Censorship

[Nikki_Hexy]

Hello Fet team and community.

Recently i have noticed my latest status update was censored, so i dug a little deeper and found that many educational resources that are posted here are also censored including my introduction to anal forum post, which makes the content of my guide more or less useless unless you already knew how to prepare. It was designed for someone who was very new and didn't know how to approach the subject.

In all this censorship i *** a lot more educational content has been lost on the community due to these blanket censorships. 

I understand that a "safe space" is important for some but if we are censoring content this aggressively then i feel the name "fetish.com" is a  misleading name at best as a lot of fetishes and kinks are not always as safe as nothing is truly safe in my opinion. Even getting out of bed can be dangerous if you slip of fall as an admittedly extreme example.

Secondly in don't think you can say that the tagline under some logos stating "kink positive dating" can really be stating any truths if we can't be transparent about what we are talking about.

BDSM has four main pillars. Respect, Communication, Honesty and Trust. I feel like my freedom of speech and expression is no longer respected, my communication has become censored thus the honesty is clouded in ***, i only hope my trust isnt misplaced in that this was just an honest mistake.

As an ex FetMod i celebrated and understood that no matter where you are in the world you should have freedom of speech and freedom of self expression, but this heavy heavy censorship that probably is there to appease what is probably 0.02% of your member base is going to push many people away, myself included.

Making it an option would have been the best middle ground and have a hidden flag in the background of the websites code rarther than en***d. 

I personally lived a life where i censored myself due to social expectations in my identity and gender, i have only became comfortable with myself around 3 or 4 years ago thanks to this site however the aggressive censorship makes me wonder if i shouldn't be proud of who i am and live back under my rock. 

I guess what i am trying to say is that everyone has an opinion, a voice, we might not agree with those opinions but that doesnt take away the human right to have them as that is the very definition of freedom of speech.

 

Please be nice to the FetMod team, they are good people, and again, sorry for the long rant

[CaraVirt]

Hello @Nikki_Hexy,

thank you so much for your thoughts and comments on the censorship.

Firstly, some general information:
This is a ‘blacklist test run’ that was added here a few days ago. Unfortunately, due to various incidents, we are ***d for legal reasons and other requirements to make the ‘external representations’ (profile texts, discussions, etc.) somewhat more restrictive.

This means that we can no longer rely on the voluntary support of our members, but must also censor inappropriate/undesirable terms by by ‘starring them out‘ or, in some cases, remove them completely.
Unfortunately, I can't list any examples because they would all be ‘’starred out‘’.  Generally speaking, it is about many things that ‘belong in the toilet’ or may cause physical/psychological damage.
Most of them have always been forbidden or at least undesirable as a search. But the discussion about it was allowed, as was the selection as a fetish. This will - must - change in some areas in the future.

But until we have finalised which terms may no longer appear in which form and which areas really are affected, this must first be tested in detail.
We will then provide general information for our members and update our guidelines and FAQs.

Unfortunately, at the moment we cannot yet say how long the test phase will last. We can therefore only ask you to be patient for the time being and to report/ask about anything that seems ‘strange’ to you.

Thank you for your understanding and acceptance of this difficult situation.

Best regards
Carmen, Community Team