leftzero

I've had those disabled since the minute I got on lemmy, I just can't abide censorship or, more importantly, wilful stupidly.

NSFW tags aren't a way to curate one's feed, they're a waste of time.

What you consider suitable will vary depending on where you are and what time it is, and might be completely different than what other users consider suitable.

You want to curate your feeds?

You can have multiple accounts, in multiple instances.

You can subscribe to suitable communities and only browse ones you're subscribed to.

You can block users, communities, and instances.

Most importantly, you can decide what to browse and when, and wait to browse feeds which might contain something unsuitable for your current circumstances until those circumstances have changed.

Can these tools be improved..? Sure!

Give me a way to choose between different sets of subscribed and I won't need to have multiple accounts, for instance.

Hell, this might be one of the few situations in which current “AI” models could actually be useful... just have one trained on what you don't want to see at specific times and places and use it as a browser extension to prevent you from seeing that content.

But tags aren't going to help with that, because they're entirely subjective, and only you know what you want tagged or not, and if you have to tag it yourself it's already too late, you've already seen it (and so has your company's firewall).

It's a fucking waste of everyone's time, is what it is.

The definition of “safe for work” is entirely subjective and will vary from one user, place, and time to another.

The only ones with the information to decide whether to tag something as suitable or not are the users, and even our own opinion on what is and isn't suitable will depend on where we are and what time it is.

There is no possible objective consensus on what to tag or not, and there can't be, so tagging will never work for the vast majority of users.

Do you know what does work, though, with 0% chance of failure..?

If you aren't 100% sure that a site won't contain anything unsuitable for your current environment... DON'T FUCKING BROWSE IT!

It's that easy! No tagging needed, no censorship, no nothing. No need to bother anyone else or demand of them to do the impossible and predict what you will consider suitable or not at a certain point in space and time.

Just have some patience, exercise some fucking self control and personal responsibility, and wait until you're in a suitable place and time to browse the fucking site!

A play on words, a mixed metaphor combining "rocket science" and "brain surgery", both of which are colloquially used to refer to something very difficult. Therefore, saying that something “is not rocket surgery” is meant to imply that said thing is rather easy to do, and doesn't require any specialized learning or training.

In any case, it shouldn't be rocket surgery to understand the meaning here by the context alone even if you've never heard the phrases “it's not rocket science” or “it's not brain surgery”, but since we seem to be dealing with people, for lack of a better term, incapable of understanding the extremely simple concept of not browsing sites which might contain content unsuitable for work while at work, maybe it turns out that it is in fact as hard as rocket surgery for you lot, but in that case you should be asking your legal guardians, not random strangers on the internet.

Again: No one is forcing you to use the damn site at work. You know the site might have content unsuitable for your work, therefore you should know you shouldn't be browsing it at work. You can wait and do something else. Anything else. That's all the control you need.

And if you are unable to have this minimum amount of self control, then any consequences you suffer are entirely your fault and no one else's. Don't try to blame other people for your shortcomings.

news sites and broadcasters wouldn't get in trouble for what they show

What in fuck's name are you talking about? Other than probably you for being unable to stop browsing unsuitable content at work, who the fuck is getting in trouble?

Hey, that's a perfectly fine beaver, I'll have you know. Don't you go besmirching it!

I have no control over that. Neither does anyone else.

YES YOU FUCKING DO! 🤦‍♂️

Is someone forcing you to browse the everything tab at gunpoint, or blackmailing you into browsing it‽

Because if not, you should have the self control to NOT FUCKING CLICK ON THE DAMN THING!

If you know it might contain anything unsuitable for your current environment, just fucking WAIT to browse it until you're in an environment where it will be suitable!

It's not fucking rocket surgery, for fuck's sake, just have some fucking self control!

Then nothing here on Lemmy should have an NSFW tag at all.

Yes, exactly, now you're getting it!

But you know that doesn't work.

Oh, no, you actually don't. You actually think you're making a point. 😞

Because you can have a feed that's completely fine and then scroll randomly and find a bunch of porn posts back to back.

Yeah, that's how lemmy works. And the internet as a whole, really, except for small pockets of it.

Which is why it's up to you to be aware of which sites are suitable for your current environment and which are not, and have the fucking self control and patience to wait until you're in a suitable environment to browse the ones that aren't.

If you are posting content to a platform you are responsible for that content and what it shows.

Sure, but I can't be responsible for it being suitable or not in your current particular environment because there's no objective way for me to know what is and isn't suitable for you in your current specific circumstances.

“NSFW” is entirely subjective, it changes from person to person, from place to place, and from minute to minute depending on each user's current circumstances, and expecting the poster to predict all of these possibilities is absurd, profoundly stupid, and outright disingenuous.

The only person who knows what might be suitable in YOUR current particular environment is YOU. It's your fucking responsibility to know which sites might contain something that you'd consider unsuitable and avoid them until you're in and environment where they'll be suitable.

Don't try to shift the blame and responsibility for YOUR lack of self control onto the people who're giving you free content and who have no possible way of knowing that you might find it unsuitable at a certain specific point in space and time.

This is like arguing that because it's legal to show graphic content of war or similar on the news it should be allowed with no warning on any website.

Yes. And it should be allowed, that's what legal fucking means! (And even if it isn't legal in your particular shithole there's probably some other where it is, so good luck trying to enforce that.)

If some sites decide to not allow it, that's perfectly fine (in lemmy's particular case it's up to the instances, I believe, and some might leave it to the communities), but it's up to YOU to keep up with which ones do allow content you might consider unsuitable and which ones don't.

Sure, some might give you warnings for specific kinds of content as a courtesy, but you really have no way of knowing if their particular definitions of “NSFW” match yours because it's an entirely subjective issue in which it's impossible to reach a consensus, so it's still up to you to check and make sure.

There's underaged people everywhere on the internet.

Well, that's up to their legal guardians. I'm certainly not their nanny, and neither are the lemmy admins, moderators, or posters. You really seem obsessed with shifting your responsibilities onto unrelated third parties, you should probably have that looked at.

Sites that have graphic content as the main content censor accordingly.

No they don't. Have you ever visited a porn site..?

Why is Lemmy any different?

It's not, that's the point. Which is why you should treat it like any other site that might contain “NSFW” content AND NOT FUCKING USE IT AT WORK! Fuck. It's not fucking rocket surgery. 🤦‍♂️

I'm excluding 99% of the internet from being used in specific circumstances, sure. Or rather pointing out that it's the users' responsibility to do so, since no one else can know what is suitable or not in their current specific circumstances.

If you can't wait to browse something that might contain something unsuitable for your current circumstances until you find yourself in circumstances where it's suitable that's on you, not on whoever is producing or serving said content.

Sure, but that's the user's responsibility, not the content providers'.

It's extremely simple: could this site contain something that would be unsuitable for your current environment..?

— Definitely not. — Great, browse away (as long as doing so isn't unsuitable for some other reason, e.g. working, paying attention to your family, driving the car).

— Possibly, maybe, I don't know. — Ok, now, pay attention, here's the trick: DON'T FUCKING BROWSE IT. Wait until you're in an environment where you're sure it'll be suitable. Browse something else. Have some fucking self control, for fuck's sake.

You are the only one who can tell what is suitable for your current circumstances and what is not. Lemmy has no way of knowing that, the moderators have no way of knowing that, the posters have no way of knowing that.

It's your responsibility, not ours.

NSFW tags would only make sense if they were set by the user, and then they'd be useless because they could only work once the user (and their company's firewall) has already seen the content they didn't want to see. By definition, they can't work, unless everything is tagged.

You know what does work, though? Not browsing shit in circumstances where it might contain potentially unsuitable content. So do that, and let the admins, moderators, and posters be.

That's entirely my whole point!

Lemmy has no way of knowing that. Moderators have no way of knowing that.

The only one capable of deciding what is suitable for your current specific environment is you!

It's impossible to define a one size fits all NSFW tag, and it shouldn't be up to the content provider to do so.

What to browse and when is and should be entirely the responsibility of the user accessing the content.

If you get caught browsing pictures that are unsuitable for whatever your current environment is, that's on you for browsing a site that might have those pictures, and on no one else.

Accept your responsibility and don't try to switch the blame.

Look, this whole thing is absurd like a Monty Python sketch, but much less funny.

Is this picture not safe for work..?

How about this one..?

And what about this photograph of an actual naked beaver I posted the other day..?

For me, all three could get me in trouble at work (because they clearly have nothing to do with the work I should be doing), and none of them would get me in trouble at the bus (though there's plenty of other pictures in Lemmy I wouldn't want to be caught watching in the bus to avoid embarrassing myself or others), but that's me, and that's why I don't use lemmy at work and if I use it on the bus I use a different account and only on communities I'm subscribed to.

But deciding whether to watch these pictures or risk watching others like them at work or the bus is my responsibility, not lemmy's, or the community moderators', or their posters'.

If I'm worried about “not suitable for work” I should be old enough to work, which means I should have a minimum of self control and be responsible for my own actions.

If I'm caught at work or on the bus with an “unsuitable” image on my phone because I was browsing some site that might contain images of that kind I'm not going to blame that site, or whoever posted that image, and I'm not going to demand of them to adapt to my particular circumstances and mark, censor, or remove any content I might find unsuitable.

That's my job, not theirs. They're not my fucking nanny, and I shouldn't need one.

Attempting to shift the blame for my own actions to the people providing me with this content (and for free, no less!) would be childish, petty, and disingenuous, to say the least.