The slope is becoming slippery…

First it was just genitalia. Then it became nudity at all or intercourse. Now it includes any explicit acts. Tags are getting removed because it “doesn’t look good”. The terms of service are rewritten in legalese and the guidelines have become extremely vague, basically giving mods total freedom to decide what is allowed.

And I see the positives they point out I do. It does allow more freedom to moderate content that breaks ToS I get that. I do not envy being a mod for Janitor in the slightest. I appreciate all that they do. The timing concerns me is all.

Consider this. You start a company, it blows up, you’re ecstatic. But then you need money to keep it afloat. Thing is, investors only invest because they expect a return on their investment. You grow. You need more money, more people. Their jobs become dependent on that income. You become beholden to your investors. Your investors say, “Hey we could make more money if we just made this a little more accessible. Tone down the sexual content, censor some stuff… and if you want our funding you’ll do what we say.”

How could you refuse? The site can’t exist without them. The people you work with, your friends, will lose their jobs. Everything you built will fall apart. It’s just a small change though right? It’s totally understandable where this investor is coming from anyways...

Interesting that all these changes happen right as they start talking about monetization no? They didn’t have enough GPU’s. It was so bad they had to put a queue in! People won’t mind if they take a little money to afford more GPU’s right? But allegedly this is l about CSAM, even if it doesn’t really solve that issue in my opinion.

And you know what? Maybe Shep does have all the best intentions. Unfortunately things sometimes grow beyond a single person’s control. Perhaps I’m being too skeptical, only time will tell. But things are looking worse and worse to me.

Edit: Monetization was the wrong word here. I meant taking money from investors. I’m actually for monetization (e.g. selling subscriptions or extras). Then the site could stay more community run. Something more akin to Wikipedia. I wish Janitor would stay free forever but I know that’s not a realistic goal. Also I hope receiving income would allow them to scale up so we could get more context and get rid of the queue.