Okay, you know what? Fine. You think cartoons and written underage fiction should be banned? Letâs go over the logistics of how you could actually enforce that.
Now obviously, I think this is ultimately completely useless. I think the day that all problematic content is actually wiped clean will be a sad day for antis, because there will be nobody left to bully. Of course, with so many differing opinions on what actually counts as âproblematicâ or not, any group that could actually enforce this type of content moderation would dissolve into infighting pretty much immediately, with an entire group who gets high off of attacking others basically cannibalizing themselves until their community disappears and they start looking for new targets.
But just for shits and giggles, letâs do a little thought experiment.
Letâs say that you did what AO3 did, and you create your own website for fan content, but this time, without all the âicky grossâ shit. What would actually happen?
Well, first you would need to decide on a set of criteria, and it would need to be specific. After all, vague content guidelines are what allows youtube to ban LGBT videos on the basis of âsexual contentâ while hate videos can literally run as ads on other videos.
An example of specific criteria would be something like, âone or more characters under the age of 18 engaging in sexual activities with another character.â Notice how that criteria would also hit stories where the exchange is portrayed as a bad thing, and would probably include stories about healing from trauma and the like too. How would you protect those stories while still removing stories where something is ânormalizedâ or âromanticizedâ? Would this include characters who are both underage? What about noncon or rape stories? Will you also ban dubcon? BDSM? Abuse? What about legal exchanges between two adults with an age gap? Where is the cut off for age gaps? Is a relationship between an 18 year old and a 20 year old too much? What about 17 and 18? 20 and 25? How about 30 and 50? Remember, you need to know what your criteria is or it will be too easy to exploit.
Now comes the hard part; Getting other antis to agree on the criteria youâve set. As weâve seen time and time again, antis can and do absolutely attack each other, accusing other antis of pedophilia and being a proshipper, just for doing something another anti has deemed problematic. For example, one anti could be in favor of minor x minor ships so long as it isnât sexual, but another anti might claim that counts as pedophilia. One anti might be okay with 17 x 19 ships, but another would claim thatâs pedophilia too.
Not only can two different antis never seem to agree on the specific criteria, but they often do so in ways that are incompatible with each other. How would you form a moderation team using people like this? Because remember, unless you plan on running an entire massive site all by yourself, you need a moderation team that agrees on where the rules are, and each of them might even have their own interpretations within those rules, so one might take down a story that another would have approved, or approve a story someone else would have decided to take down.
Removing all problematic content might sound great to you on paper, but in practice, itâs basically impossible, because youâre trying to pick and choose which types of fiction are okay among other types of fiction based on how you might interpret any given work. Youâre trying to look from the outside in, acting like everyone absorbs all the morals they read about automatically, projecting possible harm coming from a text as if that has the power to completely shape society.
And sure, we can talk about possible harm from a bad moral on impressionable people, and it would be a really interesting conversation. How we interact with fiction can shape behavior in small ways, and it can reinforce beliefs you already had. I have my own opinions on the types of content that should be allowed, and some of them are even in conflict with other proshippers.
But, as Iâve said before, WE CANNOT HAVE THIS CONVERSATION UNTIL YOU DROP THIS RIDICULOUS FAKE MORAL CRUSADE.
At the end of the day, antis donât actually care if problematic content gets banned or not. They couldnât care less. If they did care, they would look for specific ways that harm can actually be mitigated according to the relevant research, and then do that, instead of blindly lashing out at anyone who disagrees with them. At the very least, you might expect them to consider the above information, including the actual logistics of how to decide which type of content should be allowed and how to enforce such a system, but they donât do that.
What they care about is getting that high from the feeling of âvanquishing evilâ. Nothing more.
Remember; There should always be a period of thought between emotion and action. Donât automatically react based on your gut feeling alone. Take the time to question your assumptions, even if itâs just a moment. Think carefully about the situation before you act. Make sure you donât have beliefs that contradict each other. These are simple things, but they go a long way in making sure your critical thinking skills are sharp, which is a great defense from opinions that can hurt you and others.
Again, I say as an ex-cult member myself; There is hope for you on the other side.
Antis, you deserve better than this.
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
gummygunk
annaxmalina
tangentwithtanner
snowghoul
kaledo-art
dededos
