Weekly Update - 74 (Patreon)

Reminder to myself I've been doing this for only three years.  Reminder that this is what I've chosen to do with my life because I enjoy it.  Reminder that it doesn't make sense to so consistently fall short of my expectations when I don't even know what I expect.  Reminder that just because I FEEL so unbelievably inadequate doesn't make it real.

Comic This Week: Sure, maybe.  Hopefully.

Max Poster: Max Poster

Character Page: Version 1 is up!  Thanks again to the code wolf for his donation of an entire Saturday to make it a reality.  I may want to tweak some of the text, but let me know what you think of it so far.  https://www.godslayerscomic.com/characters

Drawing: Page 111

Playing: Rimworld

Rambling:

So I teased a few weeks ago that I wanted to ramble on for awhile about censorship, then I chickened out because I really don't like to get political on here about anything, in any form... but then this censorship thing keeps coming up, it keeps rolling around inside of my head.  As a creator of a thing on the internet I am peripherally affected by censorship, and I see a lot of other content creators grumble about it in various ways, even rebelling against it in different forms.

This is my own way of grumbling about it, I guess, but this isn't me going, "rawr, don't censor me!" -- that might have been me once, a long time ago -- instead though, I want to offer a slightly more analytical, thoughtful perspective, maybe.

What sparked this train of thought is that the mere use of the word "porn" in Patreon posts automatically flags my posts for review here on Patreon by their Trust and Safety team.  (A team to which, again, I apologize because I'm sure it isn't fun to have to review every single post with the use of a single four-letter word).  Now, it isn't that I have any problems with Patreon's policies -- quite the contrary, in fact.  Though I know there are many who disagree with me, I maintain that Patreon has very fair policies regarding censorship and content-protections.  Patreon warns me that the usage of the word triggers their review filters, and they claim to examine the greater context before taking any kind of disciplinary action on the creator, which is an approach I genuinely appreciate when compared to AI-driven autobans employed on many other platforms.  I also recognize that Patreon is doing this largely to protect themselves from government fines and other penalties, that it costs them money to police the platform, that they have to police an insane amount of content passing to the platform every day, and that given the choice, they would probably rather not.  What bothers me about it in particular is that this account is already set up as an Adult-content account, I don't post porn to it, and it is literally JUST the four letters "P O R N" that are getting my posts flagged for review.  As if the mere discussion of the topic itself is in danger of policy violation.  (Now, note that I haven't been banned yet nor have any of my posts been deleted, which is, again, a credit to Patreon's fairness).  I recognize it is largely governments that are responsible for this characteristically heavy-handed, idiotic solution to a perceived public problem, but it is this form of overreactive, overtuned censorship that I take issue with.  Not censorship itself, but the way it is applied, across the internet, across media, and across the global scale.  Humans are a reactive species, and this is our reaction to what we see as a problem, but it is a hasty, lazy, poorly implemented solution to a very, very complicated problem.

Censorship is important I feel, on some level, for the control of a civilized society.  People tend to be curious individuals.  Curious individuals tend to gravitate towards certain topics of interest, and those interests can evolve over time and with exposure to other, related interests.  It requires less and less justification and exposure to gain some new interest if you are already interested in other things that are sort of related, and you can begin to build these neural bridges to link them together in a way that specifically appeals and makes sense to you.

Imagine a world where every interest is equally accessible, where there are no hurdles to cross before you begin exploring any topic.  In such a world, it is just as easy for someone to fall down a rabbit hole of Machiavellian literature as it would be for someone to fall into the hands of a cult that believes their deity is fixing the world by way of the ritual devouring of infants.  There's, obviously, many other complicated factors involved, but again, nothing is so simple that words can describe, so bear with me.  I can think of no topic, however, that might be less politically sensitive in the modern era than the one proposed by Jonathan Swift.  Ironic that.

The problem is that many of our interests are self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing.  Someone with a cursory interest in a hobby will continue investigating that hobby because it is psychologically fulfilling for them to do so.  Similarly, something that seems abhorrent to us at first can slowly become less so through repeated exposure, desensitization and information (or misinformation) gathering.  Censorship is meant to act as a hurdle to protect people from those less-sane and less-socially-constructive interests... like baby eating.

Censorship will never put a stop to it entirely, of course, but the harder it is for people to find and/or discuss such topics in the open, the less likely a progeny-consuming cult is to gain a substantial following or membership.  Keeping those fringe interests on the fringe, keeping them away from venues where they might be able to gather public support or influence our culture in a significant way.  A healthy society should be inclusive, I feel, but it cannot and should not include toxic individuals with unhealthy or destructive ideas that might harm or weaken that society.  (That exact philosophy has also been used to justify genocide.  Anything can be taken to an extreme.  No topic is so simple...  I digress.)

But see... language isn't something we can objectively govern.  Two people reading any Victorian-era poem might come away from it with very different interpretations of the same exact text.  Problems arise when we blanket ban words and words alone, without examining the greater context.  If we put a stop to all discussion about any given topic, suddenly we have crippled the ability to have intelligent discourse about those topics, which can hinder efforts to improve upon those parts of society.  The fact is, words are critical for intellectual discussion and progress.  Porn isn't going away.  It is quite possibly one of the oldest forms of art, and no amount of banning it will stop it entirely.  We need to come up with better ways for it to be expressed safely and for a specific (adult) audience, not just banhammer it away when it shows up or put those USELESS little age restrictions over it.  (I don't know what genius thought any child was stupid enough to answer the "Are you 18+" question honestly.)  If we blanket ban the discussion surrounding porn though, these idiotic "solutions" to the problem remain in place because no one is talking about the topic or better ways to solve these problems.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Ergo: problem solved.

(I also just want to point out that while Patreon's content flagging algorithm takes particular exception to the word "porn" it has no problems whatsoever with all of my mentions of baby-devouring.  Perhaps that is a credit to the real problems actually facing our society today.  Perhaps we should take a step back and reexamine our priorities.)

Another thing that happens when we employ large-scale, heavy-handed restrictions is that it forces us to adapt to them.  When things of ill-repute are still important enough to large portions of society (IE: things like, pornography, gambling, alcohol, swearing -- not baby-eating) we easily find ways to circumvent any restrictions that get put in place.  If certain imagery is banned, artists will find ways to draw and depict it in increasingly subtle ways to obfuscate the content.  When alcohol is illegal, organized crime skyrockets, profiting off of the illegal trade.  When gambling is illegal, everyone just goes to Nevada.

When I was a kid, a word like "fuck" was unthinkable to even speak.  A worse four-letter word was difficult to fathom.  The barest utterance of which would result in discipline unimaginable.  Yet, we kids found ways around it.  Because it turns out that swearing serves an important role in conversation.  Swear words can be used to vent anger or frustration in a harmless way, they can be used for emphasis or to express passion, they can be used in casual speech just because you want to seem like you're cool or rebellious.  We said "Darn" and "Crap" and "Poop" and "Shoot" and "Frick" and "Frack" and "Fudge" and invented any number of other words to serve the exact same purpose that "damn" "shit" and "fuck" originally did.  We saw the same thing happen in movies and television, to get around the censorship fines.  But WHY?  Why were these replacement words more acceptable?  Why was one word completely unacceptable, resulting in real, tangible consequences, but any number of other words serving as a 1:1 replacement for it were totally fine?  I'm not sure anyone even thought about it.  We blamed the word itself, but no one gave any thought to the purpose it might serve or the reason it was offensive.

And yet that same absence of thought is employed globally today.  When you go to chat with your friend and the profanity filter kicks in and deletes letters from your message just because you wanted to tell your friend you think they are "****ing awesome."  Does your brain automatically replace **** with the word "fuck"?  I know mine does.  So what good is that profanity filter even doing?  Is it protecting our kids from seeing letters they might otherwise be exposed to?  Perhaps that is the intent, but frankly, if your child has been on the internet unsupervised for 30 seconds, or if they go to any school and spend time around any other kids with older siblings, they are probably very familiar with vulgar language.  They are also probably smart enough not to use it around you not because they feel like it is inappropriate, but because they know they will get in trouble if you hear them say it.

There are times, I feel, that language should be censored, but it must be examined in context.  The only time I feel it is appropriate to filter out the word "fuck" is if it is being used in a form of agitated verbal attack, in which case, I feel like the entire message, and the person sending it, is to blame, not the word itself.  The entire message most likely includes words far worse than merely fuck as well, if it was written with the intent to offend.  A message written with the intent to offend is not and should not be acceptable.  But the greater context surrounding the use of language must be examined, it must be analyzed.  It is crucial.  The intent is far more important than the words used.

Look at how long this got.  I guess I've had a lot of thoughts lately on the censorship of language itself.  And I am not so naive to pretend like it's a simple problem with a simple solution, but I do believe the blanket censorship of language is not a constructive approach.  People need to be taught how to censor themselves.  People need to be educated on why certain topics are harmful and why eating babies is generally to be avoided.  Provide people with the tools, education and information they need to make their own healthy choices, and they may just surprise you.  If we continue just stupidly and absent-mindedly blanket-banning everything that anyone might find objectionable for any reason... one day there might be nothing left to say.

Werf, hopefully that finally gets this shit off my brain.  I guess the point of all this is: swear as much as you want, and don't eat babies -- it's just not cool, you guys.