Tribe’s Black Tuesday

Once upon a time there were plenty of reasons to visit social networking site Tribe.net, even if you weren't a member; the online community fostered groups with open dialogues about sex and culture and created resources for MILF fans, armpit fetishists, and cocksucking enthusiasts that everyone could enjoy. But in a sad turn of events yesterday, Tribe has voluntarily applied 2257 record-keeping requirements across the board for all users and groups in its architecture, thus removing a lot of worthwhile content and making group leaders like me feel more like the headmistress at a very bad boys' school ... and not in the way I'd like. It's time for a report card: See how Tribe scores on its 2257 implementation after the jump. V. Blue

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Excecution: D
Oh dear, someone didn't do their homework. Tribe has removed the "mature" age verification that used to appear on pageviews, and instead made the groups "private". This means that you can't see the Tribe unless you're in it. But more importantly, it gives no reason for non-members to even look at Tribe—even if you just want to follow the very unsexy, no-image discussions on sex education events in The Center for Sex and Culture's Tribe.

Critical Thinking: F
An essential survival skill for all extracurricular activities is critical thinking, and here's where Tribe.net shows what they're made of. Does it make sense to apply 2257 laws to any social networking site, such as Tribe, Friendster, or Orkut? Only if there's another agenda involved. According to emails sent to users, Tribe.net is putting themselves in the "republishing" category where "pornography, sexually explicit conduct and 'obscenity' are concerned.

Now we have to get out the dunce cap: It's important not to confuse obscenity with "sexually explicit behavior." Whether something is obscene has no impact on whether 2257 applies to it, nor is 2257 content rescued by "redeeming social value" or a context of supportive community standards. That's exactly why the Abu Ghraib torture photos are in no danger of being deemed obscene, but could (at least technically) still be prosecuted under 2257. So Tribe.net is essentially interpreting 2257 record keeping laws under its own definition, and is attempting to define what constitutes obscenity for all its members, no matter where they're located.

According to Jason Schultz, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Tribe.net "can't be held to 2257 requirements for things they don't exercise traditional editorial content control over. Otherwise, all ISPs who host 3rd party websites would be liable as well, and the law explicitly says that isn't true. So as long as Tribe as a company isn't editing the content, they can host any groups they want that have sexually explicit material, even if it qualifies under 2257's weirdo definitions. Moreover, if Tribe had a backbone, they could join the suit to overthrow 2257; it wouldn't even cost them much, since the Free Speech Coalition is already leading the charge."

Effort: A +
If Tribe.net were jockying for a position in the Justice Department, they'd surely get into the second round of interviews (that is, before the FBI realized that they were all a bunch of hellbound San Francisco hippies in Birkenstocks). But it's not the government that Tribe is out to please by being so heavy-handed with content regulation; I'm sure that in no time they'll be getting offers of bailout revenue from Fox and ClearChannel based on their clean-minded stance—which will hopefully arrive in time to shore up the ailing cash flow, as evidenced by Tribe.net's increasingly heavy handed advertising.

Community Spirit: F
Do we have S-P-I-R-I-T!? Yes we do! Does Tribe.net? Well, if making online communities everywhere worry that putting up a naked picture on the internet is now a federal crime, then that would certainly be showing some kind of spirit.

Someone needs to be kept after school and made to write "I will not use 2257 laws for my own site administration tactics" on the chalkboard at least 100 times. Or else I get out the real paddle.

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Read more at "Tribe and 2257: Extended Dance Remix" (tinynibbles.com).

See also:
· "Big Changes at Tribe.net" (sfist.com)
· Blogger's FAQ: Adult Material (eff.org)
· "Tribe.net self-censoring to conform with 2257 porn laws?" (boingboing.net)
· Tribe.net discussion of 2257 self-application (Tribe.net)

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Previously: Fleshbot 2257 Archives, 2257 Updates, 2257 Lies, "Bound and Gagged" Bound and Gagged?