This week’s column — an opinion piece and observations on sex and social networking sites here’s a snip from No Sex Please, We’re 2.0:
I was at the SFist holiday party two years ago when I got into a fight. Local social networking site Tribe.net had decided to clean up the sex content its users were creating, enjoying and discussing in the online forums and galleries. Which also meant chasing away entire communities: Many members liked that we could have groups about all of our interests in one space — sex, guns and baking cupcakes if we felt like it. Upstairs at the fancy bash, I ran into Tribe’s then-community manager and … Well, he started it. But I finished it, and the fight made gossip columns both print and Web the next day.
Tribe.net’s sexual cleansing has just hit its second anniversary, MySpace is becoming stringently censorious in user’s e-mail and outgoing links, and there are now more flavors of social networking sites than of lube in the Castro — so it’s a surprise to hear that Tribe.net has had a sexual awakening.
Social networking sites hope to become part of people’s everyday lives, but they’re always split on sexuality. Either they’re all the way, like SocialKink.com, or sex is the easiest way to get kicked off the site. Most 2.0 sites keep their terms of use intentionally vague, hoping to never have to categorically define sex, erotica or porn. Are boobies art or porn? What constitutes an unsafe bare breast? No one knows if their boobs are evil to children or part of the beautiful cycle of life, and last time I asked mine where they bounced on the issue, I got two different answers.
Of course, this creates a confusing atmosphere where users never know if what they’re doing is right or wrong, employees try to apply an inconsistent “I know it when I see it” judgment to each situation, and relying on the community to anonymously report abuse creates an atmosphere ripe for … abuse. (…)
Link.
