Hey guys, it was brought up in a report that NSFW tags should be applied to posts depicting drug use. What do you guys think? I could see it either way and thought you guys might like to weigh in on it. I personally don't find it particularly offensive but my work environments have never been the type to react strongly to something like this popping up on screen (I think they might be more upset about being on Lemmy at all). Currently there is no rule, and I am fine with that, unless feedback indicates the community would rather play it safe and require the NSFW flag.
NSFW has typically been used for things that are visually disturbing, like gore and sexually explicit materials. Using it for ideas that aren't safe for work feels like it would devalue the tag.
What about a person injecting themselves? I don't think anyone is necessarily complaining about smoking, but personally I don't exactly want to be seeing pictures of people injecting themselves or others, others especially, without any potential warning.
I think you are on the right train of thought for this. A real person injecting themselves probably should be considered a NSFW image but a cartoon/meme character shouldn't be.
Ideally we would have NSFW, NSFL, and something like NSFG (Not Safe For Grandma) tags.
The tag is for warning people browsing at work not to click... Using it to prevent someone from clicking on a post that would be unacceptable to read at the workplace is exactly what it's for
It's not like it's censorship, it's just a warning tag.
I would hazard a guess that this was brough up in reference to a meme on this board showing a close up of someone snorting a line of white powder. I can completely understand why that might not be considered suitable for all places and audiences.
My rule of tumb: if someone is walking by would they stop and backtrack and go "WTF are you looking at at work?!" if no then it's not NSFW. If it's just text it's not NSFW. ASCII art not withstanding.
People at work don't (shouldn't) click on NSFW-tagged content. If it draws your eye even more, then I assume you don't browse from work.
How would it defeat the purpose to tag content that most workplaces would not be okay with? If you don't mind seeing the content, then the tag might entice you. People at work will recognize it and not click
No, depictions of drug use aren't nsfw. And if we start censoring it, why not also start censoring other relatively harmless concepts like depictions of weapons or cursewords? We don't want this, and trying to enforce it would add additional, unnecessary work to both you and the admins.
I appreciate the many voices here. It seems like consensus is that the tag is not needed as a general rule. I want to be clear, also, that the NSFW tag is not censorship, but also doesn't seem necessary either. Thank you guys for chiming in!
I say if you label something not safe for work because of a drug, then it must be for all drugs including caffeine. No talks about coffee at work, or doughnuts; get those added sugars out of here. Far more people die in America from heart issues than people from eating edible gummies. Why would you ban one and not the other.
I suspect that this may be partially a result of a recent post of mine that some may considered to be in bad taste. So this response is likely to be a bit biased.
For what it is worth, I considered tagging mine as NSFW but ultimately decided it was not necessary. I thought the image was very clearly a staged representation of drug use. Similar to how the Eric Andre meme is clearly a staged representation of murder. Further, there was no blood nor any indication of physical injury and I liked it to an image of somebody smoking pot or drinking to excess.
Do I think drug use alone require a NSFW tag? No.
Should drug coupled with blood, gore, physical injury, exploitation, etc? Possibly.
The original question came up over snorting drugs through a rolled up C note but would also likely encompass shooting heroin or smoking meth/crack. But the consensus appears to be not to ask for an NSFW tag at this time. So that will be our stance unless you guys decide things are going too far and you want the tag included on posts with that sort of content.
When in doubt, use NSFW. I don't feel good when people make memes about crack or users because it directly affects me. I stopped following a community because of that. Thanks for asking anyway.
I think for issues like this it may be good to develop a practice of using the spoiler tag with a warning attached. This way it's up to the reader to decide if they want to read it and is flexible enough to cover all of the various use cases.
It definitely is for those things, but in general it's meant to encompass things that would cause problems if a coworker or manager looked over your shoulder. Graphic depictions of illegal drug use is borderline which is why I wanted to ask the community how they felt about it.
While I personally have no issue with it being not censored, I could see it being difficult for people struggling with any sort of addiction or dependency issues. I understand not all of them are addicting chemically, but some get hooked mentally as well.
An NSFW tag isn't censorship, it's a warning for people at WORK. if you don't use it for what it's for, that's not working people problems, that's your fault.
Public advertisements depict people getting vaccines and other shots. Thats a weird stance, when you could view that anywhere accidentally, not even online.
Newspapers, news channels, etc, all depict pictures and videos of people getting vaccines.