As far as I know, Steemit does not have any type of censoring function or feature that prevents something from posting content that might be considered offensive or inappropriate to certain demographics or members of the audience. And I think by and large the steemians have respected that freedom and exercised caution wherever possible. The same principles apply on the Autobahn in Germany where there are no speed limits in place in certain sections because the emphasis is on the driver to find the safest path given the conditions (I'd love to find out about the accident incidence rate there compared to say New York or some busy street in China).
If you were like me and spend very little time on social media in general, you might have seen some posts with the 'nsfw' tag with its bright red letters and wondered what it was all about. My curiosity did get the better of me at some point, and it took until I read the actual post regarding the use of this tag did I realize the purpose and intent behind this feature.
This made me realize that while we embrace the ideal of free speech on Steemit, there is also a certain amount of respect for the responsibility that we must carry with it, not only because everything here stays on the blockchain, but because that responsibility relates to how we behave and interact with each other on this platform. Even before I became aware of the 'nsfw' tag I had already caught wind of many incidents of flagging (let's not get into the 'correct' use of it here), so it is obvious that certain actions or words here on steemit can be downvoted with some cascading effects.
So what are the forces at work here? No doubt people will push the boundary on what is deemed appropriate content, and as far as I can see the usual nudity, gambling, religious and conspiracy theory related posts are all part of any other forms of social media. In all of these posts I have maintained that we can do better than other social media platforms and we should not settle for less, which is why one of the suggestions I proposed to utopian.io (and maybe others have done so as well) is to advocate for the creation of the 'nsfc' tag. Just as the 'nsfw' tag allows a person to take responsibility for the intended context (and perhaps audience) for viewing the post, I believe that it is also important to set a context for when contents are not intended for viewing by children, with the view that many steemians will also get their children involved with the platform at some stage.
In one scenario we may find that the core content on steemit will be different to other social media platforms (this is my hope) because it will be about people's stories and their work rather than the traditional models of monetization on social media (e.g. advertising, competitions, gambling, etc.) and therefore the need for censorship is reduced due to the content being more inclusive and people more understanding of the context of the information being presented.
In an alternate scenario we may find that the content is not too different from other social media platforms (I see the difference but not enough of it at the moment), but we can differentiate ourselves by taking more responsibility to provide content in its correct context and for the intended audiences only. One way this is being dealt with at the moment (as mentioned earlier) is through the creation of tags such as 'nsfw' and certain categories that are very niche or specific in the tag (I admit there is not that many), and I have also previously proposed a more elaborate system/feature that allows tagging to be used to define sub topics/genres better for the users to find relevant content. This would also been the ability to filter out more content that might otherwise be inappropriate for certain types of audiences such as children.
Assuming that the content on steemit continues to shift, what can we do as authors and curators to make things work with or without those features of the platform? This is where some practical wisdom comes into play. We don't need a ratings system to tell us what is appropriate or inappropriate for people. Just as there is a freedom of speech I think there also should be a freedom to access information if we choose to take on the responsibility for being able to act (or react) sensibly to that information. So it is not about assigning a PG, M15+ or R rating as it is for the author to flag certain contents in the post intended for (or rather, not intended for) certain audiences. And perhaps if we don't take responsibility or apply common sense in how we go about doing this then there will have to be some moderation put in place.
Not that I know any platform that has successfully tried to implement and enforce censorship measures, and to what benefit/detriment for the community that has free speech (and its responsibility) taken away from its members.
P.S. There has been good support for the posts but not a lot of comments, and I don't think it is because everything I said is by any means completely sound but because I write too much and it is difficult to digest (even for myself sometimes). However, at the end of these case studies I want to update the manifesto (or expand on it) and see if I can come up with some guiding principles for steemians both old and new (in terms of moons and not age), which should be much shorter and easy to process.