they do about it?

I find it all very depressing.

------
minusf
wouldnt it be possible for these content hosting companies to host the content
in a different jurisdiction? if i host the content, dont i get to make the
terms of use?

------
pontifier
It's Utah's fault.

------
gjsman-1000
I would say the opposite: Porn killed the internet I loved.

------
trhway
>Now Tumblr is a sex-free haven for white nationalists and Nazis.

reminded Matt Damon's character from Dogma :

Loki : ... If I had a dick, I'd go get laid. We can do the next best thing.

Bartleby : What's that?

Loki : Well, let's kill people.

~~~
iamdave
_Now Tumblr is a sex-free haven for white nationalists and Nazis._

Is the author basing this on anything other than checking to see if white
nationalists and Nazis are simply using the site as some sort of electronic
forward operating base such that it's worth calling Tumblr a "haven" for these
groups?

Asked a better way: if you go looking for group x on just about _any_ website,
isn't it fair to say you're probably going to find _some_? Is Tumblr really a
_haven_ for these people?

I ask as someone who without really trying, just managed to curate his tumblr
"feed" to be full of classic cars, aviation, scifi and comic book stuff plus
sometimes video game review, so I admit to being a bit ignorant as to what's
going on outside my particular 'bubble' and will concede that I do lack some
perspective on the matter.

~~~
Phlarp
Many people think nazis are objectively much less acceptable than porn.
Particularly the type of softcore "artsy" porn one would expect to find on
Tumblr before the crackdown.

~~~
iamdave
I'm not disagreeing with that and I'm not even making a value judgment on
what's more acceptable, porn or racism. I don't care to have that discussion.
Perhaps my initial question was unclear to receive already negative votes for
asking a pretty benign question.

The author describes Tumblr as a "haven" for white nationalists, I'm asking
based on what? What makes it any less of a haven than other social sites on
the internet for those groups, is their presence on tumblr more or less
pronounced than it is on, say, reddit? I legitimately don't know and was
curious to hear insight from others because my experience on the site is
deliberately starched and sanitized.

Clearly that question offended a few people.

------
russellbeattie
Wow. This whole thread and Right Wing Conservatives and Republicans aren't
called out once? Hacker News has become as pandering to the right wing as
Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook.

Hypocrites.

~~~
zozbot123
Not sure if serious, but sex censorship is mostly a bi-partisan endeavor these
days. See, e.g. the whole controversy around Patreon, where creators of
sexually-suggestive content and right-wing/conservative intellectuals are both
facing the prospect of being "de-platformed" for political reasons.

~~~
russellbeattie
Creators of sexually suggestive content are being targeted by the right wing
because God says it's bad and they don't like it.

Neo-Nazis (or as you referred to them, "conservative intellectuals") are being
targeted because their hate speech promotes intolerance and causes pain,
suffering and encourages right wing extremists, who then go out and kill
people with guns and cars.

Try to learn the concept of false equivalency and stop pandering.

------
lazyjones
YMMV... For me, the last straw was having to click away 2-3 banners that cover
the content on every website and then often being slapped in the face with a
subscription box. This is simply conditioning me to expect disappointment and
hence to stop clicking on links. Even on HN I find myself clicking straight on
the comment links to get an idea of what the link is about.

~~~
unimpressive
My friend wrote a browser plugin that removes sticky web elements like
subscription boxes on pages (Chrome only, for now).

[https://git.sr.ht/~achmizs/AlwaysKillSticky.git](https://git.sr.ht/~achmizs/AlwaysKillSticky.git)

Sad that we have to resort to this sort of thing, but...

p.s: He would probably be happy to accept a patch which makes it compatible
with Firefox.

~~~
carlob

        javascript:(function()%7B(function%20()%20%7Bvar%20i%2C%20elements%20%3D%20document.querySelectorAll('body%20*')%3Bfor%20(i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20elements.length%3B%20i%2B%2B)%20%7Bif%20(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position%20%3D%3D%3D%20'fixed')%20%7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()
    

Bookmarklet that does the same

------
fakare
Why we shout that all sexualities have to be accepted but then same time these
big companies dictate and sensure everything ?

Why shouting in streets about our gay or lesbian rights is ok but not write or
day that in video is forbidden ?

Why Facebook have so many sexuality options but no one can talk about it ?

Time to leave Facebook Google and Twitter alone is now. There have to be
alternative services for open minded people..

------
marcus_holmes
I find the US prudishness thing so fascinating. I'm travelling at the moment,
and meeting lots of Americans (and Europeans for contrast). There's definitely
a huge difference in tolerance for swearing and blasphemy.

Also several well-educated and seemingly intelligent Americans who hold strong
racist opinions. But that's another subject.

I guess it all comes down to the religion. Americans do seem to be more
religious, specifically more Christian, and the Christian Church has always
taught that sex should only be for procreation. Enjoying it is a sin,
apparently. Though I can't find that anywhere in any of the commandments, or
the new testament. Plenty of instruction about not murdering people, though,
but that didn't seem to get through...

~~~
door5
>Also several well-educated and seemingly intelligent Americans who hold
strong racist opinions. But that's another subject.

Bring up Muslims or Roma people to a European and you'll find this isn't a
uniquely American problem.

~~~
13of40
Whoah there. Just because the parent is painting all Americans with one brush
doesn't mean we have to reciprocate.

~~~
Tade0
Then again that bit about the Roma is somewhat accurate.

On the other hand majority of the Roma refuse to assimilate, and on a much
deeper level than pretty much any immigrant at that, so it's possible to
imagine why this prejudice lives on.

~~~
door5
This is my point though -- European racism is portrayed always somehow
"different". It's the exact same story and there are no excuses for it. Anti-
Roma prejudice is no more rational or justified than any other prejudice, and
it's just as violent and dangerous.

~~~
marcus_holmes
The same can be said for Australian prejudice against aboriginals.

But I've never met a European traveler who expresses an anti-Roma opinion.
I've met several US travelers who have expressed some really severe anti-
African-American comments.

So, yes, the prejudice is probably the same, but the level of hatred, and the
willingness to express it, is not.

~~~
door5
This is anecdotal, the data does not support your claim:
[http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/12/a-fragile-rebound-for-
eu...](http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/12/a-fragile-rebound-for-eu-image-on-
eve-of-european-parliament-elections/pg-2014-05-12-eu-0-09/)

------
Kenji
_People don 't make sites like Nerve anymore. No one can._

This is nonsense. Anyone can make such a site if they put their mind to it.
You just have to find your way around the internet to get to the good stuff.

------
uneewkly
The very premise of this article is flawed. I don't buy it. Censorship of sex
didn't kill the internet it killed the popularity of sex on the internet. I am
sorry the internet is not only for sex exploration or arousal. It serves many
other useful ends besides healthy or unhealthy sexual proclivities.

Decisions made by Google & Co to me are purely business decisions. Think about
it, if you wanted to be the most popular search engine how do you reconcile
that with getting blocked in schools, libraries, and homes. Call it cultural
influence if you like but I personally won't be at all surprised tomorrow if
Google made a switch to serve up search results with live hot steamy sex from
two strangers on the side because that's the kind of user they are after. I,
on the other hand, will block their services.

If the author's argument is that censorship of any form is a threat to the
vision of the internet, we can have a meaningful discussion about that.

The problem described in the article is easily solved: The author should start
an adult search engine, adult blog (insert your favorite adult content here)
and serve up whatever explicit content tickles her fancies but these types of
arguments are frankly trite and lacking much depth.

