If you can, please read this whole post. There is a TLDR at the bottom. Please feel free to share your feedback.
During the last Weekly discussion, the topic of zoophilia and bestiality was brought up. I had to step in and close the thread before things went further out of hand. This post is to address that thread as well as a series of measures and concerns for the future.
I have been thinking a lot on how to write this post since I want to make sure it strikes a balance between the assertiveness that I believe is necessary and the non-judgmental attitude that a kink-positive space like Yiffit should have.
Please rest assured that non of these measures are meant to restrict the enjoyment of fictional content that we share here. They are only meant to ensure that Yiffit as a platform keeps being a place that is safe, harmonious and free of content that could lead to irl harm.
- A site-wide ban on the discussion of bestiality
As much as an argument could be made that such a discussion would be interesting even if merely from an intellectual point of view, the truth is that we at Yiffit are woefully unprepared for this for several reasons:
A) Immediate harm to users: On Lemmy / the fediverse is notoriously difficult to remove content. What you delete here is very likely still visible on other non-lemmy instances or could have been cached by a malicious instance. EVEN in the exceptional case of a merely intellectual discussion, what users say here even as a theoretical exercise, could be used against them for harassment or even for legal action against them in some countries.
B) Propagation of false information that leads to irl harm: Yiffit must not become a platform to propagate false information that could lead to irl harm. For anyone who has legitimate questions about this subject we encourage you to source your information from sites like Wikipedia instead of internet forums or social media.
For these reasons I believe it is necessary to ban the discussion of irl bestiality as well as any similar topics related to the irl practice of sex with real animals, whether in a hypothetical scenario or not. (Basically don't use a 'hypothetically speaking' phrase to circumvent the rule).
If this topic is brought up I ask you to please NOT reply and report it instead.
- A soft-restriction in the participation in weekly discussion threads to external groups with vested interests
I am sure that there was no bad intention and this is merely a side-effect on how federation works, but I have come to believe that there could be a negative impact in the enjoyment of weekly discussions if there is a sudden influx of non-lemmy users who have a certain personal interest in the subject that is being discussed.
I will not restrict weekly discussions to lemmy users only for the time being, but I will try to keep an eye out for situations in which these discussions could be impacted by such an influx of users.
Once again I want to highlight that I believe that none of these users really had bad intentions, but I want you to imagine what would have happened in the recent thread if while discussing the controversial subject of "puriteens" a group of these people who do not normally participate in Yiffit at all, were to jump on that thread and influence the discussion with their numbers. It would take away the enjoyment by users who regularly participate in them. Thus, the same really applies to any other topic.
On a related topic: while troubleshooting outbound federation I removed all blocked instances the other day and still have to re-enable the blocklist. The current criteria for adding an instance to this list is twofold:
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There is risk that our instance is used to distribute illegal content. This applies almost exclusively to lemmy instances.
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There is risk that users from a remote instance harass or intentionally interfere with our organic activity.
This second point is generally applicable to instances that are very political, but can apply to any other instance whose users participate in our spaces in a manner that leads us to believe they could have ulterior motives.
- An attitude of kindness and non-judgement for a person's kinks or sexual fantasies
Having discussed the harsher measures in points 1 and 2, I think it's necessary to reaffirm that I wholeheartedly want Yiffit to be a space that is queer, kink-friendly and open-minded.
If anything became clear from the responses to the last discussion thread is that a person's sexual interests are not an indicator of that person's moral compass and I think it would be wrong to perpetuate false stereotypes.
As such, I think it would be a serious faux pas for me to take any hot-headed action that impacts the content that is shared on Yiffit. On the contrary, I hope that the above measures (1 and 2) serve as a rational way to address the situation that happened the other and calm any concerns while in parallel we might as well double-down on keeping this place as open-minded as possible.
To be more specific, over the last years I have seen a pattern in which a certain situation or drama, caused a site or the site's staff to become exceedingly defensive and feel the need to crack down on anything that could be criticized. Subsequently, I have seen how bad actors such as Kiwifarms or any other malicious interest group have weaponized this outrage to manipulate people either into compliance or into silence.
As someone with a feral fursona, I have been called "zoophile" or "animal abuser" on twitter more times than I can count. During that time I went through different phases but eventually realized that bad actors will, inch by inch, demand more of your reaction / compliance or silence while holding the threat of a call-out, doxx or similar over your head. I feel like I have the obligation to do things differently with Yiffit.
As such, I feel like the best strategy is to take measures that are sensible while also reassure our users that our ethos has not changed. In this regard, I want to highlight two points:
- On the Harkness Test:
While this test is an interesting thought experiment, it should not be used to censor the fictional content that a person consumes.
People constantly read, watch or listen to fiction productions that feature non-consensual interactions such as battles, fights, uprisings, betrayal, manipulation, etc... It would be ridiculous to criticize one's enjoyment of Game of Thrones only because the interactions between fictional characters aren't always consensual. I don't think that the emotional highs and lows felt during a well-developed drama are that far removed from the emotional highs and lows felt during arousal.
Referring back to the harkness test and the world of fiction in general, it makes little sense that a knight might be allowed to slay a dragon and kill it, but suddenly there's moral outrage if a knight is depicted laying the dragon. Any outrage would seemingly be of moral/religious origin and not really related to the actual well-being of the dragon.
That said, Yiffit as a platform has and will have certain restrictions because some content can be more difficult to moderate and we will also monitor our content and comments to prevent any sort of malicious or harmful networking. But, as a rule of thumb, I and future staff will not judge you as person based on your what turns you on. Specific communities owned by Yiffit users are free to place their own restrictions and it's perfectly fine if someone does want to be more conservative in the type of content they allow. We only ask that any moderation actions they deem necessary, including bans from their community, be communicated in a respectful and non-condescending manner.
- On the matter of zoophilia
During the discussion thread several users admitted to experiencing an attraction to animals and explained that this is something they discussed with their therapist.
I want to emphasize that no moderator action was taken or should be taken merely for such a confession and that I do not wish to meddle or interfere in this person's mental health therapy.
Moderation actions will be taken if a person violates the rules, such as the discussion of bestiality in point 1 or we have indications that a user has ulterior motives, such as explained in point 2.
I've tried to educate myself a bit and found this on wikipedia:
"Stephanie LaFarge, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School, and Director of Counseling at the ASPCA, writes that two groups can be distinguished: bestialists, who rape or abuse animals, and zoophiles, who form an emotional and sexual attachment to animals.[16] Colin J. Williams and Martin Weinberg studied self-defined zoophiles via the internet and reported them as understanding the term zoophilia to involve concern for the animal's welfare, pleasure, and consent, as distinct from the self-labelled zoophiles' concept of "bestialists", whom the zoophiles in their study defined as focused on their own gratification."
When some people in that thread confessed about their attraction and subsequently began exposing their reasons on why they believe that animals can consent to sexual intercourse with humans, I do believe that they did not have bad motives and that their expression of care for animals to the extend of having become vegan is well-intended.
In 2018, a now infamous furry youtuber named Kero was exposed as being involved with people who tied up, raped, mutilated and dismembered animals, including puppies. He was also caught organizing a trip to a cabin where they wanted to rape two german shepherds and he had the odd request to 'not kill them' (which leads me to believe that he knew what his accomplice was usually into).
I hope you understand why I fucking want to believe the excerpt from the Wikipedia and that the people who interacted in our discussion thread the other day were different from Kero and had at least good intention, regardless of the accuracy on their theories of consent. As such I do not wish to interfere in their therapy and will hold no judgment for their involuntary attraction. I will, however, emphasize the two new rules that restrict the discussion or promotion or irl bestiality and also of non-organic interactions with ulterior motives.
What this means in practice is that we caution users to be careful in how they handle such sensitive topics. While it means a lot to me that someone with a complicated personal situation feels comfortable enough on Yiffit to open up and maybe even seek the advice of other members, we will remove content if it's off-topic or brought up in an unnatural manner that makes us feel uneasy about the actual intentions of that person.
Furthermore, please remember that it's nearly impossible to truly delete anything on the fediverse and asses the impact that this could have in your safety and privacy.
This word of caution is of course applicable to any other topic: be careful with your privacy and please do not give us reason to believe that you're trying to use this platform to artificially spread an idea that's not related to to furry / yiff itself, whether political, personal, financial (adverts), etc...
Wrapping up. TLDR:
In summary there are two new rules:
- Do not discuss irl bestiality.
- Do not use Yiffit with ulterior motives that are not related to the furry fandom or yiff (for example it's okay to post your favorite kind of yiff because you want others to know about it).
2.a. As part of the rules above, we will monitor discussion threads to avoid the sudden influence of an external group with a vested interest in one of the topics of the discussion.
At the same time we keep our commitment of being kink-positive and being non-judgemental about your sexual fantasies as long as content and interactions shared are not illegal or harmful. In the case of a sensitive personal circumstance being brought up, we will handle it with respect as long as it's done so in a natural, organic and safe manner. If we feel the user is being reckless with their own privacy or is trying to proselytize a certain idea, we will remove the content. Persistence in the matter could lead to a suspension or defederation.
I truly hope you find this way of handling things to be level-headed and measured in order to handle a complex subject in a manner that asserts our commitment to safety and human/animal well-being without losing our ethos of openness, kink-positivity and healthy sexual expression.
