One of the most ridiculous and defining moments of the nineties was when Bill Clinton attempted to convince the world that oral sex was not sex, only penetration was. I suppose he was successful, thus, we have been since then redifining sex, marriage, underage, consent, sex act, and a number of other things.
In the 2000's, it is no secret that many websites that emerged might entertain monopolistic intentions, thus, becoming a one-stop shop, all things to all people. You know, where you check the news, the weather, find information, photographs, sounds, movie information, sex and violence. Ooops! Yes, sex and violence.
No one wants to admit, but our society (maybe all societies) is simply fascinated by sex and violence. And given our fascination, we attempt to redifine what constitutes graphic or written representation of sex and violence, moreover, what is legal.
Yet, there are things such as nice and bad neighborhoods on the internet. A lot of hosting companies do not accept sex sites because they can make their servers be tagged as "bad neighborhoods". Yet, sex sites continue to spring about all over the place, and sex text and pictures still drive most of the traffic on the web.
Thus remains the question. To be all things to all people, you cannot leave sex (and violence) out of the picture. Yet, to be all things to all people, you have to protect the children against sex (and violence) as well.
What to do? Simple, I suppose write a few policies to make believe something is being done about the matter, and then, don't do anything.
Facebook, the most successful social site of the world, has policies pertaining not only to portrayal of sex and violence, as well as hate speech, trade mark infringement, impersonation and a host other naughty things. And it has a mechanism for reporting such infringements, including sexual content.
Do not waste your time reporting, you might be frustrated. Let it be, let the children be exposed to these things.
I have written a few posts about the Subscriber Suggestions that are fed to profiles daily. I visited quite a few of the suggestions, to check whether there was anything interesting, and came to the conclusion that a vast number of these profiles are not real people, rather, simple mini Light Porno sites. I reported a few, to no avail. I suppose the resourceful profile owners decided to place the naughty pictures inside albums, rather than the cover, and there is no place to report albums. As the covers are OK, the profile is deemed OK by the latte-drinking individual who is quickly reading the nuisance report and getting ready to check his iphone for any text messages for the 100th time in the day.
Then yesterday I got this suggestion, and it looked from the profile photo that this time I could probably get one of these removed. It became a matter of honor to me, getting at least one of them profiles removed. The picture portrayed a woman, with the camera focusing on her behind covered by a tiny thong.
Then there was the cover photo.
Two almost fully unclad women, one on top of the other. The one on top held a bare breast of the one laying down, who had this orgasmic face and a finger inside her mouth. For sure they would consider this risque.
Guess what, I got a response from the site saying nothing was wrong with the picture, I suppose for them this is not sex, it is a pic-nic in the park! In fairness, they provided me a chance to state my case further. Which I did.
I invited them to look at the only album on the profile, the cover photo album! There was a picture of a machine gun (see, violence there somewhere), and a lot of cash thrown all over. The rest were all pictures of women in different stages of disrobing. In one picture, three women are shot from behind, wearing teeeeeeeeeeeeny thongs, and you could clearly see their anuses. In another, two women hold each other, with huge breasts allowing partial view of their nipples. Another picture portrayed a woman wearing purple tights, shot from the bottom up, with her finger clearly up her you know what. These were the most blatant cases, but the rest of the pictures where all sexy, and you could see enough of the women's private zones, plenty of shades or outlines of nipples and pubic hair to qualify these as sexual content or nudity.
Guess what again. The profile is still up.
I suppose for FB sexual content has to involve a man and a woman having sex (funny, marriages don't require that anymore, but the definition of sexual content does). Clear rectum shots are not sexual, nor is shooting pudenda covered by tights, clearly depicting female masturbation, or hot women fondling each other's bare breasts. So I suppose, the Clinton doctrine as to what constitute sex applies to FB as well.
I am not the Beatles' "Mean Mr. Mustard", always shouting at something obscene. If you want to see pornography and women (or men) in all stages of nakedness on the internet, there are tons of sites to see, perhaps millions, who knows. Facebook is supposed to be a safe zone for children, in fact, any child can befriend this profile, and be feed these titillating pictures.
The hypocrisy is having the so-called policy in place and a mechanism for reporting.
I for one, will no longer waste my time. I've had it. My attempt to block the subscriber suggestions was unsuccessful, for I suppose, there is no such a thing. In that sense, the ball is in my court, I will simply ignore the suggestions henceforth.
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