With a recent change of their guidelines, social network Bluesky is dropping the hammer on certain adult art depictions. Critics compare the move to bans happening on Steam and itch,  while pointing out that bans like these can harm other artful expression as well.

With a change in their terms of service active from 15 October onward, social network Bluesky has began implementing similar banning of adult content in art as digital game storefronts did recently under pressure from payment processors and anti-porn groups. The recent update of Bluesky’s community guidelines added the paragraph “We do not allow sexual content involving non-consensual activity including synthetic, simulated, illustrated, or animated versions”. Specifically, the indication of artificial depictions is new. In its earlier version, the guideline forbade “depictions of non-consensual sexual activity”.

The changes, along with several other commenting on expressions of mental health issues in the guidelines, have caused significant uproar on the social media network. Bluesky’s announcement post has, in social media slang, been 'ratioed': Not only does it have just as many answers as it has reposts, currently sitting at 3,300 and 3,400 respectively, more than three quarters of those reposts are not silent sharings, but quote posts, a usual method of protest on short form social media because of its potential for mocking or critising a post. Additional protest has formed under hashtags like #bskycensorship.

Artists on Bluesky, among them a significant amount of NSFW game developers, liken the changes to what has recently happened on Steam and itch, and point out how bans on artful expression of certain sexual content can be used to effectively ban all sexual depictions as well as LGBT representation labeled as sexual by certain groups, since boundaries in art are hard to define and can be purposefully re-interpreted. As journalist and adult game expert Nina Kiel explained in a recent interview with GamesMarkt: “When neither science nor the law are used to define guidelines, we have a problem. Because then the boundaries of what is reasonable and permissible can be shifted arbitrarily, any time.”

Bluesky states that changes that have been made align with the outcome of a feedback survey taken by 14,000 users. The network claims the changes are direct reactions to “concerns about how the guidelines could impact creative expression and traditionally marginalized voices”.


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