Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#161

Post by code_duck » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #81

laumars wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a lot that happened in Ancient Greece that doesn’t happen now. If your entire point about it being sexual is based on the sensibilities of a population 2000 years ago then I suggest perhaps your view of the world needs an update. Eg Things like blood sports are now widely disliked and we no longer believe in multiple in Greek gods nor that the sun is pulled up via chariot.

>>>> I think what they would say is that the statue was not created nor are photos provided with an aim to ‘appeal to a prurient interest’. >>> It would be hard to defend that claim as to the creation of the statue. On the other hand, I feel fairly confident in claiming that women wearing nothing but a sheet that doesn't quite cover their butt are considered sexy in the modern day too. Would you believe that, say, so…

The issue here is the distinction between art that depicts nudity (with or without eroticism) and pornography. This is the sort of thing that has been discussed at great length by the Supreme Court, and I doubt if we’re going to make any headway debating it here. I would suggest referring to historical legal discussions.

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#162

Post by sydd » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #153

badpun wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you wondered why extremely successful cultures (Christian, Muslim) have/had rules against public nudity? I had, and my (layman) conclusions were that public nudity creates too much sexual tension, and that is bad for stability of society. Hence, societies just function better without public nudity.

Have you wondered why extremely successful cultures today are the ones that tend to be less rather than more prudish?

Not true, the US is quite prudish and successful. The OP I'd a fine example; if Google would be French or Japanese I doubt this would be an issue.

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#163

Post by zozbot123 » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #146

matwood wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without any evidence to back up your claim, this is simply a case of correlation != causation. If we follow your example, then the subjugation of women also leads to a better functioning society. Do you think that is also true? Going back to the nudity example, have you ever been to a topless beach? As an American who grew up in the religious south, my first trip to a topless beach in Europe was interesting for a bit…

> Without any evidence to back up your claim, this is simply a case of correlation != causation. If we follow your example, then the subjugation of women also leads to a better functioning society. It's a bit stronger than that, because not only all successful cultures banned public nudity - also all cultures that tried public nudity failed. Re: topless beach - going to a topless beach once a while vs living in a soc…

> Imagine a workplace where your ... colleagues are naked.

I just imagined that - and indeed, you're right that the possibility is quite offensive to my personal taste, and even frankly disquieting. But whereas you might try to explain this as the result of "too much sexual tension", I would instead place the blame on its very opposite. (And the fact that the colleagues might be of the gender I'm occasionally attracted to does not improve things one bit.)

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#164

Post by fencepost » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

This seems like it could be applied to any app designed to display user-generated content on a single site or family of sites, obviously including Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. since I'm pretty sure it's possible to find nudity on any of those just with some casual browsing.

Should also probably be applied to Messenger, Hangouts, Skype, Duo, WhatsApp, etc. since I'm pretty sure there's nudity and sexual content on those as well, and you can likely find it pretty easily.

For that matter, I'm pretty sure I can find explicitly sexual content in Chrome running on Android. Has Google considered what a potential disaster this could be for them? Perhaps they should remove Chrome and other general-purpose web browsing apps, or define what it is that makes those applications different from the ones they do ban.

On a different note, can this be applied to reverse some annoying things? Does Reddit allow access to "adult" areas in the mobile app and if not do they play the annoying "wouldn't you like to use the app instead" in those areas on mobile browsers? Can you bypass that by marking your subreddit as "adult" if you don't have a significant volume of under-18 readers?

Edit: "Google Android: Like AOL, but with less porn! And we have Candy Crush!"

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#165

Post by qazwse_ » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #98

laser wrote: post #29

The suppression of the viewing of the human body in its natural form, especially in art, is one of the deepest perversions of society. It seems so intrinsically tied to the suppression and control of pleasure by institutions seeking dominance over human life. When you control access to the natural pleasures of life, you have control over the motivations and operations of that life. In prior times, when religions were…

Have you wondered why extremely successful cultures (Christian, Muslim) have/had rules against public nudity? I had, and my (layman) conclusions were that public nudity creates too much sexual tension, and that is bad for stability of society. Hence, societies just function better without public nudity.

A brief reading of Wikipedia states that the ancient Egyptians and Greeks didn't have much against nudity. Minimal clothing was worn in Egypt. And the Greeks even said that other countries disliked their nakedness: "generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; lovers of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and naked sports are held, because they are inimical to tyranny;"

Edit: Reading further, it's saying that public topless-ness was common in Japan until the American occupation after WWII, so there's a more recent example as well.

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#166

Post by sangnoir » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #132

Fnoord wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also an example of the USA shoving down its morals to the rest of the world. Especially areas where partial nudity is accepted. One of the very first things in life a baby does is searching the nipple (which is darker than the rest of the breast) and sucking on it. Breast are very much part of nature and human life, yet we censor it as if it is something which shouldn't be seen. At the same time, we have no iss…

The US has pretty liberal standards on pornography and art...I mean most pornography and such art is produced in the US itself. Tasteful nudity in the US is not frowned upon, perhaps in public, yes...but I don't know of many countries where that isn't frowned upon outside beaches. I'm not sure what you're referring to, or if you are that familiar with the US. The UK on the other hand and some other European countries…

> I mean most pornography and such art is produced in the US itself

Most US pornography is produced in San Fernando Valley - I don't think you can generalize porn/nude art across the US so perhaps you ought to have said "California has pretty liberal standards on pornography and art".

Janet Jackson's Nipplegate wouldn't have been a big deal in any of the European countries you mentioned, but Americans were scandalized.

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#167

Post by laumars » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #132

Fnoord wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also an example of the USA shoving down its morals to the rest of the world. Especially areas where partial nudity is accepted. One of the very first things in life a baby does is searching the nipple (which is darker than the rest of the breast) and sucking on it. Breast are very much part of nature and human life, yet we censor it as if it is something which shouldn't be seen. At the same time, we have no iss…

The US has pretty liberal standards on pornography and art...I mean most pornography and such art is produced in the US itself. Tasteful nudity in the US is not frowned upon, perhaps in public, yes...but I don't know of many countries where that isn't frowned upon outside beaches. I'm not sure what you're referring to, or if you are that familiar with the US. The UK on the other hand and some other European countries…

My experience is actually the reverse. USA weirdly conservative about nudity - to the point that Americans often confuse nudity and pornography (as you had done in your post replying to a person talking about nonsexual nudity).

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#168

Post by sonnyblarney » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

laser wrote: post #29

The suppression of the viewing of the human body in its natural form, especially in art, is one of the deepest perversions of society. It seems so intrinsically tied to the suppression and control of pleasure by institutions seeking dominance over human life. When you control access to the natural pleasures of life, you have control over the motivations and operations of that life. In prior times, when religions were…

So you don't mind wading through some 'rape porn' while you try to find the next bus time? Because there's nary any real definition of 'art'.

Your position is nice, but it's academic.

We could even disagree on the academic points, but it would be futile: topless women and men with their dongle's hanging out are not going to be in Google Play, just like you won't see them on street signs or in shopping malls in the US, Germany, or most other places frankly.

I don't buy any of the historical (i.e. religious) or national (i.e. USA) arguments: in the UK and Sweden, they are banning scantily clad women in ads on the basis of 'sexism' for god's sake. And even if they weren't, you're not going to find men with their dongle's in your Taxi ad anytime soon either - anywhere on earth basically.

In reality, there will always have to be a line drawn somewhere.

Tumblr became a porn haven, and for whatever reason, they didn't want that, so they moved it.

If there were no recourse, then I think there'd be an issue here, but there are basically infinity recourses. All you hav to do is type a url into your browser to get your 'Heavy Metal' avatar.

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#169

Post by manfredo » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

lozenge wrote: post #82

manfredo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a web browser in essence. But the UI, scrolling behavior, etc. are all handled by the app rather than the website. The result is often a much cleaner experience, especially compared to the average website's mobile web experience. There's also often extended functionality, like saving entire galleries of images, saving threads, etc. What I'd imagine Artstation doing is releasing a "generic art showcase app"…

And how will they include ads? API users can just not display those.

Maybe when it pulls a gallery of photos from the API, it injects a few ads. Or the ads could be served by the app itself.

Re: Google Takes Down Artstation Android App for Explicit Content

#170

Post by thinkloop » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #156

Fnoord wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also an example of the USA shoving down its morals to the rest of the world. Especially areas where partial nudity is accepted. One of the very first things in life a baby does is searching the nipple (which is darker than the rest of the breast) and sucking on it. Breast are very much part of nature and human life, yet we censor it as if it is something which shouldn't be seen. At the same time, we have no iss…

I see no reason to think this has anything to do with the US. For instance Steam recently decided to allow openly sexualized games. The relevance there being that they've absolutely made sure that they're not going to run into legal issues in the US doing that. And it turns out, they're not. So this is coming from Google. Their motivation is much harder to discern. Related to advertising? Avoiding store segregation a…

I think it's clearly advertisers, tumblr and reddit are going through a similar cleanup as they mature. You start with free principled user focused values, grow to a critical mass, then disneyfy for that sweet cash. This leaves a vacuum for a new entrant to go through the same process. Maybe that sweet spot between basement project and corporate success is where ultra freedom is destined to remain.

I think this mechanism is the core of why we feel a vague sadness when sites like github get bought by big corps. You tacitly know it's the beginning of the end on some dimension.