Spoutible: The Safe Space That’s Anything But. (Part 2 — The Battle of Romancelandia)
In part one, I detailed how Courtney Milan highlighted some issues she found with the Spoutible Adult Content Policy and how many Spoutible users felt she was out of line for doing what she did.
Bouzy provided his own explanation behind the hostility.
Some people in this room would understand right away how offensive that is and others would not. Now, apparently, the woman who did suggest this is considered a woman of colour. She’s not a “white woman.” However the folks that were with her, insisting that I take her up on that offer were not women of colour and it started to become offensive to Spoutible users who are people of colour, because it took them to a place that was very uncomfortable, a group of white women were telling a black man on his platform at his company, that he should change his policy. A policy that was voted on by 10s of 1000s of users. A lot of folks took offence to that. At some point, it changed from sex workers, to novelists to some of these novelists starting to drag the LGBTQ plus community into it, trying to suggest that by banning pornography, we’re basically banning the LGBTQ + community.
There is an awful lot to unpack from what Bouzy said here. At first, he refers to a phenomenon steeped in racism that Black people, especially American Black people frequently face. The assumption that a successful Black person must have “cheated” their way to the top and that Black people are (apparently) too intellectually inferior do the work required in responsible positions but are also too lazy to do the labour more suited to them. This is a premise that many people in positions of power subscribe to. The belief is as insidious as it is old and Black people (especially in the US) are painfully aware of it. In response, they are constantly navigating around undeserved obstacles that are placed before them because of that mindset. For example, a Black woman named Kalisha White applied for a job at her local Target in Wisconsin. After her application was rejected, she reapplied using the name Sarah Brucker. The new application was awarded an interview despite having fewer qualifications listed. Although Kalisha received part of a $500,000 settlement in 2007, many Black people still change their names on their job applications to avoid rejection as Target were not and are still not the only employer who discriminates in this way.
Once you bear this in mind, it’s easy to see how a man in Bouzy’s position would get defensive at a white presenting (half Chinese) woman such as Milan coming onto his place of business and telling him in detail how he’s running his business incorrectly in front of his customers. Especially when that white woman’s white woman friends chime in to agree. However, there are some issues I have with this stance.
- Not all who agreed with Milan were white.
- Not all who agreed with Milan were women.
- Quite a few who voiced their opinion on the matter, regardless of who they agreed with, had gender neutral handles and logos/illustrations for their profile pictures. So, there was no way of knowing their gender or race.
- Even if all who agreed with Milan were white women, getting this defensive would only be a reasonable reaction if the issues Milan raised were baseless. They were not.
- Even baseless concerns about something as important as the TOS would need to be officially addressed within a reasonable time. Milan’s were not.
Pitting the issue as a group of white women ganging up on a Black man due to racism is a very effective way to gain support for your cause, especially during a time where anti-Black racism is still an issue. However, by erasing the non-white and non-female Spoutible users involved, Bouzy was not only being dishonest about the situation but also incredibly manipulative. There’s also the issue of how many people cast
Regarding the actual Adult Content Policy, as of 20/02/2023 it reads as thus:
Spoutible prohibits the posting or sharing of any sexually explicit content.Examples of Adult Nudity & Sexual Content may include:
- Sharing or posting sexually explicit images or videos, including nudity, sexual acts, and pornography.
- Engaging in sexually suggestive or explicit language in posts, comments, or private messages.
- Sharing or posting sexually suggestive or explicit content, including images, videos, and text, that are not sexually explicit but still violate the community guidelines.
- Sharing or posting links to sexually explicit websites or content.
- Posting sexually explicit comments or messages on public profiles or pages.
- Engaging in non-consensual sharing or distribution of sexually explicit images or videos, also known as revenge porn.
Exceptions may be made for medical, health, educational or artistic content.
One speaker in the Space by the name of Jenny DeMilo pointed out that “sexually suggestive” could literally mean anything to anybody. The policy would therefore need further explanation for users to accurately assess what would be safe to post. Bouzy’s answer to this was:
In terms of the policy, I would suggest you read every other social media platforms policy regarding sexually explicit content, and you’re going to find similar language, there’s just no way to be able to spell out everything, it’s impossible to do.
Amongst other things, the Instagram Help Center defines sensitive content as:
Content that may be sexually explicit or suggestive, such as pictures of people in see-through clothing. (We remove content that contains adult nudity or sexual activity.)
The Facebook Community Standards on Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity states:
Our Nudity Policies have become more nuanced over time. We understand that nudity can be shared for a variety of reasons, including as a form of protest, to raise awareness about a cause or for educational or medical reasons.
Where such intent is clear, we make allowances for the content. For example, while we restrict some images of female breasts that include the nipple, we allow other images, including those depicting acts of protest, women actively engaged in breast-feeding and photos of post-mastectomy scarring. For images depicting visible genitalia or the anus in the context of birth and after-birth moments or health-related situations, we include a warning label so that people are aware that the content may be sensitive. We also allow photographs of paintings, sculptures and other art that depicts nude figures.
The Tumblr Community Guidelines for Sexually Explicit Material states:
Visual depictions of sexually explicit acts (or content with an overt focus on genitalia) are not allowed on Tumblr. That includes pictures, videos, GIFs, drawings, CGI, or anything similar. Historically significant art that you may find in a mainstream museum and which depicts sex acts — such as from India’s Śuṅga Empire — are now allowed on Tumblr with proper labeling.
As you can see, specific examples are given as guides regarding what is or isn’t allowed. Examples the Spoutible policy severely lacks. So Bouzy’s claims that Spoutible’s guidelines are no different to that of other platforms fall severely short.
Your TOS is the very foundation of your business. The requirements need to be clear for customers to follow and clear for staff to consistently moderate. Unclear rulesets can open your company to legal action and since Spoutible is a startup, Bouzy is unlikely to have the financial backing needed to handle any large court cases. But I really don’t see how it’s possible to do that with the current adult content policy. Especially since the community rules about adult content specifically says,
You may not post any media that is pornographic or intended to cause sexual arousal including, full or partial nudity, and simulated sexual acts.
Based on how both texts are worded, would British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson be able to promote her cooking shows on Spoutibe? Considering that she made her name from cooking food in a sexually suggestive manner uttering innuendos like “The closer the bone, the sweeter the meat” in a low purring voice, I would say no.
Including sexually suggestive images, videos, and text under sexually explicit content is something I find incredible problematic purely because there is a difference between what is “sexually explicit” and what is “sexually suggestive.” More importantly, that difference varies from person to person. The meaning of “sexually suggestive” is also very, very subjective. The bar for what would or wouldn’t count for one moderator may be much higher (or lower) for another, especially if all the moderators come from wildly different backgrounds. Without specific examples this policy would be near impossible to consistently moderate within a team unless that team consisted of only one person, maybe two. Also, the word “may” in the sentence about exceptions opens everyone to even more uncertainty.
As Milan stated on Twitter:
Note: Remember what I said about Nigella Lawson?
A Twitter user who goes by the name of Raheli wrote a long twitter thread about the problems they found with the content policy, based on their experience of running a social media site called Dreamwidth. Part of it states:
There’s a long, long history of content from marginalized people, especially queer people, being considered “sexually suggestive” or “adult content” when corresponding content from non-marginalized people wouldn’t be.
There’s also the issue of people with certain body types having non-sexual content wrongly deemed “sexually suggestive”. For instance, my bra size is 38J. Like many other big-titted people, I’ve been dinged for “dress code violations” for dressing perfectly professionally.
That’s because it’s literally impossible for me not to have cleavage unless I’m wearing a turtleneck, and sometimes not even then. Just by wearing the exact same thing someone without the knockers is wearing, my body becomes “sexually suggestive” simply by existing.
The same thing happens to Black women, whose bodies are deemed (thanks to centuries of racism) to be sexualized in contexts that aren’t sexual at all. (I don’t want to speak for Black women here, but you can find all sorts of discussion about this by looking.)
Just a glance at the discussion about the racial, ethnic, gendered, and body-type based discrimination people experience with workplace dress code policies will show you the problem; these are just a few examples.
Using this kind of language in a content policy without clarifying exactly what you mean by it *with specific examples*, and more importantly clarifying what you *don’t* mean by it, immediately calls all these issues to mind for people who’ve experienced that discrimination.
Now, this is where the LGBTQ+ community comes in. Milan is a queer woman as are many romance writers in Romancelandia, which is a community of romance novelists as well as fans of literature and movies within the genre. The community has several online spaces where romance novels, literature, and movies are discussed from an intersectional feminist perspective. One issue that queer content creators frequently face with online platforms is the increased sexualisation of what they do, purely for being queer or including queer themes. As Raheli stated above, here have been many instances where a video or picture of a same sex couple interacting has been banned from a platform while depictions of opposite sex couples doing the exact same thing have been allowed to remain. With this level of scrutiny, the term sexually suggestive could easily be applied to queer friendly content.
In response to Milan’s spouts regarding the policy, some Spoutible members wrote:
So contrary to Bouzy’s claims, the LGBTQ+ community wasn’t dragged into the conversation. It was members of that community who initiated it out of concern that they would be further marginalised. More importantly, the conflating of porn with LGBT+ people came from users who defended the policy, not the novelists.
This is a generous offer, @cbouzy There’s a huge community of writers&readers called Romancelandia & an equally large group of YA (young adult) readers w writers whose YA books are being banned simply for including LBGTQ characters. We are all on edge. Please let @courtneymilan help you clarify.
I don’t understand what you’re talking about.
I don’t see what LBGTQ has to do with not allowing porn.
I agree with @cbouzy no porn policy.
Are you paying attention to what’s happening in FL where books w LGBTQ characters (and no sex!!) are being called porn and banned from schools? This is a serious issue that is happening right now.
@cbouzy You have two distinct issues: "Should Spoutible allow porn?" and "Your published adult content policy is terrible, what particular adult content is prohibited?" People are trying to help you with the second thing but you keep saying "NO PORN" as if that were responsive
Do you not know porn when you see it?
I see many things that arouse me, but I know the difference between that and porn. I'm an adult...
Exactly. The policy is terrible because it prohibits both porn AND things that arouse you.
Then there was one of the responses to Olivia Waite’s comment above:
The fact of the matter is, Feminist communities tend to consist of marginalised people, so given the marketing about Spoutible being a haven for people just like them, the (predominantly queer) writers of Romancelandia came to Spoutible expecting to be able to safely use the site. Knowing that the TOS are vague enough to be used against them is a strong indication that they are not. These are people whose trust has been repeatedly violated and due to rising hostility toward LGBTQ+ people, especially those who are trans, they are running out of online spaces where they can safely display their content. Their trust needs to be earned, so expecting them to trust Spoutible just because “The CEO said so” is just not reasonable. They need a guarantee. Especially if their concerns about one issue are being deflected with answers about something else entirely. The single-minded answers about “not wanting porn” to any questions about the clarification of the policy are valid points of concern for everyone.
Finally, I would like to point out one detail Bouzy failed to mention in the Spaces regarding the online policy conversation. It went on for almost 6 hours before he issued an official response himself. More to the point, that response was to someone else who had explained to Bouzy why they thought Milan’s offer was a good one. He never issued Milan a response directly. I went through all of the quote posts Bouzy made between the Beta launch on the 12th January and the 19th February when the policy discussion was first made. His average response time was just over an hour. So, both the delay in responding to Milan’s suggestion and the manner of said response are inexcusable.
In part 3, I will reveal the details of the Bouzy’s clumsy spout and the mystery sex worker mentioned in Part 1.