Hi all! As promised, here is the proposed text of the newest version of the rules. The staff has gone through like eight drafts and literally thousands and thousands of matrix posts to get here, so please be kind. You can see @limeey’s comment on the transparency post if you want more insight into how this sausage was made.
We are opening these rules to commentary from the community before they go into effect. To be clear, this isn’t a vote, but we will take all community feedback into account and answer whatever questions we can before finalizing anything.
Please keep in mind that we are not Reddit, we do not have Reddit’s resources, and safety and consent are our priorities.
I’ll post the draft in two parts in two comments: The new sidebar, and the FAQ/clarifications page.
Revised Rules for Sidebar
Rules
Before you start participating, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our rules:
🔞 Age Requirement: All users and lurkers MUST be age 18 or over.
Respect and Consent: Treat all members with respect and obtain consent when sharing explicit content involving others. No doxxing. No soliciting or sharing personal info. No homophobia, transphobia, body shaming, or kinkshaming. Don’t be an asshole.
No NSFL/Gore/Snuff Content: We strictly forbid the sharing or promotion of NSFL (Not Safe For Life) or gore content. This includes fictional snuff scenarios.
No Bestiality/Zoophilia: We strictly forbid any NSFW content involving animals.
No Non-Consensual Content: We strictly forbid content made or released without consent of everyone in the content, including revenge porn / deepfakes / leaked content / NC / true voyeur / rape content.
No Illegal Content: - We strictly forbid promotion and detailed discussion of things that are broadly illegal in most of the world, like murder, animal cruelty, money laundering, and so on. Our policy on mind-altering substances is more complicated – see the FAQ (link to FAQ pending).
NSFW Flag: All NSFW communities and posts must be flagged as NSFW.
No Rules Lawyering: Admin/Moderator decisions are final and arguing with them can result in suspension or banning of your account and purging of your content.
If any material is ambiguous or borderline forbidden content, we’re usually going to err on the side of caution. Please use your common sense.
All users and communities must follow and respect these general instance-wide rules. Any violations could result in suspension or banning of your account or community and purging of your content.
Community Guidelines
Temporary Rules
Because of technical limitations of the Lemmy platform, we are forced to implement some restrictions on content. These are restrictions that don’t necessarily fit with our larger philosophy. We hope to revise this section once Lemmy evolves as a platform and moderation tools improve.
If you are the admin of another instance and you have any issues with Lemmy NSFW please raise it with one of our admins so we can communicate on how we can improve this instance. We would prefer to work with you before either of us consider defederation.
… and then the rest of the stuff currently on the sidebar: Contact info and the Donations info
What about NC content that happened in movies/tv shows ? I’ve encountered some rape scenes, harassment, etc. That scenes can be hardcore or not. Is this forbidden too ? I’ve to take scenes like that as light as possible, making them out of context so it doesn’t seems that “horrible”. But yeah, for hardcore ones it’s not possible. I’m asking this because I’m aware some people may find it very upsetting (even with the assumption everything is done with actors’ consent)
For porn, I’ve encountered one of my favorite rough/NC porn like brutal x. I’ve noticed that at the very end of their videos, they clarify performers directly to make sure everything is done with their consent. Which I think it’s really good
Edit : more clarity
Note the temporary content restrictions – CNC is still restricted.
Correct. For now. In the future, will you be able to post the excruciatingly long rape scene from Irreversible (assuming you comply with fair use provisions, of course)? Probably. But for right now that’ll get you banned.
Btw, what does CNC mean?
Consensual non consent. You agree before a bdsm scene, that you will fight against, but are ok with for example being overwhelmed.
As you can imagine you have to know your partner very good to do something like this and have to be able to follow good practice like RACK, SSC.
Was wondering if you’d be willing to re-word this sentence, as OnlyFans (and similar) is technically a sexual service (albeit digital).
No it’s not. At least in the US, OF creators are performers, which falls under free expression and is therefore protected 1st amendment activity. Sexual services involve, you know, touching and stuff.
You make sense, but I also think you could clear out the wording. It’s not obvious if it includes asking for donations, promoting paid content etc. Not everyone is familiar with US laws.
Huh, interesting.
So how does this affect those users on reddit who post a price list for their nudes? Like $5 for a nude or recorded video/selfie.
It doesn’t. A photograph is art, a video recording is art. Art is personal expression. Still not sexual services.
It might help to clarify “in person sexual services” then, because I could see this causing some confusion
How does this work for aged up characters? Most of the popular anime characters are under 18 even if they don’t look like children. I’m thinking of popular characters like Zero Two and Marin Kitagawa. for example and just how much of the anime scene gets alienated for the rule.
according to these rules, its on a case by case bases that would be up to the mods/admins of what they feel about the piece and its context. if any of them dont feel comfortable with it for looking too young, will be removed. atleast that is how i read it.
e.g. the rebecca/midna shortstack argument that is brought up in these comments
Thanks for the answer and the link. This helped clear it up.
This seems like a great start.
I’m sure you’ll find more corner cases as these rules start to be enforced.
I just hope you have the patience to see it through, although I’m sure some vocal people will get very up in your face about it.
yuuuuuuuuup. But that’s why they pay us the big bu- wait, what’s that? we’re not getting paid? Then why the fuck am I even here? Call my agent!
Another question about
Does this rule out a new RandomActsOfMuffDive, assuming that it is made very clear that all transactions must be of a non-commercial nature?
Hookup and personal ad comms are fine as long as, as you say, there’s no commercial activity going on. Though once you start using words like “transaction”, radar is going to go up.
(as much as I deeply, deeply despise SESTA/FOSTA, we have to stay on the boring, shitty lawful side of it or risk going the way of switter.)
That being the case, I will probably create it tomorrow morning.
Too tired to cross the i’s and dot the t’s tonight.
And THANKS!
de nada
What about rape hentai? Aka: tentacle and similar stuff.
rape is out. tentacle rape, being rape, is out. consentacles is in.
Bummer. As hentai rape is not real and the hentai is not actually being harmed.
Consent is a big plot point in hentai as japanese culture requires girls to be pure and not openly want or like sex
What difference does fictional consent between fictional characters make outside of the hentai?