BlueSky Censorship Tightens

Because nobody seems to take art seriously anymore, BlueSky, the Twitter replacement after its descent into Musk Madness, has decided to implement new censorship rules. These rules are lazily written, overly broad, and unduly vague. The moderation team for BlueSky could essentially use them to censor whatever the hell they wanted without any consideration as to the artistic merit of works or the cultural impact they could have. Setting the stage to become complete boot-licking stooges for our new fascist regime, the BlueSky team is carefully lubing their asshole for the spiked dildo of betrayal as it will become apparent later on during The State’s internet crackdown (yes, I am calling it now) that they won’t survive it anyway no matter how much boot-licking they do.

moistdrippings.bsky.social said it best when they pointed out that under these rules, specifically the subsection that bans “graphic violent content designed to shock, disturb, or intimidate others”, BlueSky would have effectively banned Picasso’s beautiful and unsettling depiction of the Nazi bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. This mural, intended to bring to light the horrors of war and the cost to women and children, was one of Picasso’s few political pieces and it’s particularly relevant that this kind of art could possibly be censored as we face significant pressure from The State to conform to only Trump-approved messaging.

This is a critical juncture in global history and absolutely no one is meeting the moment except artists…of course we can’t have that. While the other bits and bobs of the new BlueSky censorship proclamation include things like banning “nonconsensual” sexual scenarios (another vague/broad bullshit regulation), these aren’t exactly anything new when it comes to what we’ve seen on other platforms and we see mini-fascist teenieboppers constantly screaming about this exact kind of rule for Archive of Our Own. Generally speaking, I don’t make things that lack consent (not that anyone would be able to tell as Rudi the Twink Nazi doesn’t have eyes to put hearts in them, though when he’s dying he does have a boner, so that’s something I guess), but I do make works that are often detected by Artificial Intelligence to be “graphic.” What does it take to be considered graphic? A swastika. No matter the irony, no matter the context, no matter anything, a swastika is “graphic.” But why do I put them in my work? Oh…because I intended to shock. Because that’s what art does. Well. If you take art seriously, anyway.

Some artists put small “stickers” on the sides or in the corners of their work with a picture of the character getting railed saying “I consent” which, honestly, will likely have to become a cultural norm at this point…and that’s if it works. Other ways to get around these types of rules will form and be implemented by the most creative of us, but many artists will likely, in the words of Kradeelav, “go to ground.” Our spaces, the ones we made and the ones we cultivated are going to become less and less friendly to us and eventually we’re going to have to come up with ways to effectively side-step censorship at every turn. The State will tighten its grip and we will see less of each other…

But we will survive. We have no other choice.