Historically, porn has organically decided which platform or formats become dominant. It’s incredibly anti-censorship, but walks many fine lines.
As Reddit now and tomorrow reveals more weaknesses, where will the OnlyFans creators, porn posters, and all those grassroots porn communities go? The creators need to make money by showing to a large and interested user base. The users need lots of content to choose from and be fed constantly, with very few hindrances between them and their…goals. Many of the niches actually have respectful and healthy communities, too. Those people deserve an easy to use platform, just as much as people that want to look at cats, some of those groups, arguably more.
The thought of how to pose this to the Fediverse, now, has been on my mind for weeks:
Can the fediverse rise to the task? Does it even want to? Should it?
Personally, I think it should absolutely try, but I’m not sure it can do so without several deep strides in tech and development. I’m aware this is a hot af take, but it’s undeniable that the internet IS for porn, and denying that would be a huge opportunity loss for inevitably winning this popularity context.
There’s already porn in the fediverse. I don’t see a problem with it existing, but it’s always bothered me when porn and social media get mixed. That’s not necessarily because of prudishness or shame, but rather the fact that social media often employs dark patterns of addiction, and porn addiction can become very real, very quickly. I think we need to be careful about it, and I think there should be an onus on platforms as well as producers to help protect the vulnerable against addiction and the downward spiral.
Ehh… There’s definitely change that occurs (look at porn free people vs porn heavy people), and a risk of total destruction. But I feel like a lot of this stance IS prudish slippery-slope rhetoric and fear mongering.
Regardless, we could debate on the effects and philosophy of porn for a long time, there’s value and reality supporting all sides on this one, but I do agree we need to be careful about it and have it serve everybody, regardless of belief. This would require a lot of development to have (let’s say, pro porners and anti porners, just for sake of argument) pro and anti people both have minimal pain points whilst also growing a decentralized future with great accessibility and great data redundancy and great safety.