Many of the biggest social media sites (X, Facebook, Instagram, Google and so on) have scaled back or simply abandoned any commitments to moderating or fact-checking content on their platforms.
As a community platform for men who like men, we want to make our own stance on moderation clear.
Why does this matter?
Online speech has real-world consequences. UN human rights experts have warned that Facebook played a “determining role” in promoting violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (Burma). And we all remember the surge of misinformation online that led to the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.
Genocides and insurgencies may be the most serious examples of real-world consequences, but there are also more individual impacts. Reddit apologised and admitted it had “fuelled online witch hunts” after a young man was wrongly accused of being involved in the Boston bombings in 2013, resulting in hundreds of threatening messages and phone calls to his family members.
Today, under Meta’s new guidelines for Facebook and Instagram, people can freely call other users mentally ill simply because of their sexuality or gender identity. On X, the use of transphobic slurs has increased 260%. It’s easy to see how these can impact DudesNude’s users.
So DudesNude won’t follow this shift away from moderation?
No, we won’t. Retreating from moderation would mean no longer taking any responsibility for harm prevention on our platform, and that’s not a direction we’re willing to move in.
DudesNude is a community, and we have a duty to make it safe and inclusive. Left to their own devices, online platforms fall prey to the worst of online behaviour, and moderation is crucial if we’re to protect DudesNude as a welcoming space for men.
How exactly is content moderated on DudesNude?
We have policies and guidelines covering what content is not allowed on DudesNude, including hate speech or extreme imagery. These are enforced by real humans (mainly Robert and Viktor) in line with our clear content removal policy.
We are transparent with these policies and guidelines, and we strive to apply them consistently and fairly. Sometimes this is done on a proactive basis, through constant monitoring of site content; and sometimes reactively, as a result of reports from other users.
Profiles, images and forum posts all include links for you to flag content you think needs to be reviewed, and we’re always grateful when members take a few seconds to help keep the community safe from potentially harmful content.
Some people consider moderation to be nothing other than censorship, limiting their “freedom of speech”. The fact is, though, that creating an online community that’s safe and inclusive fosters greater freedom of speech by bringing the widest range of people into the community, not just those who are prepared to weather the hate speech and the extremism that proliferate in unmoderated spaces.
We’re always happy to engage in constructive dialogue with members on this, whether it’s our general approach to content moderation or a specific instance. You can let us know what you think here.