So let me start off by saying that I recognize that there was initially a genuine problem with people who didn’t want NSFW content being exposed to it.
Some of this was due to the fact that not all content was being correctly flagged as NSFW, and some of it was because a lot of users didn’t realize that individual users can choose to completely block an entire instance - which is not only a very easy and fast solution, but also does not require an all-or-nothing approach of defederating from NSFW instances.
A number of changes were made, but some of those lingering changes have meant that people who do want to see NSFW content are not because:
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Even having subscribed to several NSFW subs, they are effectively completely missing from my feed.
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Most NSFW thumbnails are blurred.
Both of these behaviors should not be occurring if a user has chosen in their settings to NOT hide NSFW content.
However, I will also say that the blurred state is something that deserves its own user setting (i.e. so that a user can choose to NOT hide NSFW, but still want them blurred or not) - preferably with the granularity to set it for various sub-types of NSFW (e.g. porn, gore, etc…).
On most platforms the problem with nsfw is that it upsets advertisers. If we dont have to appease them, what is the problem here? I dont think we should automatically validate a puritanical approach here.
It’s not just advertisers. It’s also the payment processing companies, the bible-thumping firebrands, etc. Plus, there’s laws to consider. If every NSFW pic isn’t positively identified as being of a legal adult who is legally competent and legally licensed to share that content, then you have to assume that it’s all minors and revenge. If you aren’t legally verifying that every possible user or viewer who can see that comment is also a legal adult, you must assume that your content is being displayed to children. When you have those assumptions in mind (which are also the government’s assumptions btw), you absolutely can’t have that on your server or your user’s computers. If there’s any hope of this getting to a point of profit without fully deanonymizing every poster and every user, porn is poison.
Personally, I think NSFW stuff is an important part of a community, but I also recognize that allowing a community to be overrun with NSFW stuff usually makes it into a NSFW community, not simply a community that allows NSFW stuff. Blurred thumbnails seem to me a good compromise.
There is no reason why blurred thumbnails can’t easily be made into a user-selectable feature. That makes everyone happy.