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> beyond the obscene

I mean, that's pretty arbitrary too, e.g. FB censors female breasts, which is not considered obscene in many places.

It's a difficult line to walk.



Where I live even full nudity would not be considered obscene at all, unless something sexual was going on.

However it is becoming more and more the case. With American platforms and media, their learned attitude of being overly prude also made their way here. Though I'm not sure whether "prude" is the right word to describe the crippling self-consciousness many experience when faced with nude humanity.

I suspect it has be actively instilled by your parents and society around you while you are still young, or you won't ever have it.


As an American, I don't think it's "crippling self-consciousness", we're just trained to think of nudity as sexually provocative in itself.


"It's not the nudity that's bad, it's the sexual provocation! I mean, I don't care if they're topless in their own homes, but do they have to flaunt it? They're so in-your-face."


It's not difficult, it's the exact same kind of decision they decline to make with regard to advertising. These days that refusal lives mostly in political and health messaging, but we can see that they don't refuse in a lot of other subjects.


No obscene, inappropriate.

But it can very quickly descend into the obscene, and if they didn't filter you'd get nasty dick picks all over the place.

Every social place has rules, not exception. It's just a matter of how they are impressed.


It's more than that though. It's not just the quantity of stuff you wouldn't want to see, but that FB would then be known for that type of content, and they'd lose the other content that brings in the money. Purely from a business model perspective, they want to keep that stuff off.


Purely from a business perspective, they do not want boobs and dick picks, it would die as quickly as chatroulette.

Not only would most people flee, advertisers would as well.

FYI advertisers don't like hate speech as well, which is why there are rules about that.

The perplexing issue comes down to things that are not 'hate speech' so much as a) insensitive things and b) truly 'fake news' ie QAnon, anti-vax etc.

You're right to point out that it is this stuff at the 'fringe' that keeps a lot of people engaged. Hence the paradox.




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