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Content moderation unfairly silences queer expression

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Queer content being unfairly labeled NSFW leads to it getting swept away with the corporate panic

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IMAGES: Courtesy of Robert Yang (Radiator Forever) and Campaign Creators / Unsplash

By: Jonah Lazar, Staff Writer

Content warning: mention of rape, incest, and child sex abuse.

Last year, anti-porn organization Collective Shout successfully lobbied to prevent transactions from users buying video games containing “adult content” on game purchasing sites Steam and Itch.io. In an open letter addressed to payment processors like VISA, MasterCard, and PayPal, Collective Shout condemned the sale of video games containing rape simulation, incest, and child sex abuse. They called on these companies to cease their relationship with these gaming platforms so long as they host games and content of this nature. Limitations on content involving rape, incest, and child sex abuse are undoubtedly a good thing. However, since then, there are claims that over 20,000 not safe for work (NSFW) games across platforms are deindexed, removed, or no longer purchasable.

The content ban has largely followed a non-transparent approach that prevents the purchasing of any content tagged as NSFW, which is much broader than Collective Shout’s stated issues. This has had a disproportionate impact on queer media, which is often labeled NSFW due to lingering stigmas around queer sexualities and relationships, even when the content itself is no more explicit than its heterosexual equivalents. 

Websites removing NSFW content to appease payment processors or app stores is not a new phenomenon. In 2018, Tumblr was removed from the Apple App Store for having abuse images circulating. In response, Tumblr purged all explicit content, erasing vast swathes of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities’ content on the platform. The reason is 2SLGBTQIA+ content gets flagged as NSFW even when dealing with non-sexual themes. This happened on Tumblr after they used an algorithm to detect explicit content, but flagged regular art. For Steam, any user can add tags to a game, even if the developer disagrees with it. Content dealing with sensitive topics like queer expression and existence gets flagged simply for its queerness; even a two-dimensional, non-sexual game was banned due to having a transgender main character. Heteronormative content is able to get away with a lot more, and gets to exist in a grey area of appropriateness that is not afforded to queer content. It’s not that the content is explicit, it’s that content with queer characters gets flagged for just existing.

The queer community consistently has had to fight for the right to exist in public, without their experiences and expressions being reduced to stories about sex.

The queer community consistently has had to fight for the right to exist in public, without their experiences and expressions being reduced to stories about sex. This latest wave of content moderation is yet another example of queer voices being silenced. Until queer content begins to be held to a similar standard to straight content when labels such as NSFW are assigned, queerness will continue to be abruptly filtered out without warning or care.

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

For advertising inquiries: [email protected]
For promotional inquiries: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society