Why Fstoppers Is Blocking Nudity And NSFW Content

Why Fstoppers Is Blocking Nudity And NSFW Content

Over the past  years Fstoppers.com has grown into something much more massive than I ever could have imagined. Patrick and I built this website from absolutely nothing and all of our success can be attributied to trial and error. We decided over a year ago that the new website would block NSFW content and today I will explain to you why we made that decision.

My job has changed

Before I get into the reasons why we made this decision I want to give you a small glimpse of my life as the owner of Fstoppers. 4 years ago Fstoppers was a hobby but today, this website has become my career. As Fstoppers has grown in size so have the haters. Happy readers don't comment but angry ones love to express their opinions.  Every time we updated our website the highest rated comment would be something like "The site looked better before the update." Every other comment on one of our posts became a negative attack on our website or the writer of the article.

Over the years we have learned to take critiques from every angle and with every new venture we attempt.  Three years ago Patrick and I worked for 9 months filming and editing our first ever digital product: Peter Hurley's, The Art Behind The Headshot. Before we released it we showed it to a few of our writers. Half of them told us it was boring, poorly filmed and perhaps even un-releasable .  We did not necessarily agree with them so we released it anyway because we had spent so much energy creating it.  Our own intuition was correct thought as it became one of the highest selling and acclaimed photography tutorials of all time. 

Every time we release a new product for sale, people love to tell us how it is over priced or how we are scamming the industry. They will buy it, put it online for free and then demand a refund from us. When we released our first light modifier, the Flash Disc,  we had tons of people claiming that I copied the Flash Bender even though I built the first prototype product 8 years ago and even own the patent on it.  Our haters said it wouldn't sell and we were making a big mistake investing in another unnecessary photography tool.  We stood by our product, put it on sale, and we sold all of our 1000 units in a few hours.  It was such a success that today people are eagerly waiting for the next shipment to arrive.  

I've learned to tune out the haters. Even my closest friends and family members can be extremely negative when it comes to change or when faced with a new idea. In many cases I've stopped seeking advice or opinions and I simply implement my idea. I've grown tired of people who don't accomplish much themselves, telling me what I should and shouldn't do. 

About 1 year ago we hired an incredible web developer to build the "new" Fstoppers. Our goal was to keep the standard blog the same as it had always been so that casual users could still enjoy the site but we wanted to implement a very complex "community" feature that would allow photographers to connect in a deep new way. Although the FS Community is currently live, many of the features are still in development and will be available soon. One of the small "features" of the new site was a "worksafe mode" which would allow you to block out nudity and other NSFW (not safe for work) content. If you weren't logged in, worksafe mode would automatically remain on so that no nudity would be seen if you stumbled upon the site. There are 3 main reasons why we wanted to create this. 

1. Appearances

If you remember the Fstoppers from the last 4 years, we almost never posted articles or images with nudity. There were probably less than 10 posts ever made that had nudity or what I would consider NSFW content. Nudity in photography is pretty prevalent and we did feel like we were missing out on posting some quality content because we wanted to keep our clean and family friendly vibe. Being that the new Fstoppers would allow anyone to upload pictures to their public portfolios, we knew that we needed to block nudity from those people who weren't interested in seeing it. 

I'm a big fan of Model Mayhem; it honestly helped me in a big way when I was first starting my career. That being said, MM has a very sleazy vibe to most people because of the types of pictures you can find on that site. We don't want Fstoppers to be the next haven for pornography and therefore we decided to block NSFW content unless you are logged in and specifically choose to see it. If our community becomes really trashy we will take even more steps to clean up the site. 

Yesterday I posted an article with 13 different nude body painting videos. I would have never posted something like this on the previous versions of Fstoppers because I feel like it has too much nudity to be public. I just taught a class at a high school a couple months ago and they go to Fstoppers every day during the class to see what's new. Obviously this wouldn't work if there was nudity on our site. We want Fstoppers to be a safe place for anyone at any age to view. 

2. Advertising

Although it makes people angry to admit, Fstoppers is a business. Our expenses are insane. We have an office, insurance, 40 part time employees, 2 full time employees, advertising costs for our own products, insane server costs, and endless other bills. We wrote more checks going out last year than I made shooting photography in the last 8 years of my career combined! The only reason that we can afford to have as much free content as we do is because we make money with advertising and selling products. This money also allowed us to take a massive risk this year and produce our first ever live workshop

Last year Google Adsense banned us for a few months because we had 3 pages on our website they had "nudity" (it really wasn't even nudity). In those few months we lost thousands and thousands of dollars that could have been spent creating some awesome new content or site functionality. 

For Google to remain happy we don't have to block all nudity, (we simply have to remove their ads from all pages with nudity) but it's simply easier to block all nudity to the public. Our other advertisers may also not want to show up on our site if it has nudity plastered all over the front of it. We have a huge partnership with B&H and they are an extremely religious organization. We can't have Fstoppers banned from their offices because of our content. 

3. Inspiring signups

Many people, including at least one of our own writers, believe that we want readers to sign up for the new Fstoppers so that we can capture user email addresses and send them spam so that they will buy more products from us. This is not true. I am being 100% honest when I say that I want more people to sign up because it will make them more active on the website. The average users spends about 2 minutes on our site per visit. The average logged in user spends about 20 minutes on our site per visit.  I truly believe these active users are becoming a bigger part of the Fstoppers community which over time will make it one of the most exciting places to post your work, critique the work of others, find other photographers in your area, and open your mind to new ideas, techniques, and overall inspiration.  

Fstoppers will always remain a casual place to surf while you are bored at work, but my vision for Fstoppers isn't simply a site where you waste time and casually read. The new community has the opportunity to be the most interactive place for photographers on the web. The notification system alone will let you know when someone has commented on one of your images or has replied to one of your comments on a post. That feature alone now makes it so much easier to stay connected. 

We will continue to make our community better and better and these features will make more photographers want to sign up but seeing NSFW images is sadly one of the perks of signing up that will push many photographers to actually hit the button to sign up. 

I want to be 100% clear that we have no intention of tricking people or forcing people to sign up. All of the NSFW content on our site would not have existed on the old site. It's new content and a new feature of a new website. If you don't want to sign up that is totally fine, you simply won't get the perks of the new system. It was very important to me that the new website would not remove features for our older, loyal user base and I feel that we have accomplished that. In fact we have more writers and more free content than ever before.  

Where I screwed up

Yesterday I made a NSFW post and I asked our marketing guy to post it on Facebook. He warned me that it would make a lot of people angry because they would only be able to see the post if they signed up and I told him that I wanted to do it anyway to see the number of clicks vs new signups.

As we expected it made a lot of people angry. What most people don't realize is that when you are mad about something, and you comment on it to show your anger, you are only promoting it more. The average post on our Facebook page reaches about 20k people. This post reached 70k people because it got so many angry comments. 

I knew this was going to cause a stir and I am 100% to blame for this and I admit it was a sleazy move. I just needed to run the numbers to come up with a game plan for the future, and this post seemed like an interesting test. Right now I want to apologize to our loyal readers who I angered by doing this. 

I'm still listening

I hope I've done a decent job of explaining myself and this situation. I have become accustomed to the "haters" and it has become easy for me to completely block them out, but I do really care about the Fstoppers community and your opinions. Without you the reader, we wouldn't exist. I know you guys are going to keep me in line and I want you to know that my whole team loves calling me out as well. Even my web developer, who agreed a year ago to build the site to work like is now fighting with me about this NSFW stuff.  Nothing is completely set in stone, and even though I know we will never be able to please everyone 100%, I am still open to suggestions on how to make this the best website I can.  

Maybe one day we will open up NSFW content to the public but as of now that is not our goal. My biggest mistake however was promoting this post and we will not promote this blocked content on Facebook anymore. 

The new FS Community and commenting system have already become a huge success. We currently have more comments than ever before, they are far more kind and positive than they have ever been, and the writers of the articles are notified so they are able to quickly respond to the readers. We have no intention of changing Fstoppers.com and forcing people to sign up to view standard blog posts. The same blog that you know and love isn't going anywhere but we will be adding more and more killer features to the Fstoppers Community over the next few months and we would love for you to be a part of it.

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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Previous comments

well said. I hope you upload your portfolio (or at least your avatar) soon.

My hat is off to you and your writers! Last month Dani Diamond wrote an article about a project I created, and I made the mistake of reading and even replying to comments. I started to question if I would ever submit my work to your site again and risk being ridiculed by internet chumps who wouldn't even leave their names. Then I thought about how many other creatives felt the same way, and how this site was missing out on feature stories, due to the very tough audience the old site seemed to foster.

Since the site switched the quality of interactions has done a complete 180. From my point of view I have seen a drastic increase in constructive comments and pointless negative comments are very hard to find. To be honest this site has never been better, and in my opinion your choices and actions have saved this site and its reputation. As a reader and occasional contributor, your team has proven to me that you are interested in promoting all aspects of photography through a constructive creative community.

Much Respect
Rich Johnson, AD

PS Yes I signed this like it was a freaking letter! DEAL!

It's awesome that you have noticed the change as well. Now that people use their real names, real picture, and real portfolios everyone speaks to each other like we are real people. Imagine that.

I understand where you're coming from on all your points about NSFW and nudity articles, Mr. Morris, and I agree with you. You have to protect the brand and grow your business. I can see NSFW images becoming a problem, but so far I think Fstoppers has handled everything with the Community portion of the site rather well. I guess because I'm almost always signed in when I come here I missed the whole hate war on the NSFW article yesterday, but doing what you did brought about this discussion so I don't see it as a negative thing.

It's hard to ignore the "haters". They're the most vocal, and if you decided to stop reading comments because of them, you miss out on those good comments that are helpful.

Also, I really like the new site design and I think all of you at Fstoppers are doing a great job.

Well said! I did find it odd to see this type of content on your site to be honest. But, I was pleased to see that you guys are taking the steps to keep this a family/work friendly site. I love everything you guys do and you have my support 110% of the way.
By the way, If you guys ever want a freelance writer let me know!

We are always interested in hiring more writers but from now on we will be hiring based on your portfolio uploaded to this site.

Lee, keep up the great work! I remember reading the iPhone fashion shoot article and thinking wow, this is a really exciting site, I couldn't believe I had just stumbled across it.

Watching people complain about insignificant problems is really frustrating, and it effects your engagement as a normal reader. You are totally right, I can quite happily read an article and not comment and I really hope the new community helps foster some positivity and collaboration.

Back in 2010 I remember people commenting on the post saying 'yeah, it's an iPhone but look at all those lights' - completing missing, what I saw to be the point. We should think outside the box and not always think about the gear, we should learn to be creative with what we have…. and also just experiment.

I think you guys have put together a great resource and it's a shame that from London I can't offer anything on the writing staff, which would be a dream after following things for so long. However, I guess that's the point - it's about us all contributing and sharing what we know, building the community.

Be encouraged, it's difficult to do the right thing but always worth pursuing what you believe in.

What I took away from yesterday's events was how you managed to avoid LR all this time :-p

The other interesting observation is what is considered NSFW. I remember one of the 1st posts I ever saw here was of you and Patrick shooting in a Las Vegas hotel suite and thinking at the time how some people will be offended by it but for us Aussies it's was all pretty tame. I got shot down about a comment on NSFW on the sports illustrated post last week. The reason for that post was because a similar one (with that female MMA flighter) was posted here without NSFW warnings.

Anyway thanks for the post and your explainations. Appreciated

Yes "NSFW" isn't a science it is subjective. I personally think that topless women and bottomless men are what push it over the edge for me.

I think blocking this type on content on the site is a good idea. On other sites I often see nude photography receiving a greater amount of attention then other types of photography. I like nude photography but I always wonder, are nude photos getting the highest amount of votes/likes because they examples of great photography or is it just because the subject is nude? I have considering trying nude photography but I often wonder if my work would be accurately judged.
Anyhow, I think it's good move. Keeps things on the up and up. Love the site by the way. :-)

Following Fstoppers has been inspirational to me, I am so glad that you offer choice (the click of a mouse) to people who follow the blog, make sure you don't lose the fun with all of it, negative comments, accountability and attempting to please so many can distract us from the joy of it all. Wish you all the continued success you deserve, thank you :)

I wonder maybe I belonged to the minority that actually liked the NSFW filter. When I first saw the switch up top of the page I really thought it was a great addition. The fact that you can turn it on or off depending on where/when you are browsing the site from makes perfect sense. I don't know about people that complain about how you need to sign up to view these contents. I mean c'mon why wouldn't you want to join such a wonderful group of users :)

I've grown tired of people who don't accomplish much themselves, telling me what I should and shouldn't do. - Lee Morris

Brilliant!!!

This was a great article. Like you, those of us who make a living doing photography cant always listen to those who tell us we shouldn't be able to! This was a great look into all the hard work that goes into your site and business. Let the haters hate...

Hy Lee, Patrick and all the Fstoppers Team, you did an awesome job on the new site, i like it even more than the old one. Fstoppers has been with me since i started taking Photography seriously.

Your stuff is far away from overpriced! I've seen the Headshot DVD and i was blown away from all the great content. I've bought the Mike Kelley DVD and it brought me into Interior Photography. The techniques i learned got me a partnership with a local real estate agency and now i am able to make a living out of it. No big money but it pays the bills and i'm happy getting better every day!

I love every single article on this site and i'm thankful in any way for your hard work, part or fulltime, i don't care! If someone wants to see nsfw content without signing in tell them to go the F to Porntube.

Thank you for teaching me a ton of what i know today, i have a dream to get bigger in this business and you showed me that if i try and work hard enough that i can make it! Keep up the brilliant work, you are awesome!

Sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language.

so glad to hear that. I also think that you English is better than mine :)

Love the NSFW -filter! every time I see one it feels like opening a christmas present! You never know what you get :) I really like the new site and I have to admit fstoppers is my daily routine (about 3-9times a day) The best part about the new site is the amount of content! 5/5

There is only one thing I really miss about the last site, the ability to click on the video and see it right there on the main page. Now you have to go read the post to see the video.

Personally I like the new look and the implementation of a NSFW part (also 500xpx does this), and the NSFW part makes it possible to cover topics that weren't addressed before.

From a business standpoint I can completely follow your reasoning also for the FB-post. We all make mistakes, but it is how we handle them that is important. I appreciate that you are honest and straight forward with us even about your "mistakes". To me this proves how important this site and its community is to you and what direction you heading.

For me Fstoppers is and will remain a great source of information, but I would like to see more on architectural photography ;)

I, for one, am very much enjoying the redesign and new photographer community. I have frankly been put off by the massive amount of negativity in the comments and in the Facebook group, which is the sole reason I hardly ever comment on anything, and have never posted my work. This trolling issue is even more prevalent on PetaPixel and their FB. Hopefully the redesign reduces the hating, because frankly the negative comments can outright change my mood and ruin a good feeling (something any YouTube user already knew, and Facebook reminded the World of a few weeks ago). I just wonder what is to prevent the haters from making an Fstoppers account and continuing to troll authors, articles, and subjects - the Karma system is still in its infancy; I'm not entirely sure how it works or of its planned usage. Due to all the negativity flying around, I have largely ignored the comment section all-together, however I've began looking at it once again now and then since the new design was in beta. I'm so glad you guys all are working non-stop to improve Fstoppers: Photography's best free resource for industry news and education.

Lee (and Patrick) I just want to say: Your site is awesome, you are awesome, and you've really helped me since I discovered your site a year ago. I'm new to photography, and you site and content (and especially your how to become a professional wedding photographer DVD) has had a massive impact on my life (I'm now doing wedding photography which I'm not sure I would be doing had your DVD not existed).

The haters might be more vocal, but you can be certain there are vastly vastly more silent lurkers like me who love and are very appreciative of what you guys have done here. Thank you.

Lee - Growing a business is all about taking risks. If your in business you WILL stub your toes and there WILL be unhappy people (haters). The difference here are the people behind the business. Fstoppers has integrity, everyone on staff and those you've teamed up with all have integrity. It's what make the difference here. It's why I choose to be here.

You "gave the order", your test was made, you got your answer, you made this post. You came clean = integrity. I don't know what more you can ask of someone these days since it pretty much covers all the bases about a person.

High Fives!

I'm one of the quiet ones. Loved the old site and love the new one even more. Wishing you much more success in the future.

Great stuff Lee, keep doing what your doing! We love Fstoppers and what your team does for the industry. Attending the workshops in Atlantis was a game changer for so many people who attended. We all learnt new skills and made some great new friends in the industry.

hope to see you there next year too :)

When are people <cough> Americans going to get over their hangup with nudity? It's unfortunate you have adopt or modify your vision and wait for others to play catch up because they refuse to be progressive. But I do get the whole advertising thing though. Ad people can be a very skiddish bunch when it comes to with what people associate their product. That's your bread and butter and people's first reaction to even mild artistically done nudity is to still bring out the picket signs, pitchforks and torches....smh.

Personally I like the new format. I like the community aspect of it. I like checking out what other people are doing to see how I can improve my images.

A huge high five Lee....it takes a bigger person to at first notice they have a problem, an even bigger person to stand up and say this in a public forum / website. You get my vote guys!
FStoppers is my first go to site each and everyday .I have bought a few of the DVD'S and have made my money back 10 times over...just keep doing what you are doing....
I love the new site and the content is terrific....truly...THANK YOU AND EVERYONE BEHIND THE SCENES

I, for one, definitely appreciate this stance. I'm not a huge fan of browsing NSFW content in general, so it's nice that I have the choice to be able to safely browse without worrying about it.

Even aside from that, I work at a camera store, so Fstoppers is pretty regularly floating around on computers in full view of the public. I can't imagine that it would go over too well if there were a bunch of nude images floating around without some sort of filter.

All in all, I'm a huge fan of the new site and I really appreciate this article and the thought put into it. Bravo!

I've been following Fstoppers about 3 years now, even when I was stationed at a Korean military base, checking out BTS videos and tutorials were always the best.

Much appreciation from here in Korea, keep up the good work!

Fstopper spamming emails? I am disappointed I didn't get a single email from you guys other than the registration conformation.

aaaaaand watch the flood!

Gotta love the internet. People complaining about having to sign up to access FREE content. Everyone wants free stuff without doing any work. Haters gonna hate.

These are the same people that complain when a band releases new album and it doesn't sound exactly the same as previous ones...lol.

Personally I like what you guys have done. Keep going with your intuition and your gut. Can't please everyone.

Love stoppers but I can't figure out why you've disabled the ability to zoom on ios devices. The type is too small to read - at least for me. In fact my wife just saw this and asked how I can read it. Why not enable pinch zooming? Again, I love stoppers. I just hope I can continue to read it!

I was wondering this myself actually. I'll ask our web guy. For now, turn your phone sideways.

Great post Lee, I can only speak for myself but I love the new design and I feel as if there is more new content coming out everyday! Also this version is way more mobile friendly than the last one. I enjoy learning and I feel that Fstoppers is the best and most diverse photo site online!

Remember, haters are just confused admirers!

Thanks to the whole Fstoppers crew!

A nice BTS article Lee, I love the insight. Will we see an Fstoppers app in the near future? I would love to get notifications on my phone when someone likes or comments on my portfolio. I know you and your team have a lot going on but this is an idea for your drawing board. Keep up the good work!

Maybe if someone like Google or Facebook buys Fstoppers, we'll have enough capital for manpower to cook up an app.

For the time being, just visit our site regularly and you'll see that annoying red bell that you. Just. Can't. Stop. Looking.

My only complaint is that I am constantly logged off Fstoppers on my home machine. I have more, uh, "moments" than I can count. Just to post this, I logged into Fstoppers three times. I'd be more active were I not always automatically (annoyingly) logged off. Fwiw, I'm on an iMac and I use Safari. I have the most up-to-date s/w.

As much as I can easily access it, I love the update.

Agreed. We need to fix this

The reason for this is we are still fixing a few bugs here and there and it requires us to flush the cache. This often bumps everyone's auto login. Hopefully it will not be a problem here soon once we stop tweaking things on our end.

Just keep doing what you're doing.

I shoot nude photos, but i do agree with policy. When I worked as employee for a newspaper, It would have been a major headache with HR if I was seen looking at a nude photo. Even if it was a work related story on photojournalism.

I always appreciated the worksafe mode on model mayhem when I was looking for models fashion additions sections.

Nice to take time to explain that ... but on the other hand, there is a quite simple "law" : your place, your rules !!!
haters gonna hate .... and that's good for them ... and even for you ! You've already create a community that is super open and where people can really exchange on many layers ! I hadn't been on a ccommunity website for ages and it's feel good to find back this nice spirit because it's creating the "positive competition" ... means that, instead of shooting on each other with stupid trolling argument, we all see the best and it force us to try to push our own limits !
I'm not sure that this kind of energy could be found in a French website for example, because of the lake of enthusiasm and the abundance of cynicism ...
So far you are doing very well :)
( the only thing really missing is maybe an itw where you'll present my work ;) :p )

I think you guys have done a wonderful job with the site! The community seems like a natural next step that will surely bring massive added value to the site. There was already a large following that used the comments as a forum and allowing them to become more "integrated" is a very smart move.

I for one am very happy that you are now allowing nudity on the site as I am a nude photographer and despite the very artistic nature of my work, it is often difficult to showcase it to larger audiences. It is pretty customary on any photo or art site to have a mature filter in place so this is nothing to get up-in-arms about.

As for promoting mature content through social media, I thought that was a great step forward but it seems that it won't be happening again for a while which I think is unfortunate. Nude photography deserves the same respect and attention as any other genre and you guys have the power and opportunity to filter this content and promote quality work.

Either way, thank you for hard work and thanks for genuinely giving a sh*t ;)

LEE your site is awesome you and your team have done a top job :) don't let anyone tell you different.. With NSFW I don't see a problem to me it's just photography and body art.. If you have hates over it I guess they havent seen boobs before.. It can be blocked here you have safe mode as I have used it..

As for your workshop stuff I don't see it over priced you worked bloody hard on it so and I would buy it anyday if I had rhe money.. I have seen your some of your wedding vids on youtube and it's you and patrick that gave me the drive and passion that got me into photography in the first place :) just keep up the good work and focus on heaps more content :)

FStoppers is the best photography site out there, I have been one of those silent readers for a long time, but since the new site I feel a lot more comfortable commenting. People are more accountable for their comments. I'd love a function to be able to look for photographers in my area who are on fstoppers. Granted in Scotland there probably aren't many but we could hook up and have our own mini group of like minded photographers. P.s I'm hooked on rating photos it has become a daily fix I can't go without!!!!!!!

We are adding that feature soon :)

Well done you guys ! I love your site new & old ! Haters are gunna hate no matter what you do. Follow your instinct thats all anyone can do anyway cheers and keep up the good work.

I don't see it as such a big problem to sign-up, although I have to say that I would have signed up much earlier if it would have been made easier.
It took me like three days to finally do it because a simple g+/google sign-up wasn't possible. Instead of just two or three clicks it was just too much stuff to enter on mobile so I waited until I could do it on a desktop computer. This "might" stop some people from doing it.

The NSFW solution seems to be fair enough, although I'll probably never understand it because I think that heavy edited beauty images can be more harmful for young people than some nsfw content. But that might also be a cultural thing because we're a bit more open here in Germany when it comes to nudity. At the end it's always about respecting other cultures and the switch should be the perfect solution for everyone.

Well done.

Sharing that NSFW post (once) wasn't "sleazy", as you claim. Making a habit of it would be sleazy, but doing it once to gain valuable information to help you figure out how to make the site and the community grow seems like a perfectly rational act.

It's funny how people complain most loudly about others who are PROVIDING A FREE SERVICE, but if their phone company screws them over, they take it silently.

Man... this is awesome. I personally feel like the site is more awesome because you take the time to give deep insight to the reasoning behind what you're doing. I personally don't comment/rate anything that I don't completely love. If I am not inspired, there is no reason for me to say anything. If I am personally asked... I will definitely give my opinion on something, but otherwise I shut the hell up. I love what you're doing man. There are always gonna be haters man but they are NOT gonna say "Hey how much did you lose from B&H breaking up with you guys??? I got it covered." - Not sure the exact way to success, but I am sure that trying to please everyone is the surefire way to failure.

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