Clothes-free advocacy and the Fediverse

Recently, I saw a toot that wrote “You can’t spell Fediverse without Diverse.” So True! Fediverse is arguably the most diverse social network ever existed. As an advocate for naturism and clothes-free living, I believe Fediverse is the better way forward, to connect people who’d like to experience living closer to nature, without shame and without clothes.

Grassroots vs. Commercial

Fediverse is a grassroots social network, formed and run by loosely-related communities, not by billionaires. This makes Fediverse free of many of the commercial and shareholder influences that plague mainstream social networks such as FB, IG, Birdsite. Free of commercial influences is key to have a naturist friendly social network. Here is why:

Ban nudity for money

Commercial influences mandate banning nudity. Commercial advertisers don’t like their brands to be associated with adult contents, thus mainstream social networks police their web sites and block “porn bots”. As it turns out, it’s relatively easy to teach computers to detect nude human figures or body parts in images or video clips. The “battle against porn bots” have long been won by social networks, advertisers, and the image detection algorithms they employ. It’s great to have a porn-free environment, but…

Although naturists understand that nudity does not equal to sex or lewdness, the general public still don’t get it. Consequently, naturism contents are classified as adult oriented porn. The result is that on commercial social networks, naturists and nudists do not enjoy free expression of their lifestyle choice. Advocacy such as #BodyPositive #BodyAcceptance are hampered by the blanket-ban on nudity.

Here lies the strength of the Fediverse - On a grassroots, community run social network, the aforementioned commercial influence does not exist at all. Every Fedizen (Fediverse citizen) is free to express themselves, as they see fit to the communities they belong. Clothes-free living is no longer censored or banned by “faceless image detection robots” or “end-user content policies.”

“Walled-gardens” that struggle

Some long-time naturist readers may think, “nudity-friendly social networks? They exist since long time ago. Nothing new to see here.” That’s 100% true. There are a dozen of social network web sites that cater for naturists and nudists. Some of these sites have been around for over a decade. However, these web sites suffer from three problems:

1. “Walled-garden” problem: Most of these web sites position themselves for established naturists and nudists, making the sites struggle to sign up new members. Conversation topics within these sites are often one-dimensional, stale because there simply aren’t enough members to have diverse discussions. Some of these sites turned into “ghost towns” after an initial surge of new memberships.
2. Sustainability: Similar to the previous problem, the lack of (paid) memberships mean that often these sites struggle financially. The sites that last long-term may have to compromise on site moderation and / or membership quality to attract more paid members.
3. Furthermore, these social networks do not have a mechanism to connect to other communities, thus the member area of these nudist sites are like “echo chambers,” and not able to serve as an advocacy for clothes-free living and naturism.

Fediverse is not walled-garden, and is highly sustainable

Communities on the Fediverse are not walled-gardens - The federated nature of the network means that each community is highly autonomous, and at the same time, their members are free to make connections and interact with members from other communities. Conversations will never be stale because everyone is welcome to talk to others and explore naturism and other interests.

Naturism advocacy can thrive on the Fediverse. As there is no image detection robot, no centralised content policy, and no commercial influences, members of the Fediverse have total control of their social network experiences. There is no “recommended content”, nor shadow-banning / segregation of nudity content. This gives naturist contents a truly level playing field with other posts and topics on the Fediverse. Furthermore, a huge part of the Fediverse is very progressive, anti-bigotry and forward thinking, there is much potentials for the naturism message to reach many humans.

Finally, sustainability of Fediverse is what make the diversity possible. The nature of the federated network means that everyone is welcome to create new communities and be part of the network. No commercial subscription required. Moreover, due to the grassroots nature of the network, barrier to entry is quite low. Each community can be run with minimal overhead, not requiring deep pocket or an army of computer wizards.

In Conclusion…

Personally, I see the Fediverse has much potential to serve people who like clothes-free living, and the people who haven’t heard of or experience it. #NormaliseNudity is a great cause, but is being actively suppressed on mainstream social networks like FB, IG, Birdsite for far too long. The Fediverse is a rapidly growing network that is free from those suppression, and can connect naturists and nudists around the globe.

See you all on the Fediverse!

Ninja, May 2022

Image Credit: Author: NAP310, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.