I've had the pleasure of talking to a few admins on this site who have told me various things about how websites operate. I've been told that the laws upholded on websites do not rely on the browser but the website itself. For example if you are legal porn viewing age in your country (say, 16-17) you are not allowed on this site because this site is based in the US and therefore the legal age is 18.

This being said.

- If the laws upholded by a website are dependent on the country it is hosted in. How are some websites allowed to post and host illegal content?

The best example I have is 4chan. Possibly one if not the worst site I've ever been on, some of the content is great and I've found some genuinely enjoyable stuff there. but the question I have is how they get away with some other types of content.

The number one thing I see on the site is "rekt threads" some of these threads have quite entertaining content like babys getting knocked over by puppys who are just trying to play. Animals falling off stuff or just general silly garbage where no one really gets hurt. But the longer these threads exist the worse they get.

Stay in one of these threads long enough and it becomes filled 99% with the following two things: (1)Violence including murder and accidents resulting in death (2) Animal cruelty.

Now I guess 4chan can't really make guesses about the violent content revolving around humans. Accidents and murders are in most cases illegal yes but there is no way to legally regulate this content because the law is kinda strange reguarding suicide and other things. So even if a video shows a suicide or a murder, it's not exactly illegal.

This being said, the second one is what makes me question a sites legal responsibilities:

Animal cruelty is rampant on that site, it's everywhere and it's extremely violent and gorey. There are all sorts of horrible videos which I won't get into describing totally but it can range between throwing animals off buildings and bridges to beating them to death/setting animals on fire.

In the cases in which the video is clearly severe animal cruelty and NOT hunting or other things like that. Videos of animals being mistreated in terrible ways (again, I'll spare weak stomached readers and not describe it but it gets really really bad) In these cases, since animal cruelty is completely illegal in the U.S in every state and setting a cat on fire is certainly a violation of said law. Why is the site not taking down these posts and banning people who post them?

I'm hoping that an admin of the site could respond to this question cause they clearly understand exactly how a website like 4chan might operate. But given that websites seem to be governed under the laws of the country they are hosted in, how are theses posts not removed and the users banned?

(That being said anyone with knowledge of this topic can respond, I'm just assuming the admins will know best how to answer)

Showing videos of people dying or animal cruelty is not against the law in the US.
Which is already your entire explanation right there, killing people is illegal, filming that and making it public is tasteless but in no way illegal in itself.

Cynosure said:
based in the US and therefore the legal age is 18.

I just want to point out that this is not exactly the case; there are nine out of fifty states in which the age of consent is 18. Arizona, where e621 is based, happens to be one of them.

Fenrick said:
I just want to point out that this is not exactly the case; there are nine out of fifty states in which the age of consent is 18. Arizona, where e621 is based, happens to be one of them.

And those nine states ruin it for everyone else, because even if the site is NOT based in one of those nine states, the age limit still has to be 18 because otherwise the nine states will complain about people who are under their age that are looking at this stuff.

Seriously, I would bet you that if any porn site was based in Missouri (Our age is 17), it would still require the age of 18, because those nine fucking states say so.

So, really, the age of consent as it applies to US-based internet is 18, regardless of state. The only possible fix I can see is to have a website based in a state where the age is 16, require a zip code, run the zip code through a lookup table to determine which state they're in, and require that state's age as a minimum, so that people in Missouri would need to be 17 or older to use the site, and people in Arizona would need to be 18 or older.

It's just easier to make it a blanket 18, because you can base the site wherever you want in the US.

NotMeNotYou said:
Showing videos of people dying or animal cruelty is not against the law in the US.
Which is already your entire explanation right there, killing people is illegal, filming that and making it public is tasteless but in no way illegal in itself.

A small part of me wondered how sites like Best Gore are on the surface web, thanks for the clarification. My first time coming across the website: "...well okay then." *exits*

NotMeNotYou said:
Showing videos of people dying or animal cruelty is not against the law in the US.

For us Americans, it's just more news. Sometimes its biased, sometimes its overinflated, sometimes its accurate. Overall, it just depends on what you can tolerate.

Seeing PETA display videos of cows being slaughtered isn't going to make me a vegan. Seeing those sad ASPCA videos of shelter animals isn't going to make me adopt. I like eating at McDonalds every once in a while and I already have a pet dog.

Don't forget bestiality sites! The human participants just have to be 18 or older.

Law is hilarious

GameManiac said:
For us Americans, it's just more news. Sometimes its biased, sometimes its overinflated, sometimes its accurate. Overall, it just depends on what you can tolerate.

Seeing PETA display videos of cows being slaughtered isn't going to make me a vegan. Seeing those sad ASPCA videos of shelter animals isn't going to make me adopt. I like eating at McDonalds every once in a while and I already have a pet dog.

race issues, gender issues (well, when radical feminists somehow get on the news), shootings, mass shootings, cops going nuts and shooting people, terrorism, foreign terrorism.

theres no news like bad news, right? and bad news is pretty much an every day thing here in the good ol' US of A. well, that and social media drivel.

then theres all the other crap like gamemaniac pointed out: charities using videos, ads, and commercials that all play on peoples guilt and sadness to get money (wtf is wrong with those people? it must be a mental problem or SOMETHING.). oh and to further fuel the irritation caused by tv commercials there is a lawyer commercial (sometimes 2) for, literally, EVERY medical related commercial that gets aired.

at this point, i simply don't care anymore.

treos said:
race issues, gender issues (well, when radical feminists somehow get on the news), shootings, mass shootings, cops going nuts and shooting people, terrorism, foreign terrorism.

theres no news like bad news, right? and bad news is pretty much an every day thing here in the good ol' US of A. well, that and social media drivel.

then theres all the other crap like gamemaniac pointed out: charities using videos, ads, and commercials that all play on peoples guilt and sadness to get money (wtf is wrong with those people? it must be a mental problem or SOMETHING.). oh and to further fuel the irritation caused by tv commercials there is a lawyer commercial (sometimes 2) for, literally, EVERY medical related commercial that gets aired.

at this point, i simply don't care anymore.

At least the ASPCA commercials use music that fits the mood. Plenty of other commercials use crappy dubstep music, overrated pop music, or epic music that belongs in movie trailers.

I mean, why would you use Two Steps From Hell's Heart of Courage for a commercial about shopping for appliances?

GameManiac said:
At least the ASPCA commercials use music that fits the mood. Plenty of other commercials use crappy dubstep music, overrated pop music, or epic music that belongs in movie trailers.

I mean, why would you use Two Steps From Hell's Heart of Courage for a commercial about shopping for appliances?

It seems to me that overrated pop music is exactly what you'd want to match the mood for something regarding shopping and most other worthless product commercials. What else can better capture that empty, worthless experience than a song with no meaning to it?

Clawdragons said:
It seems to me that overrated pop music is exactly what you'd want to match the mood for something regarding shopping and most other worthless product commercials. What else can better capture that empty, worthless experience than a song with no meaning to it?

And that's exactly why I listen to video game instrumental music over mainstream music. That's where I feel like music is shining in nowadays.

Would you rather listen to Live and Learn by Crush 40, or *shudder* Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) by Silentó?

Cynosure said:

- If the laws upholded by a website are dependent on the country it is hosted in. How are some websites allowed to post and host illegal content?

• Server is actually in another country without those laws (or aren't strict about enforcement)
• Loopholes (ex. bestiality content being illegal to produce, illegal to sell, but not illegal to redistribute)
• The thing you are talking about isn't actually illegal
• The site complies with making sure obviously illegal things (e.g., CP) get removed as soon as it is found, and reported to the authorities if needed. This sort of thing also helps prevent lawsuits with sites like youtube when people upload whole movies
• They haven't gotten caught yet

Cynosure said:
The best example I have is 4chan. Possibly one if not the worst site I've ever been on

If this is true, I envy you.

GameManiac said:
Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) by Silentó?

wth did i just listen to? video game and anime music for me, not...that noise. One Punch-Man Opening | THE HERO !! just recently found this anime.

treos said:
wth did i just listen to? video game and anime music for me, not...that noise. One Punch-Man Opening | THE HERO !! just recently found this anime.

Best. Anime. Ever. Every time a new epizode is about to cone out I refresh kissanime every 5 seconds. And then I cry becouse the episode had a cliffhanger.

parasprite said:

If this is true, I envy you.

Well tho 4chan is not the worst site ever. (I've been to other parts of the web, where more disturbing things exists #daisys destruction but once I saw a few pieces of content I simply left the area. Never to return.

So let me rephrase: 4chan is the worst example I can think of due to not having visited darker places on the internet to this date.

Sidenote: sorry for not replying to this thread at all since I created it, I didn't think it would get any more replies since the first one answered the question and simply ignored the forums. I'll keep up with the creation of new comments going forward my bad.

One more question tho,

You mistake the reason of that tumblr getting taken down with legal action against the artist.
In the case of tumblr they have rules against 'any exploitation of minors' and for some inane reason that involves drawings as well. To make matters worse a tumblr page can be taken down automatically (without human review of said tumblr) by simply having enough unique reports against it. If you remember that wave of mlp tumblrs getting deleted ages ago, like doxy's, then you saw that in action, enough unique ips reported the blog and it got removed automatically, no questions asked nor anything investigated.
Why do they have that rule in the first place? Funding.
US banks have a huge history of being against the adult industry at large, bank accounts of porn stars or producers getting closed without reason, merchants losing their loans, etc. etc. are very common. This in turn causes many pages to be extremely cautious with what content they are willing to deal, and having a blank rule about nothing remotely linked to anything appearing like CP is the easiest solution.
We don't have to worry about our funds running out thanks to our almighty Bad Dragon overlords paying the bills, so we can just point fingers and laugh at the others.

Past that, 4chan has rules (CP being banned being the biggest), and the site isn't that bad if you ignore /b/, the board sticks pretty much to itself, and boards like travel are actually pretty neat, if a bit slow.

NotMeNotYou said:

You mistake the reason of that tumblr getting taken down with legal action against the artist.
In the case of tumblr they have rules against 'any exploitation of minors' and for some inane reason that involves drawings as well. To make matters worse a tumblr page can be taken down automatically (without human review of said tumblr) by simply having enough unique reports against it. If you remember that wave of mlp tumblrs getting deleted ages ago, like doxy's, then you saw that in action, enough unique ips reported the blog and it got removed automatically, no questions asked nor anything investigated.
Why do they have that rule in the first place? Funding.
US banks have a huge history of being against the adult industry at large, bank accounts of porn stars or producers getting closed without reason, merchants losing their loans, etc. etc. are very common. This in turn causes many pages to be extremely cautious with what content they are willing to deal, and having a blank rule about nothing remotely linked to anything appearing like CP is the easiest solution.
We don't have to worry about our funds running out thanks to our almighty Bad Dragon overlords paying the bills, so we can just point fingers and laugh at the others.

Past that, 4chan has rules (CP being banned being the biggest), and the site isn't that bad if you ignore /b/, the board sticks pretty much to itself, and boards like travel are actually pretty neat, if a bit slow.

Lol @ "bad dragon overlords" - I bet working for/with that company is quite fun. Speaking of which just a quick question (off topic of this forum, but too short of a question to have it's own thread)
-

-
Second to this and actually on topic for this thread. I understand now why they don't ban this type of content, but I guess the question then is. Why do they allow it? Sure it's not illegal to upload and to watch but. Morally speaking how would you actually allow someone to get away with that kinda stuff? Why would you actually allow this type of content get out to the people who enjoy it? Does 4chan admin/staff just not care that these posts are being used as basically porn for people who enjoy seeing this content? I think if I was 4chan staff and this kinda shit was going on I would rather quit then watch it happen.

Is it a case of the admins/owners/staff are just as fucked up as the posters and don't mind if this kinda shit happens or is it that the community is just too strong to stop now? Anyone know if any admins/mods have quit the site because of this type of thing happening?

4chan was founded on the notion to make a site with as little rules and moderator intervention as possible, freedom of speech brings with it that people are allowed to express opinions others may find repulsive, and since it's an image board those images / videos are allowed as well.
Past that the screening process for mods probably makes sure that only people get in power who either don't mind those things, or are able to ignore it and carry out their duties without having it impact them.
Also /mlp/ is a sfw board, so porn would be against the rules, but there were (and probably still are) pony porn threads on /b/ with stoic regularity.

As for your questions about us, we (admins) sit in large group chat with Dragonfruit and a couple Bad Dragon people, and we chat quite a bit. Most admins don't get paid, but for example Dave and Dasa get paid because they are employees at BD and DF.
Proper communication in a team is quite invaluable so we do make sure that we have an open dialog over all 'ranks'.

wonder what Nimmy would be like if he was American

NotMeNotYou said:
As for your questions about us, we (admins) sit in large group chat with Dragonfruit and a couple Bad Dragon people, and we chat quite a bit.

Oh that's quite interesting, do you mean like voice chat (Teamspeak) or do you mean like text chat group (Like what chatango allows you to create, I believe ONTA uses chatango groups to fuel his streaming)

And oneeee last question about admins, is there a certain amount of time you guys are expected to put in or is it just a -doitwhenyoucan- kinda thing.

Furthermore to make sure this comment stays on topic (derail101) There is one question you skipped, do you (or anyone else) Know of any admins who have left the site because of these issues?

It's called Slack and it's pretty cool. It's a mix of IRC and Skype but with tons of features to help organize a team, but doesn't have voice or video chat.
There aren't really any time expectations set.

As for the 4chan mods, no idea, I had heard of a couple people leaving but that wasn't about how they deal with gore and stuff like that.

NotMeNotYou said:
It's called Slack and it's pretty cool. It's a mix of IRC and Skype but with tons of features to help organize a team, but doesn't have voice or video chat.
There aren't really any time expectations set.

that reminds me, i found out about this yesterday when checking my inkbunny notifications. it's aimed at gamers but could probably do good for general use as well. just pointing it out for if anyone wants to check it out.