I run the website YouTuube.Neocities.Org a website that on its surface paordies YouTube's layout and culture. I have been on Neocities 7 years as of just a few days ago. Creating a reddit account to make a post like this isn't something I would typically do, but I was seeing a lot of people echoing a very similar unfortunate situation as me in regards to the NSFW site tagging. I wanted to share my experience.
I’m writing because I think as a community we can hopefully make Neocities a better space for creative expression, the same one that I had hoped it would be (and it used to be). I really don’t know what else to do at this point…
Neocities/my website has been my main creative outlet these last 7 years. My site was born out of frustration with YouTube’s enshittification (a concept I was writing about before there was a proper term for it.) And it sort of just spiraled from there into the site you see today.
A month ago, my website (without any prior warning or notification after) was manually tagged as NSFW by the Neocities staff. I only found out because my site’s traffic started to drop off drastically the moment that was enacted. I no longer appear on the homepage for special sauce, I don’t show up on internal site searches, and I don’t even think my site updates appear in the global activity feed. I am essentially shadowbanned on Neocities.
The setting for me to toggle my website NSFW/SFW is completely REMOVED from my settings menu. I have no way to change it, and I was given no explanation for this, therefore no reason/pathway to regain SFW status.
Is my site’s name too sketchy/akin to a phishing name? There is certainly “edgy” content on my site, but nothing explicit…whatever it is that they deemed worthy of flagging the entire site as NSFW I would be open to changing so that my site can be prominently seen/discovered again, but I have no way of knowing, and the ToS on all this is too vague and provides no insight.
Most frustratingly, through all of this I have received ZERO response from the Neocities staff despite numerous inquiries through multiple platforms since the shadow banning. It has been well over a month now. I wanted to try and resolve this privately and diplomatically, but now I feel the need to raise my voice, especially as others out there are getting screwed by this.
I left traditional/mainstream social media in favor of Neocities because of my greater ability to express myself creatively; but the way in which Neocities enacted this, by doing it with no warning or explanation, is possibly even worse than the way YouTube, Twitter, and all the other big tech sites handle moderation.
What am I to do? I don't create for the views or clout, I do this for free as a form of sincere expression, all I seek is that people find my site and get something out of it. The internet of yesteryear shaped me greatly as both a creative and a person, it is my goal to spark that same sense of wonder and exploration.
I am not even sure I could begin to accurately quantify the amount of time that has gone into this site between the coding, graphic design, and writing. Well into the hundreds of hours no doubt. Perhaps to a seasoned developer they read that and think "how the hell did this janky site take so much time?" but the thing is, I started with zero experience, zero coding background. This isn't my job or even in my wheelhouse of my regular employment, this is my hobby. A hobby that has fielded me some amazing opportunities and connections. How many future connections that could’ve been or will be lost as a result of this shadowban?
Since my initial writing of this, Nekoweb had reached out to me with clear and quick communication regarding a seperate matter of my Nekoweb site. The entire experience with them was night and day compared to what I, and many others on Neocities, have experienced. I can not praise them enough for this.
The point of all this is to say that I want to see changes made to the way Neocities staff conducts themselves. Users deserve equal growth opportunity on Neocities and moderation should be conducted with transparency. If a site is deleted or flagged as NSFW, then there should be communication as to why and a means to appeal.
I want Neocities to succeed, I genuinely believe in the mission of this platform/host, but these issues concern me greatly.
I ask that you join in and support the efforts here to raise awarness, I have already gone ahead and implimented it into my site.
Anyone who impliments the code mentioned here may leave a profile message to let me know. Users who particpate will have their site entered into a special "hall of fame" of sorts that will be under the "webring" section of my website.