In this episode of Beyond the Filter, hosts Jeremy and Brandy delve into the creation of Fan Refuge, a new social media platform designed for fans by fans. Jeremy shares insights into how Fan Refuge aims to provide a censorship-free space while ensuring user safety through innovative tools and community guidelines. Discover the challenges and inspirations behind this project, and learn how Fan Refuge plans to stand out in the landscape of fan websites. Join us as we explore the future of fan communities online.
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One thought on “Beyond the Filter: Fan Refuge”
Hey there again Jeremy and Brandy!
Love what you are making here, fandoms deserve a welcoming, harassment free, pro-ship spaces. I sincerely hope this endeavor bears a fruit allowing for a friendly community to thrive and share their love with each other! I am a bit skeptical about few mentioned aspects – mainly position on adult content as well as moderation.
It feels a lot like trying to create a very open space that allows large amount of freedom in regards to expression of sexuality and making it possible to create the widest range of fiction, while at the same drawing line… Somewhere (where?) to keep it being possible to obtain donations and work with the very financial institutions that are being pressured to act against interests of pro-fic fandoms (because we are living through times of another moral panic). I feel like it will be very difficult for you to draw that line, and unclear lines on what is allowed may create points of friction. It is not that I do not understand why, platforms like this one will not be fueled by sheer love of its community and creators. Storage, electricity, machine power, space for servers have a real cost that needs to be covered from somewhere, and making funding be possible by the widest range of creatures requires access to accessible payment methods such as card payments (lack of accessible and private payment methods successfully dissuades me from supporting platforms such as this one but that is another topic). So I can imagine that you are between a rock and a hard place with this one.
I will admit, the no-porn rule for me is a bit of a put off, because I do not know whether the content I create could possibly be considered pornographic in nature, and I also feel like its the very adult content that needs long-term supportive spaces to exist and thrive, that is currently most threatened by groups of interest pushing to ban it.
Second potential issue – moderation. I should have known how difficult it is, as someone who has been dealing it since basically childhood (were part of many communities as a kid). It is insanely difficult to create a social online environment for the creatures where they are also happy with moderation. I feel like it is especially difficult in environments hosting diverse groups of individuals. In small communities – moderation decisions may have bigger impact on entire community than in big social media platforms where creatures are already conditioned to mostly automated and context-less moderation decisions. I will keep my fingers crossed that you can make hard decisions, which are required to keep communities safe, and that those decisions are ultimately beneficial to the vibe you want to foster on the platform you create.
I guess I will watch for future updates on the platform from the sidelines, and maybe will check it out when it reaches public release 🙂
Thank you for your commitment to making Internet just a little bit better for those who are being targeted the most in today’s weird world.