this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Blåhaj Lemmy is a Lemmy instance attached to blahaj.zone. This is a group for questions or discussions relevant to either instance.

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Edit - This is a post to the meta group of Blåhaj Lemmy. It is not intended for the entire lemmyverse. If you are not on Blåhaj Lemmy and plan on dropping in to offer your opinion on how we are doing things in a way you don't agree with, your post will be removed.

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A user on our instance reported a post on lemmynsfw as CSAM. Upon seeing the post, I looked at the community it was part of, and immediately purged all traces of that community from our instance.

I approached the admins of lemmynsfw and they assured me that the models with content in the community were all verified as being over 18. The fact that the community is explicitly focused on making the models appear as if they're not 18 was fine with them. The fact that both myself and one a member of this instance assumed it was CSAM, was fine with them. I was in fact told that I was body shaming.

I'm sorry for the lack of warning, but a community skirting the line trying to look like CSAM isn't a line I'm willing to walk. I have defederated lemmynsfw and won't be reinstating it whilst that community is active.

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[–] copygirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (14 children)

I think both instance admins have a valid stance on the matter. lemmynsfw appears to take reports very seriously and if necessary does age verification of questionable posts, something that likely takes a lot of time and effort. Blahaj Lemmy doesn't like the idea of a community that's dedicated to "adults that look or dress child-like". While I understand the immediate (and perhaps somewhat reactionary) concern that might raise, is this concern based in fact, or in emotion?

Personally I'm in the camp of "let consenting adults do adult things", whether that involves fetishes that are typically thought of as gross, dressing up in clothes or doing activities typically associated with younger ages, or simply having a body that appears underage to the average viewer. As the lemmynsfw admin mentioned, such persons have the right to lust and be lusted after, too. That's why, as a society, we decided to draw the line at 18 years old, right?

I believe the concern is not that such content is not supposed to exist or be shared, but rather that it's collected within a community. And I think the assumption here is that it makes it easy for "certain people" to find this content. But if it is in fact legal, and well moderated, then is there a problem? I don't believe there is evidence that seeing such content could change your sexual preferences. On the other hand, saying such communities should not exist could send the wrong message, along the lines of "this is weird and should not exist", which might be what was meant with "body shaming".

I'm trying to make sense of the situation here and possibly try to deescalate things, as I do believe lemmynsfw approach to moderation otherwise appears to be very much compatible with Blahaj Lemmy. Is there a potential future where this decision is reconsidered? Would there be some sort of middle-ground that admins from both instances could meet and come to an understanding?

[–] chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Reminds me of a lot of the debates around kink at pride/ddlg kink stuff. The latter is really not my thing and makes me uncomfortable, but I recognise that that's a personal thing between me and my partners that I can't, and shouldn't, police among others.

There's also ethical debates to be had on porn in places like Lemmy/pornhub/etc. -- we can't know that the person has consented to being posted, or that they have recourse to get it taken down and stop it being spreaded if they do not.

Then there's the realpolitik of, regardless of ethics, whether it's better to have porn of this type in visible, well moderated communities, or whether it's better to try to close off ethically dubious posting.

It's one I don't really have squared off in my head quite yet. Similarly with kink at pride; I've read about the historic importance of kinksters and recognise that, but at the same time I want there to be a space where queer kids can be involved with pride without being exposed to kink. Is that just prudish social norms talking? Idk; I'm still working it through.

[–] Ryantific_theory@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

For what it's worth, I feel like while society has become more socially accepting of people being different (imperfectly, but we have), at least in the US we've become more and more prudish when it comes to sex itself. Part of the changing era has led to a reduction in exploitation and things that were generally viewed as sketchy, but not all that big of deal (kids inheriting porn mags, sexual harassment, imbalances in power), where now sketchy behavior is quickly called out.

That said, I feel like a lot of hard conversations have been completely avoided because they'd be awkward and uncomfortable and instead we just pretend they aren't there.

Like in theory, anyone under 18 in the US can't legally see so much as a titty (unless it's art), read sexually explicit material, or see a movie or tv show with explicit content. And then, literally nobody wants to talk to teenagers about sex. I watched a reddit thread eat itself alive because a dad was furious that his wife had bought their daughter a dildo after he had confiscated her laptop when catching her looking at them and asked his wife to deal with it. People were calling for her to be reported for sexual abuse, while actual women were being attacked for sharing their own experiences as teens. Things just seem a little crazy.

People are so uncomfortable with the concept that they want to disappear anything that reminds them that 18 isn't actually a magical division between childhood and adulthood. And then you have this thread, where lemmynsfw was banned because a community sharing "cute" pornstars was a step too far despite being actual professional adults. Idk, it seems exactly like Australia's whole thing where they started banning pornstars in their late twenties because they have small tits as part of a project to "fight" child porn.

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[–] kardum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)

the same community (adorableporn) is also on reddit btw with 2.2m subscribers.

i have no grand moral opinion on this type of content. for me it is the same as femboy content for example, where people also push for a youthful, girly aesthetic.

as long as the content is made by consenting verified adults, i don't care.

it's like adults cosplaying with japanese school uniforms or calling your partner "mommy" or "daddy".

probably not the best move in terms of sexual morals for sure, in the grand scheme of things tho this is just how people express their sexuality i guess.

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[–] paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

For anyone wondering, this is lemmynsfw's take on the situation.

On a personal level, the vibes are off. Their defense seems really defensive and immediately moves to reframe the situation as body shaming. There's a difference between an adult who looks underage posting porn of themselves and a community dedicated to porn of adults who look underage. Reducing the latter down to body shaming seems like unfair framing to me.

[–] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Did you check the community in question? I'm quite suprised to hear one could think that's csam. To me it looks just like your typical low-effort onlyfans content. None of the models even looked "barely legal" but more like well over 20 in most cases.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

When I checked their communities most were basically empty?

And I didn't see a community that fits that description.

Edit: I did try to enable nsfw content and tried from other accounts I have on other instances.

[–] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Your instance just deferedated from lemmyNSFW. You can't see any new content there anymore with that account.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago

I tried in private browser mode and from accounts I have have lemmy.ml and Beehaw

I still didn't see anything?

IDK what's up

[–] noisehound@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The community in question listed "child-like" in their sidebar until after this defederation. Gross.

[–] Ryantific_theory@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

That's a stumble, but it was because they copied and pasted the dictionary definition of "adorable" into the sidebar. The same community has more than two million members on Reddit and has been a staple for almost a decade. However, they simply wrote "It must be adorable." instead defining adorable like Lemmy did, so there's that.

Idk, it just seems weird to be outraged when everything is legal, consensual, and not even a fringe kink. This is like Australia banning small-titted pornstars in their late twenties in a recent project against CSAM, because these adults aren't shaped in morally appropriate ways.

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[–] Mewtwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For the people like me that don't know the term: CSAM is Child Sexual Abuse Materials. It's the term used instead of CP as "pornography" is more commonly used for pleasure or conveys the idea of consent.

As for the porn that uses people that look under age, it's no different than the anime children that are thousands of years old. It doesn't matter how old they are, they look like children and it's gross.

[–] emidio@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago

I agree with you but not on the last point. There is a difference since they are real people, adults, and that they consent on being sexually attractive and arouse. I am not attracted to young looking bodies but that's a notable difference to me. Also I don't know how I feel about a community (in a broader way than a lemmy comm) focusing and fetichising on young looking adults (I do know that it disturbs me but I want to talk about society wise), but I understand that some people are attracted to young looking bodies and/or juvenile ones, and I feel like adults that consent to answer their desires is better than CASM

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

was fine with them

That’s surprising since their rules say that not even fictive under-18 content is allowed:

Posting content involving any person who is under 18 is strictly forbidden. This includes real, drawn, and fictional content.

[–] ProfessorZhu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I guess Trans Littles can just go fuck off then? One of the biggest Trans comics artist is openly a little. Why are we in the business of regulating what consenting adults do?

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No one is looking at a little and thinking that they're physically 15.

[–] ProfessorZhu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I wrote a comment but got more aggressive than I intended. My overall point though is there are young looking adults, there are old looking kids. Making a sweeping statement like you did is just wrong

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Young looking adults also aren't the issue.

The issue is a community that focuses heavily on models that are framed to look like they're not adults.

Not adults roleplaying. Not adults that incidentally happen to look younger than they are.

[–] ProfessorZhu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Again, the issue is a community with models that are framed to look like they're not adults.

There is no scenario where something that can be mistaken for CSAM will have a space here.

[–] ProfessorZhu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 years ago

And again, these are adults on an instance that was explicitly designated for NSFW works. Defederating was entirely within your right but these justifications seem really poorly thought out, and could have unintended consequences.

Should we shun non consensual play? Should we defederate from anything that shows BDSM? Because I can't see any reason why your justifications wouldn't apply to them

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[–] melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago

It's ironic this went down over adorableporn and not fauxbait

If I believe the mod of the community in question is telling the truth, Seems like the incident in question was just a misunderstanding. The community name is

spoileradorableporn

I will refer to this as "the first community" in the following text.

The mod of the community copy/pasted the dictionary definition from vocabulary.com, which contains the word "childlike".

IMO, the community in question is not trying to skirt the line of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). In fact, there is a subreddit of the same name which has absolutely nothing to do with people that appear underage.

That said, the same mod also moderates, and posts to a different community with a concerning name. The spoiler below shows the name and the first three paragraphs of the sidebar as they appear:

spoilerCommunity is now open to posting. Posts not having verification info will be removed.

FauxBait is a place for sharing images and videos of the youngest-looking, legal-aged (18+) girls. If you like fresh, young starlets, this is the place for you!

Just to be clear: We only feature legal, consenting adults in accordance with U.S. Laws. All models featured were at least 18 years old at the time of filming.


Also, I'm not sure if the timestamps can be trusted, but said mod was instated as the only active mod of the first community at the same time that Ada made this post, which would mean that the mod account could not have been the one that wrote the original sidebar of the first community. Not sure what to make of that. For the sake of balance though, said mod does seem to be doing verifications of the age requirements. Also, the modlog for the first community shows two admin removals from at least 10 days before this debacle, both of which err on the side of caution, so at least the admins to seem to care about enforcing their rules.


The situation seems very muddy, but I personally don't think the original incident was that big of a deal (assuming the mod is telling the truth). However, I certainly don't blame the blahaj admins for defederating as it's certainly the safest option. Wouldn't want blahaj lemmy to get taken down :| Also happy to see less pron in my feed; I'm too lazy to block the individual /c/. Personal Instance-level blocking can't come soon enough.

[–] leigh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I am very disheartened by the number of people replying here who read “a community skirting the line trying to look like CSAM” and felt the need to go purposefully seek out that community to look through its images.

[–] Ryantific_theory@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Probably because the community in question isn't trying to "skirt the line" and just posts popular pornstars that range from 18 to the mid twenties. I thought it was a kink community until someone finally linked the lemmynsfw post and it's actually just a community for cute pornstars.

Calling it CSAM-adjacent just means that nobody's comfortable actually looking at it to figure out what's going on, and hugely exaggerated.

[–] leigh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It’s not about whether the community actually skirts the line or not. It’s about how many people thought “gee, someone thinks these pictures are CSAM-adjacent, I need to go see for myself”. That’s disheartening.

[–] Ryantific_theory@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As an aside, I didn't realize I was annoying you in two different comment chains until just now. Sorry about that lol.

To your point though, that's why calling it CSAM-adjacent is an issue. Either you trust a stranger's judgement of whether these legal pornstars' bodies are morally wrong, or you feel morally wrong for checking to see if you agree or disagree with their assessment. Given the language used here, it's unsurprising that the thread over on Lemmynsfw is completely different in tone where the community name wasn't hidden and everyone could just see for themselves.

[–] leigh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh please, no one here is calling anyone’s body “morally wrong”.

I don’t need to “see if [I] agree or disagree with [the admin’s] assessment.” It wouldn’t make any difference whether I do or not. And it doesn’t matter what the community’s name is. By going to look, I’d be knowingly putting myself in a position to potentially see something that looks like CSAM. Why would I want to do that??

But a lot of people made the choice to do that, presumably for the sake of arguing with an admin on an instance many of them don’t even use. That is disheartening.

[–] Ryantific_theory@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

By going to look, I’d be knowingly putting myself in a position to potentially see something that looks like CSAM. Why would I want to do that??

I mean, that's literally my point. The way it's presented makes it seem like this ultra-sketchy community that despite being entirely legal, is supposedly morally wrong. How is anyone supposed to determine whether this was a good idea or not, if the very idea of checking is portrayed as morally repugnant?

And this whole debate is literally declaring that legal adults don't look right, and shouldn't be allowed to post explicit images of themselves or other professional sex workers. It's incredibly subjective.

[–] leigh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

How is anyone supposed to determine whether this was a good idea or not

Ada’s judgment is not infallible, but I’d rather trust her judgment than go personally look for something she initially (and admitted mistakenly) thought was CSAM. There are two possible outcomes: (1) I see something that looks similar to CSAM to me and I feel gross about it, or (2) I don’t see any problem with the content, but it doesn’t change anything because she’s the admin here and is still unwilling to host copies of it on her server where she evaluates anything that gets reported.

In either case, I can still enjoy content from LemmyNSFW elsewhere if I so choose — just not at Blahaj Zone.

And this whole debate is literally declaring that legal adults don’t look right, and shouldn’t be allowed to post explicit images

I think the two sides here are having different debates. Yes, there are legal adults who may appear underage, and they should have the same freedom any other adult has to post explicit pictures of themselves if they so choose. But a community that specifically encourages “child-like” content (as the community’s rules said at the time this decision was made) is going to gather multiple examples of this. Even if Ada fully trusts LemmyNSFW’s admins to 100% prevent any real CSAM from being federated, she’d still be exposed to reports of “potential CSAM” from there. She’s a community-building volunteer who willingly examines reported content that gets federated to Blahaj Zone, but she doesn’t want to view any more of it than is strictly necessary to protect her community. So she’s unwilling to federate with an instance that knowingly hosts such a community (even if the content is 100% legal) because it would cause more reports as time goes on. The content also upsets her on a personal level, which is fine — she’s a human being and is allowed to have feelings.

Other admins at other instances might not have the same aversion to this specific type of legal content that Ada does, so maybe they don’t mind having it copied onto their servers. That’s cool. The Fediverse is great like that, users aren’t stuck with the decisions of any single person in charge. Ada announced her decision so that all we Blahaj Zone users would know about it, and if any of us feel strongly enough (and clearly a number of people do), we can vote with our feet and go use one of those other instances so we also don’t lose access to the communities we use here.

This is my final comment on the matter. You may have the last word if you wish.

[–] Ryantific_theory@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

But a community that specifically encourages “child-like” content (as the community’s rules said at the time this decision was made) is going to gather multiple examples of this.

This is part of why the whole debate is is blown out of proportion. The community was for posting images of "adorable" pornstars, a direct clone of the reddit community that's one of the largest nsfw subreddits and has been for nearly a decade. The mod made the stumble of posting the dictionary definition of "adorable" on the sidebar, and can you guess what hyphenated word was a part of that? The idea that there's even a "this type of content" to have an aversion to feels ridiculous after seeing the community.

It's not teen focused, nor attempting to simulate dubious content, it's literally just pornstars looking cute. If the issue is gut-checking pornstars, the same thing is going to happen with the nsfw communities on this instance, barring a shift to milf-only posting instead of simply legal porn.

At any rate, I appreciate the civil last word, even if we still disagree.

If you browse all and sort by hot or popular on any of the Lemmy apps, posts from that community would pop up. It's not some hidden community. I think a lot of people had already seen posts from there. I figured that it had to be some other community on there, as I never really saw anything that looked too suspect from the more popular posts that reached all. It's petite pornstars.

Nobody is a bad person for looking to see what the blahaj admin was talking about and verify for themselves, either. I think most people figured that there is obviously no CSAM on there considering the community is still up and running, and they probably wanted to see if their morals align with the admin here.

You can't just take someone's word for truth on the internet these days.

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