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Gore, Mutilation, Beastiality, Necrophilla, and Porn need explanations
Hi there,
Heavy title but I do think these topcies need more explaination within the Imzy community and I would like to explain why. I think I can assume that Imzy does not want to support these things (which I am not arguing against) but the lack of more explanation will lead to more confusion and I think a more limiting website down the road.
For reference, I am refering to a section in the community policy which simple states:
*Gore, Mutilation, Bestiality, or Necrophilia
Don't post the mutilation, torture, or abuse of human beings, animals, or their remains. It's not okay, and this doesn’t require any explanation.
I am just going to go down the list and talk about questions that arose for me when I read this. Plus, I'll be tacking on porn because I think it also lacks more explanation.
Gore: I wasn't actually sure what Gore meant when I read that. I googled Gore and needless to say I was presented with very real and unpleasant images. But I also found fantasy and illustrated works. Does Gore only apply to posting photos of real people? If so, what if for example, an Imzy community wants to raise awarness about the suffering of people or animals and have photographic examples or illustrated examples? For example, there are illustrated drawings of a North Korean who escape and illustrated what he experienced in a prison camp. His experiences include the torture and abuse of human beings. What about historical illustrations on torture and the gorey-ness of war? Or what about a fantasy illustration of a hero disemboweling an evil beast and the artist chose to have guts come out?
Mutilation Similar to the arguements I bring up in Gore. What comes to mind is Female and Male genital mutilation. I don't support either of those but I do support a community bringing awareness to them. Awareness can involve photographic examples of genital mutilation. On a more personal point, I believe that male circumcision in the US is genital mutilation and should be illegal to perform on boys. Most sites don't see it that way but under the Imzy general blanket of "just mutilation" should I consider reporting that? Reaching for an example now but what about extreme body art? People consent to crazy stuff to be done to their own bodies like heavy piercing and skin streching. I consider that their personal choice but what if others don't? Mutilation needs more explanation for that reason to support awareness and personal choices.
Bestiality Again, I think I can safety guess what Imzy means by no Bestiality such as no photos or support groups for it. But again, not offering an explanation leaves questions. What about mythology? There is a lot of beautiful old artwork that involves bestiality. For example, Zeus having sex with a woman as a goose and there are consentual and non-consentual versions of this. Or, ever since Loki got popular in Marvel, there are tons of jokes about how in his mythology he has sex with a horse to give birth to Sleipnir, an eight legged horse. The modern artwork, generally from DeviantART, may not show the act but certainly are saying it happened. Without an explanation, where is that line? I hear it said that Furries are just into Bestiality which I don't believe but if I did I think I would have grounds to try and get Furry groups removed from Imzy without any explanation from Imzy.
Necrophilia Without an explanation I might not even know what that means. I don't think users should have to google something to understand a policy. What if googling that topic brings up nastier examples of what Imzy can describe? Does this policy also apply to fantasy Necromancers? Again reaching for an extreme example, there was a movie in 2013 called Warm Bodies which was a romance comedy set in a zombie apocalypse where a living girl and a zombie boy fall in love. I never saw the movie but what if there was a scene that implied they got more intimate? A final example/question I have is I own a comic book about the Green River Killer who killed and mutilated the bodies of 48 women. The story was meant to be an accurrate account of the events following the life of a worker on the case. There were not in the act illustrations of necrophila but that's what the Green River Killer did. The comic illustrated bodies that had been violated and addressed how communities and people recover and cope when these crimes happen. Is the discussion of actual events and the serious mental illness of Necrophilla not allowed?
Porn Almost done! Porn is only described as "In general, we define pornography as imagery whose primary or sole purpose is sexual arousal, and we reserve the right to remove content that is brought to our attention as we see fit." I think that definition is too vague as sexual arousal means something different to different people. Imzy removing content brought to their attention as they seem fit will likely lead to frustrated users. What if a user has been posting sexual images for a while. They may not consider it pornographic but as they become more popular on Imzy, their content starts getting reported. All of sudden, their content is removed and really, their entire time on Imzy building a profile has been wasted. DeviantArt has clear examples of what they define as porn http://help.deviantart.com/565/ Although graphic to read, there is less room for confusion.
That's it, thanks for reading. Please don't believe I am defending that these topics should be allowed without restriction. What I think is that "this doesn't require explanation" is not sufficient for website policies. More true of Imzy which is trying to make a better place. I was a long time Imgur user and finally left because comments would make me feel so shitty. Not even comments directed at me just the same general hateful garbage. I found out about Imzy in a Times article and I want this place to succeed.
TL;DR Imzy has to provide furthur explanation on these topics to avoid user confusion and debate about policy interpretation.




On mobile right now and not wearing my glasses so I'm going to keep this super short. We're going to clarify the policy but are taking some time on it so we can be thorough and thoughtful.
Just say, "don't post gross shit with the intention of either getting rocks off or causing offense."
That's really vague and not at all helpful in any way. It would disqualify all written erotica, for one thing!
I'm ok with that.
That doesn't mean everyone else is. Shockingly, you are not the only person in the world whose opinions matter.
Not everyone else in the world is fine with snuff porn being banned either. It's a question of where you draw the line. I'm not a bad person just because I draw the line sooner than you. And you're not a bad person just because you draw the line further than me. My point is that it's 100% subjective at this point. How should it be decided where to draw the line? Are there any scientific studies that have determined which kind of dirty shit is worse for the world?
Barely on topic but - Honestly, the best way to get me to click out of your awareness post is to put in pics of mutilated anything. I think people should link to pics like that so that if we wanna see them, we can, and if not, we don't have to. Trying to shock me into empathy only makes me delete it from my mind faster.
This I have to agree with. Link it, don't outright show it.
It seems a little contradictory to me to have a website that lets you create private and adult-only places, and then not allow adult content.
Imzy also advertises itself as the next big fandom hub, but not allowing adult content even if it's posted in the appropriate places - properly tagged, and properly posted in those adult-only communities - will greatly diminish this site's appeal for those communities. Shipping is basically fandom's main preoccupation, and romance and sex are (very popular) extensions of that.
They've already said that erotic fanfic is okay, and are also okay with (at least a lot of) drawn erotic fanart.
Which is really unclear, in that TOS. I'd like it explicitly clarified. I've been thinking about making an 18+ comm when the option is available, and there would be little point in that if erotica wasn't allowed.
IIRC they said they wanted to word the TOS right and are working on a wording. An ETA would be nice.
Agreed - there's good reason to restrict these things to some degree, but there needs to be some clarity about what degree that is. But I did see a comment from the staff in another thread that said this issue had been raised before and that they're working on rewriting the TOS to make them clearer, so hopefully this problem will be resolved soon.
Well, shoot. I was even looking through the history to make sure it hasn't been brought up before. Oh well. =)
Something else that I hope they're working on during this beta is the search function. You're right, it's not very easy to find out if someone has already addressed your concerns in a similar post!
It's an issue of concern to the fandom community that Imzy has been courting, because fanworks often include sexually explicit material, some of which is pretty extreme and controversial even within fandom.
Many fans (certainly not all, and perhaps not even a majority) prefer not to censor fanworks because you don't know who's on the other side. Maybe this person writing a story about a teenage girl being graphically and repeatedly raped by an adult is a sick pedophile getting their rocks off, but maybe it's a sexual abuse survivor who's using fiction to work through their own trauma. Or maybe it's George R.R. Martin writing one of the bestselling fantasy series of all time (anybody remember poor Jeyne Poole?) Writers and artists get a pass on a lot of things that would be unconscionable in real life, but it makes drawing up a workable TOS sort of complicated, I imagine!
If it's any consolation, the thread itself wasn't directly about the TOS, so you would have had to scroll down through all the comments to find it.
I really dislike even drawn or "classic art" portrayal of bestiality.
I believe Imzy leaving these up to a little interpretation gives community leaders a little wiggle room to make decisions at their level for their communities.
Just my thoughts.
As a community leader, I completely disagree with this. It really doesn't. What if Imzy disagrees with me? I'm far more likely, as a community leader of a community about erotic writing, to allow pretty nearly anything in my community except stuff which is specifically posted to be abusive - like spamming or flaming - but Imzy may not have the same standards as me, which means I'm potentially exposing my community, as well as the profiles who are members, to being deleted.
It's a little self-serving of me perhaps, but I'd prefer if there were no restrictions on erotic (and maybe even graphically violent) content at all, and leave it entirely up to the communities/admins themselves to sort this stuff out.
Me too, to be honest, but that's not really going to be a possibility, unfortunately.
I think they're doing a decent job of setting things out so far, but there are aspects that could be clearer - as the post states very well. I think from a legal standpoint, for gore, mutilation, bestiality and necrophilia, only images of real things matter - text isn't illegal, drawings of fictional things aren't illegal, and only in sexual contexts. So a picture of a dead animal in and of itself shouldn't be wrong to post, however much I don't want to see it - I don't want to police Imzy as a whole by my own standards, though my own communities are a different story.
That's good to know. Though I wonder if there's a legal reason why Imzy restricts this kind of content (whereas sites like Reddit and Tumblr don't) or if it's more about morality or projecting the right image?
Tumblr certainly does restrict content!
Huh, TIL.
I like the word "showcase" in that when they talk about gore, mutilation etc. I think that is a good word to describe the difference between just posting vs presenting real life situations just for entertainment.
This is complicated but I'm interested in how imzy will go about clarifying!
My idea is if it's something you'd shut your laptop over when someone walks in unannounced, it shouldn't be posted. But I do agree that there is an explanation needed, just for clarity.
"Something you'd shut your laptop over when someone walks in unannounced" varies wildly from person to person, though. Some people would shut their laptop if they were on a health site looking up information about a potential health condition they had - does that mean we shouldn't be posting information about health in relevant communities?
My comment really isn't meant to be that serious, of course I understand other implications :)
That's a rather strange standard. The first thing I'd do if someone walked into the room unannounced right now is ask them what the hell they were doing in my bedroom
you're assuming I meant bedroom, I deliberately didn't specify. :)
No, I'm just saying that what's appropriate to have on a laptop screen depends on where you are, just as what's appropriate to post depends on where you're posting it. I.e. public v. private comm, general comm v. 18+ comm with a warning in the description.
If you guys were here in my apartment I would make an hilarious comment but I am going to be discreet for the first time in my life.
As to the actual issue. I know it when I see it is a famous quote about that which is hard to describe in words. I know Gore andporn and mutilation when I see it.