(I recohosted said post earlier, go read it for context).
After thinking about it for a bit, I think disallowing loli/shotacon is probably the most pragmatic move, based largely on the argument that allowing it, even under mandatory filtered tags and geolocked to regions where it's legal, opens the door for Cohost to gain a Reputation as The Loli/Shota Site, which could bring with it both an outsized influx of people wanting to post loli/shota art as well as a lot of negative PR off-site.
(Edited in a readmore to reduce timeline spam)
Edited in a readmore to reduce timeline spam:
Thinking about it more, while I think the reputational argument is relevant, I do wonder if the reduction in moderation headaches isn't equally if not more valuable from a long-term perspective.
With loli/shota allowed, the line between allowed content and disallowed content is very clear-cut - media featuring actual human children or photorealistic depictions of children are right out, boom, done. With it banned, walked back to something like "sexualized depictions of minors are not allowed", you've now given yourself a whole host of aggravating moderation rulings to make:
- What constitutes "sexualization" of minors? Does art of two teen characters kissing count? Is art of a minor in a swimsuit automatically sexualized?
- What about characters with minor-like appearances that are technically of-age in canon (the classic 500-year-old child vampire)?
- What about characters who might become of-age over the course of their specific continuity (Fire Emblem, for instance)? Are moderators expected to know the difference between the younger and older designs of each individual character?
- What about ageing-up minors? What is acceptable evidence of ageing-up?
- What about non-human characters? What would constitute an unacceptably minor-ish depiction of a griffon? A minotaur? A dragon?
Reading these, your response might be "well, I'd know a violation if I saw it". Great! Good! Because now you have to go case-by-case every time one of these borderline cases gets reported to you (and they WILL be reported to you, because Cops). Every single one of these cases requires brain power from a human, and the dev team frankly does not have humans to spare - the conceit that this would be easier to moderate is absolutely laughable and bears no connection whatsoever to reality. More time spent moderating these edge cases is less time working on building site features and is also very soul-draining as fuck.
I still ultimately believe a ban is PROBABLY the right call for now, but I think it's something worst revisiting down the road when the site is more firmly established.