Comment on What's up with lemmit.online?
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 week agoI'm not sure whether it's futile. I mean societal change happens. And it's a big step forwards that we have these platforms where independant creators get 80% revenue of a monthly subscription. A few years ago, stuff was just pirated, even on the big regular sites. Plus there wasn't a good way to do it directly. You had to get into the porn industry and get paid for some DVD production. And as far as I understand, the porn industry is super problematic. So I'd say we're making progress. But educating people... Idk, it's always hard. Maybe futile, yeah. This isn't my fight. I've tried lecturing people on other things and I found it's almost impossible to change the world. At least on a bigger scale. And if you're involved yourself, progress always feels painfully slow. I don't know what to make of this. I still refuse to resign with some topic.
Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
Even if it’s futile, I probably still won’t be able to keep my mouth shut about it lol. I do enough keeping my mouth shut in the real world, in a country where you have to assume that everyone you meet has conservative views until proven otherwise. So I’m not going to do that to myself online as well. It just feels wrong to me to not at least try when there’s an injustice going on because the easiest way for nothing to change is for no one to even try and change things.
And you’re right, things are at least better for amateur workers now than they were before. So that is progress. Although from what I’ve gathered, OnlyFans isn’t completely immune to dodgy shit either. I’ve come across a couple of stories involving practically human trafficking situations where women are forced into this by pimps and other pieces of shit. So you never really know what’s going on behind the scenes when the camera switches off and the put on smile goes away.
Which is why it’s also just more ethical to get this content from the content creators themselves rather than random 3rd party websites that lift content from elsewhere. At least if you’re getting it from the source, you can have some sense of whether it passes the vibe check or not.
Also, just want to add because I just thought of it. Places that set up bots that lift amateur content from around the web aren’t checking for vibes or doing their homework. So they’re the kinds of places that would be peddling pictures of abuse or trafficking victims, or even underage people, without even knowing it. Or caring.
The whole thing just gives me the creeps. I’m fine with people stealing from Brazzers or whatever because those workers have already been paid and you’re stealing from the suits that get rich from them. But amateur stuff just has too many variables and ethical concerns for me to be comfortable with people treating it the same way as Brazzers.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 week ago
Thanks for the nice conversation, btw. I've learned a few things. Yeah, and some things you said just reinforce what I've already read elsewhere. And I also think it's a shame that the entire field is more often that not connected with bad working conditions, and it's hard to change due to the very nature of it. Plus it's an extra shame that organized crime has ties. And they won't let go, no matter what. From what I've read it's even worse in other parts of the world. And that's kind of always the case with the internet, since it spans across the globe.
But sure, I wholeheartedly agree. It's an entirely different story whether you rip off some faceless large (and rich) company. Or do the very same thing to an amateur, or your neighbour. I think that's not controversial. I also know lots of people who are less concerned with pirating like Hollywood movies or AAA games, but they won't do the same to an indie game developer or something like that. But it requires some amount of thinking and awareness...
And circling back to the topic at hand... Does anyone know the admin of that instance, or operator of the bot? Maybe they're just oblivious to the fact, yet willing to learn? We could request the amateur communities to be removed from the bot. If someone compiles a list. Or just ask them whether they're willing to do it, before investing the effort. I'm not sure if I'm the right person for that, since I have close to no knowledge about the details. And I'm still not convinced of the importance of that specific instance, since all the posts there have zero engagement and upvotes, and it seems to me like people already voted with their feet.
Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
Likewise. It’s always appreciated when you can chat with someone without guards up and needing to counter snark and shit.
I get this bad feeling that they’re probably just going to tell you to get lost. I wouldn’t be surprised if the moderators of those subs have okayed it. Another common thing I saw creators complaining about was dodgy Reddit moderators. The moderators of those subs aren’t their friends or allies from what I can tell. If they’re not the usual assortment on Reddit who aren’t even part of the community but like power anyway, there’s also suspected ‘agencies’ or other bad actors running some of these subs and making life hard for people.
But I applaud you for doing this. And I would be amazed if it actually worked.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 day ago
Small update: I didn't get any reaction (so far). The post in their about community has zero votes or interactions. I've then escalated things and filed a bug report on the bot's project page. Also with no reply in the last 3 days. So I guess either they're busy with other stuff and their "bridge" bot is practically unsupervised... Or they don't care... So I'd say your gut feeling was correct. I'll give them some more time, 9 or 3 days isn't a lot for a hobby side-project... But I think at some point, Fediverse admins might want to think about de-federating and effectively shunning them, if it turns out that instance is effectively unmoderated and pulls in problematic content, and isn't even liked by a good part of the user base here.
Kind of a bummer to be honest.