Everyone is saying they could have gone to X, Y or Z instead of going to OnlyFans. IMO this decision to host on OF was very deliberate. Had they gone to any other platform no one would have raised an eyebrow. But because they went to OF everyone is doing a double take because of OF's reputation.
They knew (rightly so) that if they opened an OF account, they would get a bunch of free press and bring more eyeballs to their artwork.
They are quoted saying as much in the NYT coverage of this story:
> Mr. Kettner said that the OnlyFans account is not a permanent solution, but rather a protest against censorship and a call for conversation. “We want to draw attention to a certain thing,” he said. “We want to put it out there, to talk about the role of artificial intelligence, of algorithms.”
So, they’re doing this because the images constantly get flagged and reported on other social media. It doesn’t seem that hard to let users set a NSFW flag that determines whether they’re ok with nsfw content in their feed. Doesn’t Reddit do this?
It's probably that and it's great marketing TBH. They could have just posted them on their own site or another palace that allows NSFW images (Reddit, Twitter, etc). But they probably also knew that a story about an art museum opening an OnlyFans is going to be fantastic marketing.
Reddit uses the NSFW flag as bait to get you to sign up for the app. Any time you click on a link to such content, you are told have to install the app to see it.
Maybe this is a mobile only thing? I can view NSFW content on desktop (both old + new reddit) while being logged out and logged in without a prompt to download anything.
I mean i actually get that…you don’t want random casual viewers accidentally seeing graphic images. Even an NSFW tag (which in reddit is often abused on definitely not-NSFW content) won’t deter them.
IMO as long as reddit still has those images, even if they’re behind subreddits which proclaim “WARNING: SEE AT YOUR OWN RISK”, that’s good enough.
Twitter does. Facebook and therefore instagram have the "no female-presenting nipples" rule, and you're not allowed adult content even though they know you're an adult.
> Vienna’s tourism board has started an account on OnlyFans – the only social network that permits depictions of nudity – in protest against platforms’ ongoing censorship of its art museums and galleries.
The only social network? How about the Fediverse? Spin up their own PixelFed (and a Mastodon instance too), promote it widely, and donate some of their public money to these FOSS projects based on open standards, instead of just choosing a proprietary centralized platform.
Fediverse is a niche thing for people who care more about decentralisation for the sake of decentralisation rather than the actual social media aspect.
I can remember when a lot of widespread network platforms were niche. Twitter and post Twitter started this VC instant popularity expectation.
I don't mean to advocate for Mastodon or anything else in particular, but these things sometimes have a way of being niche until they're not.
I also think part of the parent's argument was that in encountering obstacles like this, groups of nonprofit institutions such as art museums could leverage their position to promote decentralized systems, rather than simply throw up their hands and go with a sensationalized move.
Then again we are here discussing it. But then again if they banded together to post on some decentralized platform we'd probably be talking too.
The Internet was once a niche thing for people who cared about decentralisation and interoperability. Otherwise we would be in "I can't get to HN, it's on the AT&T network" or "Only $5 more to upgrade to the Tech Websites Package!" territory today.
There's no reason social media shouldn't be more decentralized and federated. European institutes can and should consider open source, federated alternatives unless they want to be forced to play by the rules of the big social media providers.
Not in my experience, personally. There's a fair few artists who have art accounts on mastodon.socal and the related mastodon servers - especially handy for NSFW artists of all stripes.
I don't know where you get this notion. Fediverse is small with only about 4 million accounts spread out on a couple 1,000 instances. Social aspects are taken very seriously though, and have created a unique atmosphere and culture. Netiquette is taken seriously, and devs take care to avoid building social features that are harmful.
I think the decision to put it up on OF was pretty deliberate. A story about a museum opening an OnlyFans account is going to get alot more people talking than if the museum did it with the Fediverse or some other implementation.
Laws in Europe are different in the US. I used to work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I published the entire collection online. I got calls from colleagues in Europe amazed that we didn't worry about kids seeing stuff they shouldn't. We think the US is puritan but the decision that anything with merit can't be judged obscene actually protects us.
protip: nothing gets judged as legally obscene in the US as nobody wants the actual decisive court case. Supreme Court has left a carveout that things can distinctly be considered obscene, but nobody has gone that far. they made new carveouts for child sexual depictions even it not passing the obscenity test. More recently, a man was sued under copyright laws for pirating pornography and their defense was that because the work was obscene it could not be have any copyright restrictions, of course since the law firms suing over piracy are just spraying and praying, they don't want an actual trial. This area is not resolved and likely won't ever be.
> nothing gets judged as legally obscene in the US as nobody wants the actual decisive court case
There are a lot of court cases on obscenity, some of which hold decisively [1].
> a man was sued under copyright laws for pirating pornography and their defense was that because the work was obscene it could not be have any copyright restrictions…since the law firms suing over piracy are just spraying and praying, they don't want an actual trial
Nonsense. Porn companies regularly go to court to protect their IP [2]. (To your example, in which venue was your defendant defending himself if not in a court?)
It is common but I know some creators who censor their posts as nudes are actually against the rules and people can get their accounts banned for this. For some that work hard to build a following getting banned can be catastrophic.
The guy that runs these accounts was having a few blocked about 6 months ago but seems to have straightened it out. They’re bots though so it isn’t gonna kill him if they shut one down.
Readit News
They knew (rightly so) that if they opened an OF account, they would get a bunch of free press and bring more eyeballs to their artwork.
> Mr. Kettner said that the OnlyFans account is not a permanent solution, but rather a protest against censorship and a call for conversation. “We want to draw attention to a certain thing,” he said. “We want to put it out there, to talk about the role of artificial intelligence, of algorithms.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/style/onlyfans-nude-art-v...
IMO as long as reddit still has those images, even if they’re behind subreddits which proclaim “WARNING: SEE AT YOUR OWN RISK”, that’s good enough.
The only social network? How about the Fediverse? Spin up their own PixelFed (and a Mastodon instance too), promote it widely, and donate some of their public money to these FOSS projects based on open standards, instead of just choosing a proprietary centralized platform.
I don't mean to advocate for Mastodon or anything else in particular, but these things sometimes have a way of being niche until they're not.
I also think part of the parent's argument was that in encountering obstacles like this, groups of nonprofit institutions such as art museums could leverage their position to promote decentralized systems, rather than simply throw up their hands and go with a sensationalized move.
Then again we are here discussing it. But then again if they banded together to post on some decentralized platform we'd probably be talking too.
There's no reason social media shouldn't be more decentralized and federated. European institutes can and should consider open source, federated alternatives unless they want to be forced to play by the rules of the big social media providers.
two examples: https://mastodon.social/@kradeelavhttps://mastodon.social/@chirart
There are a lot of court cases on obscenity, some of which hold decisively [1].
> a man was sued under copyright laws for pirating pornography and their defense was that because the work was obscene it could not be have any copyright restrictions…since the law firms suing over piracy are just spraying and praying, they don't want an actual trial
Nonsense. Porn companies regularly go to court to protect their IP [2]. (To your example, in which venue was your defendant defending himself if not in a court?)
[1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/prosecut...
[2] https://abovethelaw.com/2017/12/porn-piracy-forbidden-to-set...
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https://vimeo.com/tag:nudity