No sex please, weโre online
Itโs not just Tumblr, people. This shit is getting ridiculous.
Of course itโs not Tumblr! They came for Craigslist personals first because thatโs the oldest trick in the book: Sneakily taking down theย โpervertsโ under the guise of vague, high morality goals and working slowly up from the bottom, picking off larger and larger targets. Few people cared about CL because of the stereotype of scary unwashed creeps trawling for sex online. That wasnโt so familiar orย cuteย so it was fair game.ย ย
Tumblr is biting at theย โartistsโ heels and suddenly there is a bit more noise, because artists arenโt supposed to be treated like shit, are they? However even now the hair-splitting over whatโs porn and therefore garbageย and not-art shows that attitudes are not so different. Itโs still the same divisive, dangerousย us v.s. them mentality that is so easily exploited.
This is why when people tell me I shouldnโt worry about this becauseย โmy art isnโt porn anywayโ it makes me angry. It means so much more than drawings or a silly blog. This is about people being slowly phased out of their freedoms, rights and agency. History has shown time and time again that whenever power wants to make a crushing move backwards, it comes for what it declares โobsceneโ first. People are raised to be scared and ignorant of sex so itโs an easy gateway. When they come cracking down on sex is when we most need to pay very close attention. They are not protecting us.
Yeah. This isnโt about whether *you*, specifically, donโt want NSFW content shoved in front of your eyeballs, itโs about whether the people who want to see NSFW content have the right to see it *at all*.
Itโs also about what counts asย โnsfwโ orย โpornographicโ content. The article hints at it but doesnโt state it directly, but LGBT content - anyย LGBT content, even the most G-rated or strictly informative kind - is usually an early target in the name ofย โcleaning upโ a website. (YouTube, for example, is already guilty of doing this.)
