With new folks coming in from Bsky let's tighten up using content warnings. Cw - discussion of content warnings and topics meriting a content warning
Cw: discussion of common cw tags and subjects, including violence, sexual violence, animal products, and others.
Bluesky's trust and safety (betrayal and bullshit) team is engaged in high fuckery and we're likely going to get some new folks coming in from bksy.
Now's probably a good time to revisit content warnings and when and how to use them.
Content warnings are just that; a warning about the content of a post or submission. They grew out of the older notion of "trigger warnings" as an acknowledgement that no one could reasonably guess what might be triggering to other people. Instead content warnings are a more general heads up that a discussion contains material that may be upsetting or unwanted by some people.
It's a friendly warning so folks can decide whether or not they'd like to engage with the discussion.
Note on "nsfw". When assessing if something is not safe for work ask yourself if a corporate HR rep who hated you would use it as evidence to get you fired.
Animal products - posts discussion animal products like meat or leather should have cw: animal products or cw: meat in the post title or header. Posts should usually be labelled nsfw and it's courteous to put discussions inside a spoiler tag so people can choose if they want to open it or not.
Sexual violence or sexual assault - posts discussion sexual violence, sexual assault, intimate partner violencen, or sexual violence against kids, all need to be labelled with a cw. Sv is commomly used for sexual violence, sa for sexual assault, csa or csam for violence against children. Posts should always have a nsfw tag or be placed in a spoiler tag.
Violence - posts discussing violence, torture, and related topics should have a cw as such and use spoiler tags and nsfw tags as appropriate.
Graphic images - graphic images of violence, combat footage, severe injusry or death, should be labelled as such and should always have an appropriate cw and be placed in spoiler tags and marked with the nsfw.
Bigotry - sexism, racism, tranphobia, misogyny, ethnic bigotry, ableism, and really any structural violence generally merits a cw. If it's graphic or upsetting putting the material in a spoiler tag is polite.
Some other things that may merit a cw
common phobias liek spiders and clowns
particularly awful politics
notorious or hated political figures
Hexbear pop culture enemies - for instance superhero movies are often semi-seriously marked with a "capeshit" warning
topics discussing religious trauma
sexual topics and general horniness as a courtesy to our ace and otherwise not-interested comrades
medical trauma and topics that are frequent sites of medical violence.
If there was a "rule" it'd be; if you think someoen might find your post upsetting it's usually wroth writing a one or two word cw and sticking it at the top of the post. It's a courteous way to give people a heads up on what the discussion is about so if it's content they don't want to engage with they can skip it and keep browsing.
Hexbear pop culture enemies - for instance superhero movies are often semi-seriously marked with a "capeshit" warning
We should actually stop doing this. The function of Content Warnings is to help people avoid upsetting material, not to signal that something is disapproved of. Using them ironically or "semi-seriously" makes them less effective in their actual function.
Note on "nsfw". When assessing if something is not safe for work ask yourself if a corporate HR rep who hated you would use it as evidence to get you fired.
Most corporate HR reps would use literally any posting whatsoever in Hexbear as a reason to get you fired.
ngl, kinda weird to see the newbies with their actual faces for their pfp. I'm not sure if we ever had an explicit rule against that, but it's something that I've noticed.
Certain discussions of weight and eating habits might also merit a content warning – these might trigger people with eating disorders in some way and so I feel it's better to be on the safe side.
the normal focus of content tagging is on helping people avoid things, but I want to highlight another function of content tagging— breaking "default ideology" (bourgeois) conceptions of what's acceptable. having terrible things tagged as such helps those who are bothered by them feel they are not alone
Good stuff, thank you. I'm a BlueSky user, I'm gonna stay there for now but I'll be active here as well. Glad to have found the place!
For those that asked, Bluesky mods let a certain well known "polite transphobe" "journalist" stay on the platform who is already getting around blocks to harass ppl
But jokes beside, it would be a shame if we lost a really good comrade because they were put off by something that is trivial to hide behind a content warning.
Culturally, we're irony and sarcasm-heavy, but often do not label it with tags like /s or /j. If you're not sure, look for context. I think this aspect of the banter here can really throw people for a loop
I'm always happy to have new comrades but at this point I'm also wondering what in god's name is happening at bluesky? This is far more than the slow trickle of newcomers we usually get
Damn, this might be the biggest influx of new users we've had since federation, how many followers did the bluesky account that gave us a shout out have?
Does anyone know if there's a way to filter out posts with cws or specific words? Not really asking for myself but I'd imagine that would be functionally some people would appreciate
I Really appreciate the specific examples, I frequently have trouble interpreting what needs cw/NSFW and what doesn't, partially because I have autism and partially because I have never really worked in a setting with corporate hr reps. Thank you Frank
One question for clarification: how about makeup tips and suggestions for products? I'm still learning about things and don't know if certain brands include animal products or if they were tested with animals. Would it be too much if I started adding a CW for makeup tips as tangential to animal rights? Thank you!
I didn't know common phobias were a CW thing, fine by me but I didn't know clowns or spiders needed a cw. I'm certain I've seen uncensored clownposting. I'm not arguing against it, just don't remember that being a thing.