For some reason, I create new websites and blogs as though they are candy and the Internet is a candy store. And I’m still trying to figure out what kind of content I create should be put where. But since this issue is getting a lot of airtime recently, and this post I wrote on my newest blog, Maybe Days, is pretty succinct, I thought it worthy of a cross-post for regular readers here, as well.

The worst part of censorship is [CENSORED].

There’s an(other) interesting brouhaha in digital anti-porn versus (IMHO inappropriately named) pro-porn debates. But instead of a porn site, this time the battleground is Facebook.

Violet Blue’s “Our Porn, Ourselves” Facebook fan page, a carefully patrolled page where over 3,000 people (including myself) discussed the issue of pornography in the context of the anti-porn and pro-porn arguments, has been removed. Exactly why that happened is known only to Facebook at the moment, but here’s what the anti-porn activists behind the @Porn_Harms twitter account said:

#facebook removed very innapropriate #proporn page. Thx FB for enforcing your no-obscenity rules. #children shouldn’t have open access there

Ah, yes. Children. Won’t somebody think of them? Please?

Noticing, @DodgerWA made a very simple, obvious point:

Interesting. According to @porn_harms even simply talking about #proporn ideals is “innapropriate” (sic).

[email protected]_Harms Links on the #proporn FB page were to articles about porn, not porn itself.  It’s called social discussion & education.

This is a very telling example of anti-porn being pro-censorship. It is perhaps the most blatant example of the embodiment of anti-porn ideals on the Internet, which clearly forbid not merely the distribution of imagery that anti-porn zealots like Gail Dines find offensive, but simply ideas that they find offensive.

Make no mistake: anti-porn is pro-censorship. They may say they’re not, but read closely and you’ll see references to MacKinnon-style censorship laws that would suppress access to the kinds of ideas that were on Violet Blue’s Facebook page. And they make these (sometimes subtle) references all over the place.

To wit, this recent Boston Globe article about Gail Dines:

Having viewed countless images as part of her research, Dines says there should be legislation that would define pornography as a violation of women’s civil rights and would entitle women to sue the industry for harm done to them.

Arguments like this have earned her […] the inevitable accusation that she favors censorship (Dines says she does not) and that she is an anti-sex prude. At that, she just rolls her eyes.

(Emphasis mine.)

Well, Ms. Dines, some accusations are true.

Update: Sometimes, the anti-porn contingent is not so subtle. Here’s them crowing about the pro-porn fan page’s removal. Comments include “Its all Gods mercy. More are yet to be removed God must rule” and “Thanks, FB. GOOD JOB…WA HOO! LOVE IT…PRAISE GOD!!!” (Click to enlarge.)

In addition to this post, interested readers can find plenty more good information and context at Iamcuriousblue’s blog.