Hey everyone. Today we're going to go into a further deep dive on what's been going on behind the scenes. We wanted to focus on pushing out a shorter announcement so that people would have time to react and make plans.
For the people who want a longer deep dive; buckle up.
Aethy was founded on the idea that nothing is wrong in fiction. People should be able to draw, write, and express themselves in any way that didn't bring harm to other people. This was a founding principle and we always said that if it came to censoring ourselves or shutting down, we'd opt to shut down.
So that's the path we chose.
The issue at play is a shift in enforcement of 18 USC §1466A. Now first, we'd like to say we aren't lawyers and that this isn't legal advice. This is just what's been told to us by legal experts. 18 USC §1466A is a federal law having to do with obscenity. It is part of the criminal code that was passed by the PROTECT Act in congress.
It reads as followed:
(a) In General.—Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that— (1) (A) depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and (B) is obscene; or (2)(A) depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; and (B) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value; or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 2252A(b)(1), including the penalties provided for cases involving a prior conviction.
Our argument, and this is something the scientific community agrees with us on, is that all kink art has the capacity to be therapeutic in nature. There is no link to actual abuse caused by works of art.
We'd also argue that it has artistic merit because it is a showing of the human condition. A lot of it attempts to explore themes of sexual awakening, themes of abuse and overcoming said abuse, and controlling the dynamics of one's trauma.
However, as shown recently, the federal courts simply don't seem to agree with this. On a state level, nothing on Aethy is illegal and we're confident it would stand up to legal scrutiny. On a federal level, it has always been a bit more gray.
With the anti-porn nature of the federal judiciary, this gray has seemed to turn black and white.
We brought up Trump is our initial announcement due to his stacking of federal judges with those who believe religious fundamentalism trumps the first amendment. Our stance was one where we believed (and still do) that Aethy represents the values of the first amendment when it comes to marginalized communities and victims of abuse. The federal courts, however, disagree with this assessment. They have denied expert testimony from health care professionals on the power of these types of works, and consistently attempt to stamp it out.
With a new Trump election and the promise of outlawing pornography as a whole, Aethy and sites like it appear to be the first in their crosshairs.
If found guilty of violating 18 USC §1466A, any party could be subject to, at best, registration on the sex offender registry for the rest of their lives. At worst, they're subject to multiple life sentences in prison. With the state of the political climate in the USA, and recent court decisions, we've decided that the best course of action is to simply close Aethy.
If we changed the rules, we'd be going against our founding principles. If we kept operating, we'd be putting ourselves and all of our users at risk.
This is also just the legal end of it. We've had multiple issues with our service operators over the course of running the website that have escalated in recent months. Simply put, they see the writing on the wall as well and are dropping adult websites left and right. It has become exceedingly costly and frankly, untenable to host a site like this.
That's it from us for now. We'll probably have more to say as more people have time to download their data and migrate to greener pastures.
Some answers to questions we've received:
"Why not host overseas?"
It simply doesn't matter. The courts don't care where the website is hosted as long as those hosting it are in the USA.
"Why not transfer ownership?"
It would open up a ton of legal liability to do so and the data could end up in the wrong hands. Websites hosted in the US have to log information on all of its users in order to comply with law enforcement. Handing that data over to an unknown third party is dangerous for us and our users. Migration to a different server is simply a better and safer option.
"Why kneejerk so hard?"
Unfortunately this is an issue we had been monitoring for awhile. We've always been nervous about it but with the current political climate in the USA, we had to have some serious discussions about how to move forward. Unfortunately, after these talks, we decided on this course of action.
@News I think people dismiss how much the potential consequences can utterly ruin someone's life. It's way too easy to say "well, I would keep the site up until they lead me away in handcuffs!!" when you're not in a position where having the FBI kick in your door to arrest you for Art Crimes is a very real possibility.
Sex offender registries and criminal records (especially felonies) ruin lives. The vast majority of landlords and rental agencies will not rent to S/Os or felons. Many, many employers will not hire S/Os or felons.
From a purely practical (and devoid of empathy) stance: one cannot run a social website if the site owner is incomeless and/or unhoused, nor can one run a website from prison.
And this isn't even touching on how traumatizing prison is, much less what that experience is gonna be like for a queer person jailed for, on paper, "child obscenity material"
Having seen firsthand how these things ruin people's lives, I think it is an extremely reasonable fear to have. I wish people could find some empathy in this, even if they themselves would be willing to put their own lives on the line for this if they were in your place.
@News as usual, my reaction to aethy's official site policy explainer is "this sums the matter up perfectly, i have nothing to add and couldn't be more personally aligned; i wish more people on the internet understood the incredible substance of this post, as it touches the core of the matter." this time, however, it brings me no joy. thank you for everything you've done, the community you nurtured, your integrity and wisdom in these dark times, your professionalism and transparency, and your incredible commitment to the care and safety of your users. in a true progressive spirit, you've shown us what's possible, and i choose to believe we'll all carry that knowledge forward with us into our future digital communities.
@News Personally I still think you guys are overreacting on the court thing, but yeah if service operators are that hellbent on cutting you off there's really nothing you can do.
@News I appreciate this more in depth explanation. I don't think I'm going to try to persuade you to keep the site running anymore. Even if the legal threats don't come through, I see that the financial threat would only get worse with time. (especially since everything in america is going to very expensive real soon) And if places like Aethy are going to be targeted than waiting until "shit starts to happen" would probably be too late. The feds would probably already be stacking this place out by the time they started taking down bigger players.
Well, I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. This was the best online community I could have ever asked for. The right principles attracting the right people. A place that wasn't limited to fandom or porn or politics, but allowed all those things and so much more.
Thank you for the last 2 years.
@News this news is heartbreaking, but ultimately I'm glad I learned it here and now. I'll have to be more careful from now on, especially if the government decides to connect IDs and internet use.