Everyone knows some language can be problematic.

Everyone thinks they should have freedom of speech.

Most people also think there should be some authority to call upon when the two clash.

And that means that the ‘authority’ that is called upon should have processes, and guidelines, to try and navigate through a pretty complex field. Often, perhaps, they overestimate the robustness of those, and end up disappointed.

So, in this post, I’m setting out where I stand on content moderation, in particular with regard to BLUF.

First, what do our rules say?

Our main rule regarding content is this:

“You must not use the BLUF.com site or other BLUF online areas, such as forums or chat rooms, to harass other people or groups of people, by sending them messages, adding comments about them to your profile, or in any other way. We reserve the right to edit profiles to remove offensive messages.”

We have, in the past, used this where people have used their profile to do things like urge other members to attend anti-Muslim rallies, something which to me seems a pretty clear breach. And very occassionally, we’ve had to have a word with a member who’s decided to use their profile as a way of personally attacking someone with whom they’ve had a falling out. Again, that’s a pretty clear breach.

Picture this

But there are some things that are a little more vague.

It’s no secret that the uniforms and symbols of the second world war hold an appeal for some members of the leather community; in a way it’s understandable, if you consider them simply a symbol of power. But my own position has evolved on that in recent years.

A decade ago, I would have been a little more tolerant, I expect . Those symbols were – we thought – safely several decades in the past. But since then, we’ve seen a resurgence of the use of some Nazi symbols amongst neo-fascists. And so those symbols are not just a reminder of an awful period that we hoped was ended. They’re now also a very live symbol of hate, right now, and that hate is often directed at members of the LGBTQ community.

BLUF has had long standing rules against any Nazi/SS symbols in photos. For over a decade, we’re been even more stringent, to the point where if we suspect such symbols have been airbrushed out, we’ll reject an image. If we see a snippet of a red armband with a white circle, we’ll reject it – even if you can’t see anything more. Because, to my mind, all it takes is the mentality of a tabloid journalist saying “We all know what that is,” to bring a ton of pain down on us – and directly to my front door, as Director of the club.

I also now check obvious rank insignia, which may not be so easily considered beyond the pale, and even titles of books that people have posed with.

Of course, it’s quite possible there are still some things where I’ve not spotted something, or made a mistake – that’s what the report button is for – but I think we’re pretty effective at filtering out this sort of imagery on BLUF.

It’s the little things

What I’ve talked about so far is the easy stuff. It’s clear when someone’s being explicitly racist on their profile, or if they try to upload a photo with a swastika in it.

But what of the other things – the coded messages, or hints? We’ve probably all seen them, on loads of sites – the profile names with an 88, or an HH or a SS squeezed in there. You might at first think these are all simple and clear cut, but actually, they can be anything but.

If someone tries to put the word ‘Nazi’ in their profile title, that’s easy. It’s not going to be allowed.

But if they put 88? And when challenged, earnestly explain to me that it’s the year they were born, so why can’t they have it in their profile? After all, we wouldn’t refuse someone the nickname LeatherSub89, would we?

If they’re LedermasterHH and maintain they’re from Hamburg, or were born there, is that acceptable?

Is there a significant material difference between MasterSSkin and MastersSkin ? Does one denote ownership, and the other signal a political intent? Does it matter if one letter is captialised, or both?

You might have a simple, clear cut answer to these cases; it may be that people from Hamburg can never use a common abbreviation on their profile. And ok, that’s one option. Or it may be that yes, these things are allowable, if someone can prove that they really were born in a certain year, or come from a certain place.

And, I have to consider, too, some well known terms or letter/number sequences are banned, what then? What if people just use some other code, of which people are less well aware? Is there merit in being able to see, right away, that because someone has forced the letters ‘SS’ into their profile several times, you might be best off ignoring them, rather than discovering later that they have an interest that appalls you?

This is where we run into the burden of moderation.

There’s always push-back

Put bluntly, there are people who will firmly reject any suggestion at all that they consider what they write; for them any attempt to police this sort of thing is “political” or “woke” or “pandering,” and they will be quite happy to let you know it, often in quite brutal terms.

I’ve been running queer communities for over thirty years now. Trust me when I say that a large number of people do not take kindly to being asked if they would like to rephrase things.

All too often, when people talk about organisations, and how they respond to things, they talk as if they imagine something much bigger; something that should have all these things sorted out, and processes in place. Perhaps because they’re used to dealing with big social media organisations like Facebook, or Twitter, where there are indeed huge teams of content moderators.

Newsflash: on BLUF there’s me. And this does make a difference, honestly.

Not just because of persuading people – if we went down that route – they they should have to hand over government ID to prove their birthplace or year in a nickname; there are ways we can do that securely, though not without monetary cost.

But because of the sheer mental burden. Have you ever been the victim of a social media pile-on? Or the target of a string of abusive emails? It’s not pleasant, and at its worst, it can get to the stage where you simply don’t want to open your Twitter app, or check your email because, even with a certain degree of detachment, it can be a stressful and dispiriting experience.

Big organisations can provide support to their content moderators; they can use AI to make some of the decisions, and they can ensure that the load is spread among many people. We don’t have the resources to do that.

So, we have some basic automated tools; too many uses of key phrases in a profile on BLUF triggers a filtering option – members can, if they want, opt to have texts blurred, if they pass the threshold.

Can we do better? I expect we can.

But I think to be able to do better, we also have to accept that it’s too big a burden to be placed on one person alone.

Tags : BLUF | moderation | volunteers