I have received around 9 asks about the PF ToS change, not including private messages in chat and tags in the discord, so here is my take on this, and I apologize for people looking for an optimistic view, because it’s grating on my nerves currently and I’m not sure I’ll be able to hide it completely.
Here a gpoy of PF:
So, as a brief reminder: ever since PF landed on tumblr promoting this anti-free haven that would save fandom from itself, we have asked one question repeatedly, dating back to 2015 on their tumblr blog: will N-SFW be allowed? And if yes, then what kind?
Here PF’s insistently vague and accommodating replies starting from 2015 and ending in 2018:
Any idea what your policy will be regarding adult/N-SFW content?
We won’t restrict adult content.
About adult content. What’s allowed when drawing N-SFW and what isn’t?
Ultimately it will be up to the poster to decide if their content is N-SFW, but I would say as a general rule to err on the side of caution. Basically, if you wouldn’t want your innocent young nephew or your boss to see it, then flag it as N-SFW. But more specifically anything that features nud1ty or explicit s3xual content should definitely be N-SFW.
What’s y'all’s policy regarding N-SFW material?
N-SFW material in general is allowed. When creating a post you can apply a ‘N-SFW’ flag to it for the convenience of other users who may wish to hide N-SFW-flagged material by default.
Going off that p0rnbot ask, what’s your stance on general n-sfw content run by actual people?
Adult content posted by real humans is totally fine. :) Just no spam
How will pillowfort handle n-sfw content? Will it be allowed?
Yes, we allow N-SFW content, we just asked that it be tagged with a ‘N-SFW’ flag (available when you’re creating your post) so that it can be filtered out for the convenience of other users who wish to screen out such content.
If I had to overanalyze their replies, I’d say that in 2018 they introduced for the first time that “in general” (bolded by me) which was like a single off-tune note in a continuous melody, causing you to startle out of the peaceful half-sleep state you were in, wondering what happened. But the melody has already gone back to normal, and you doze off again.
Then their latest before the AnnouncementTM:
In light of tumblr now no longer allowing “adult content” (like n-sfw art/pictures) will pillowfort still allow n-sfw content as long as it is properly marked? Because that decision has pretty much destroyed my already little faith in tumblr.
Yes, we plan to allow N-SFW content with very few restrictions. I don’t have any particular insight into why Tumblr is making this decision but if I had to guess, it’s because allowing N-SFW content conflicts with their need for the site to be marketable and safe for advertisers– Pillowfort on the other hand plans to derive most of its revenue from user subscriptions, meaning that we will be beholden to our actual userbase and not outside advertisers and can therefore have more leeway in what we can host.
In hindsight, maybe we should have looked more closely. “With very few restrictions”? Interesting. Especially because I’ve been receiving complaints about their incredibly vague replies about n-sfw content and their even more vague ToS for months. It’s why I put my discourse main base on DW, because based on what they had said, only fictional content was safe, and discourse (but also meta) was already a gray area. Also, “most of its revenue”? Where do you plan on taking the rest? Will it affect your ToS? Care to share your long-term plans so we know if we even want to be on this ship?
And one wonders: why wait so long before making gradually and subtly known that they would put restrictions on adult content? Good FinR on my right shoulder says “Because it’s a starting website, you silly! They need to go with trial&error to find what works best for their long-term plan once they form it. It’s obvious!” But Evil FinR on my left shoulder says “Sure, Good FinR is totally right! And the two fundraising campaigns where PF needed money on top of all the registration keys that are currently their main income for the site on top of them riding the wave of tumblr’s p-urge to draw users in with the promise of the non-censorship that tumblr has embraced are purely coincidental.” Damn, it, Evil FinR.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg, which is great.
I’m not going to address here the fact that they somehow managed to chose one of the very few domains that don’t allow s3xual and p0rnographic content, and I had to spend an entire evening shutting up a cackling Evil FinR because not reading/understanding the ToS is such a tumbrine thing to do. I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, especially because PF made it clear they intend on switching domain soon, but then even Wired which interviewed them together with DW worded it like they legit were completely ignorant of their chosen domain’s rules. Tears down Evil FinR’s face.
I was still optimistic. What matters is not not making mistakes ever, but promptly fixing them, getting up again, learning quickly, taking responsibility, being honest.
An artist gets banned for posting l0li art. Good FinR says: “It must have been a misunderstanding, or they don’t allow n-sfw as a whole yet because of the domain issue. We need to be patient and understanding!”
So a user gets banned by a moderator for something that was not banned in the ToS (yet), and had been for the past 3 years insistently kept vague and positively worded to encourage people to give money and subscribe, and then concede that yeah, it’s fair to give them back the account because the user didn’t have a crystal ball, duh.
I’m having Writscrib’s flashbacks. I don’t want to have Writscrib’s flashbacks.
“the “gray area” cases will be up to the discretion of the moderator reviewing the content.” Yeah, I’m already trusting your mods, that’s a great precedence there.
“and even if you wanted to argue that art that explored adolescent s3xuality was fine and it’s ‘just p0rnography’ that should be censured”
Do you mean “censored”? Because censure should still be allowed because freedom of speech? Unless you have some hot takes on that too?
“s3xual depictions of characters in later stages of adolescence may broadly be considered ‘safe.’” Later stages. May. Broadly. “safe”. All to the discretion of the ImpartialTM mods. I feel in such good hands.
“The only situation we foresee penalizing the posting of this content would be a case already covered in our ToS,” Excuse me, but at least today you’re in no position of quoting your “already covered ToS” with the expectation that I will trust anything you say.
@xenoqueer wrote “Now, IIRC, Pillowfort is based in Canada” I don’t know where you took that info from, since their ToS mentions Texas and then US in general, but even assuming you’re correct and they’re operating under Canadian laws while their server is in the US, that would still not make sense because they’d still be allowing illegal content per Canada laws. Canada bans both visual and written content depicting minors s3xually, there’s no “late adolescents is fine” If it really were about Canadian law, they would have put a broader restriction. They didn’t. They went specifically for “child coded” drawings.
And I’m really really really putting an effort here in giving them the benefit of the doubt and staying pastel positive, but after FFnet, after LJ, after WS, after Tumblr, and now after writing this, I feel a bit too old for that.
Once again, until further notice, AO3 and Dreamwidth stay unbothered royals.
I was correctly reminded on the exodus discord that PF did state their long-term plan on their kickstarter. Unfortunately for them, it still highlights how vague and inconsistent they are between what they promise for publicity, and what they (plan to) deliver in the end:
Advertisement Opt-Ins: All Pillowfort users will not see advertising by default. Instead, users will have the choice to opt-in to advertising to help support the site. This means overall less ad revenue, but we believe it is important to respect our users’ experience and not force advertising on anyone.
Just a heads up: even if only a number of accounts accept to view ads (good luck with that), those ads will still have the issue of appearing on a site that allows content they don’t want to be associated with (but no problem, they’ve already made the first steps to get all cleaned up and proper). Therefore either this part of their long-term plan is absolutely useless, or it will open up the road for further policing so as to allow the influx of money they might soon need for the amount of users they have, or it will crash and burn like WS.
I’m not being negative on purpose here, but there’s little use in being hopeful and positive when you’re assessing risks in a business management. Hope for the best all you want, but prepare for the worst. And the latter demands from me that I don’t sit comfy on PF (even assuming I’d ever want to, after this).
“ I, a mere petit female-presenting-n1pples-bodied human, feel like I’m on Australian soil here. “
I let out a very unladylike snort of laughter at this.
Honestly, this is about what I expected from the fact that they kept it vague so long.
