In case it wasn't bad enough that MAPs can't talk openly in person or on social media, and that pretty much every possible expression is being criminalized absent of any evidence of harm, there is a new threat that has been flying under the radar. The team at Yesmap's private activist chat have uncovered several attempts at blocking access to lawful websites and publications, including Yesmap, BoyChat, and Alice Lovers Magazine. Even worse, vague new laws in Australia and the UK put major providers under serious pressure to comply. While there is no evidence of a coordinated campaign at this point, the possibility of escalation is nonetheless concerning. Let's take a look at what's going on.

Unlike in previous legal analyses, I have not thoroughly reviewed relevant legislation and case law. This is due to the remarkable scope of the legislation in question, and also due to my commitment to publishing more efficiently. If you have reason to believe anything stated here is factually incorrect, please let me know.

Australia

I'll start with Australia, and its rightfully unpopular eSafety Commissioner. The organization she heads has been heavily involved in the banning of under-16s from social media, leading to a variety of takes on where the boundaries lie between youth protection and youth rights. As a pedophile teacher and moderate youth rights advocate, I can definitely understand both sides.

Phone addiction is real; I've seen a number of students succumb to it, including my sixth graders. I am also deeply concerned about how so few corporations effectively control the flow of information to the public, decide who may or may not participate, and police what is 'acceptable' speech. But these issues also apply to adult users, who frequently become addicted to their phones and are easily manipulated by social media. I don't think adults are much 'safer' than children in this regard; under-16s are being targeted simply because they don't have a voice.

However, this is not an article about social media. It's about how Australia and the UK are putting pressure on lawful MAP sites via their scary 'online safety' laws.

On Thursday, a member of Yesmap's activist chat found a couple of curious entries in the Lumen Database, indicating that two entities in Australia were trying to have links to Yesmap removed from Google. The first one was from the eSafety Commissioner (pictured right; terrifying), and it reads:

The material relates to five publications that feature articles which normalise and endorse matters relating to the sexualisation and sexual abuse of young children in such a way that it would offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults. In its presentation of sexualised imagery of children amongst such content, the publications also depict in a way that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult, a person who is or appears to be a child under 18 years of age

We were able to gain access to the full report, which revealed five links that the eSafety Commissioner wanted censored from Google Search. They are, oddly, the first five issues of Alice Lovers Magazine, which were apparently archived by Yesmap some time ago. I skimmed through two of the magazines before writing this piece, and well, I fail to see how any of the images are in any way sexual. Alice Lovers Magazine is a high-quality publication, with well-written articles and tasteful imagery. If the Karen writing the report to Google got all hot and sweaty over the content, well, that's on them. I honestly don't see it.

Australia does have an Online Safety Act that requires search providers to remove unlawful or 'restricted' content, and the latter is decided on by classification boards across the various states. One category of content that could be refused classification and 'restricted', and which the Australian government might then push Google to remove, includes that which:

depicts, expresses or otherwise deals with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified.

However:

Context is important when classifying material. The nature and purpose of the material must be considered, including its literary, artistic or educational merit and whether it serves a medical, legal, social or scientific purpose.

Given the fact that Alice Lovers Magazine is indisputably a high-quality, highly artistic publication, I would say an argument could be made for exemption on the grounds of genuine literary and artistic merit. On the other hand, when it comes to MAP issues, a lot of people just don't think at all. They respond with the most extreme of negative emotions. Many would likely hit delete on any pro-MAP content without giving it the slightest bit of consideration, even though an objective analysis would be very much in ALM's favor.

But what I find most shocking, and not specifically from a MAP perspective, is how incredibly broad the powers of the government are here. If the eSafety Commissioner decides a publication offends against 'generally accepted standards', they can demand removal from Google Search and other providers. How is any minority group lacking in public support supposed to succeed if the government can arbitrarily scrub its links from the web? This is truly authoritarian, giving the state dictatorship-level control over the internet.

The second Australian entry in the Lumen Database is from an unknown sender, whose identity is redacted even in the 'full' report. It argues that:

[Yesmap's NewgonWiki] is a “Pro Minor-Attracted-Person” (Pedophilia) Political Cause Website, trying to clamour for the legalisation of Pedophilia.

This entry is listed as a "Local Law Complaint", implying that the complainant believes NewgonWiki - or a link to the site - somehow violates Australian law. The owner of Yesmap is very careful about following the laws of various countries. As far as I'm aware, there is no content anywhere on the site that is unlawful in Australia. Is this complainant also attempting to invoke the Online Safety Act? Advocating "legalization of pedophilia" is not a crime, nor could it be given that being attracted to children is not illegal. And if they meant legalization of adult-minor sexual contact, that's not a crime either.

Thankfully, Google Australia seems to have resisted these attempts at censorship. An anonymous source reports that the URLs in question have not been delisted locally. However, two URLs have been removed in connection with Yesmap searches:

Google received notice of sites in Google's search index that contained child sexual abuse imagery. Accordingly, Google reported the sites to NCMEC and removed them from its search index. A link to this page may have appeared in response to a search from which results were removed. This page does not mean that the search itself was unlawful. Sometimes, innocent search terms may appear on pages that also contain allegedly unlawful material. The link indicates that the pages complained of were removed from the search results. Lumen does not have any information about what website was removed.

I have no idea as to whether links to Yesmap itself have been removed; one would certainly hope not, as they do not host criminalized images.

The UK

The situation in the UK is hardly any better, with its identically named Online Safety Act giving the government broad powers to have websites blocked or delisted at a whim. The Yesmap team found a bizarre complaint about BoyChat.org in the Lumen Database, originating from an anonymous source in the UK:

Google scholar is currently linking to a forum for individuals who are attracted to young children, specifically boys. This is in violation of the UK online safety act 2023.

The full report indicates that the two 'problematic' URLs were a copy/paste of an academic article, and BoyChat's board rules, which presumably would... not show up on Google Scholar. The sloppy English and technical inaccuracy, as well as the Lumen Database categorization, lead me to think that this was not an official complaint from a UK regulator. However, it's still worth asking; does Google linking to BoyChat really constitute a violation of the Online Safety Act?

The answer is: nobody knows. The Online Safety Act is an incredibly complex law, and one that I'm not going to attempt to read in full due to its vast scale. However, my layperson's understanding is that while search engines are required to mitigate access to unlawful content (note: BoyChat is not unlawful), and to take steps to prevent children accessing 'harmful' content, the act of Google Scholar linking to BoyChat is unlikely to be considered problematic. In addition to Google Scholar being a distinctly unpopular service among children, BoyChat itself is hardly very attractive to young people. Children are definitely not going to be lured by a copy/paste of an academic article on pedophiles, nor a long list of rules and regulations for posting on a site that hasn't been updated since the 90s.

What I find really frustrating about the UK's Online Safety Act, beyond the many violations of privacy and freedoms, is that the sheer complexity renders it virtually impossible to understand without consulting a specialist lawyer. And yet, it is still applied even to tiny companies and hobbyists offering user-to-user services. Mu Forum geoblocks the UK precisely because we can't be sure we'd be compliant even if we aimed to be, and we don't want the UK's authoritarian government breathing down our necks. Without anyone really understanding the requirements and their boundaries, it is very easy for regulators to overstep, and for normal people to feel pushed into being extra compliant with the boots being dug firmly into their skulls. The person who submitted the complaint about BoyChat probably believed they were right, and that confusion is likely by design.

Filters by default

Another major issue for MAP site access in the UK is filtering by default. Major British ISPs block a wide variety of websites unless the user intentionally disables the filter. Blocked sites include not only pornography and other 'adult' material, but also resources offering information on LGBTP issues, mental health, and so on. BoyChat, for example, was blocked by a lot of ISPs the last time it could be checked, even though it does not host pornographic content.

Responding to censorship

The team at Yesmap will keep an eye on this kind of censorship, watching for escalation. At least at present, it appears that Google is resisting excessive demands.

Should the resources that I'm heavily involved with be subject to blocking or delisting, my allies or myself will issue complaints and set up additional domains as necessary. We're not exactly impoverished, and we are extremely motivated to make a point.

The links they didn't want you to see

To the best of my knowledge, none of these links contain illegal content.

• https://wiki.yesmap.net/
• https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/images/Alice_Lovers_Magazine_1.pdf
• https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/images/Alice_Lovers_Magazine_2.pdf
• https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/images/Alice_Lovers_Magazine_3.pdf
• https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/images/Alice_Lovers_Magazine_4.pdf
• https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/images/Alice_Lovers_Magazine_5.pdf
• https://www.boychat.org/

If you're aware of similar acts of censorship toward other lawful MAP websites, please let me know.