POPULAR INTERNET DESTINATIONS Reddit and Blogger are about to bring down an adult content filter and will expect their users not to share sexual and graphic nudity.
Sexual and graphic nudity is to the internet what wet is to water and hand is to glove. They are rather linked.
Top-shelf sites are some of the most popular on the Alexa list, and the content is so legion that UK ISPs have taken to asking punters whether they want to cut it off at source and spare themselves all that nudity.
This, however, is something of a tricky task, and many ISPs seem reluctantly to follow the whim of the government.
Blogger, which we might also call Google, and Reddit are both about to give it a go and have given their users until March to stop with the sexual stuff or face life as a non-public blogger.
Blogger users get the longest run at indulging themselves and are offered until 23 March when Google will not let anyone on Blogger post or share "images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity", according to a blog post on the subject.
"If your existing blog doesn't have any sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video on it, you won't notice any changes," adds the firm by way of explanation.
"If your existing blog does have sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video, your blog will be made private after March 23, 2015.
"No content will be deleted, but private content can only be seen by the owner or admins of the blog and the people who the owner has shared the blog with."
People can choose to remove their adult content and stay as they are, except perhaps without any visitors, or they can go private. Anyone who opens a site that deals in this kind of content after 23 March might as well not bother. Google is likely to remove it.
The secret sauce in hiding away this sauciness is notoriously difficult to mix, and it is possible that some sites will fall victim to the cull by mistake. It has happened in the past.
Reddit's change comes as part of a wider move and an acknowledgement that the site has grown into a mass of individual communities.
Rather than sexual nudity, Reddit is banning what could be called malicious shares, or 'revenge porn'. The changes take effect on 10 March.
"No matter who you are, if a photograph, video or digital image of you in a state of nudity, sexual excitement, or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, is posted or linked to on Reddit without your permission, it is prohibited on Reddit," wrote CEO Ellen Pao in a blog post.
"We also recognise that violent personalised images are a form of harassment that we do not tolerate and we will remove them when notified.
"We're so proud to be leading the way among our peers when it comes to your digital privacy and consider this to be one more step in the right direction. We'll share how often these takedowns occur in our yearly privacy report."
Google's ban is not a blanket one, and some Blogger sites will be allowed to carry on doing what they are doing if they are doing it in an educational or artistic way.
"We'll still allow nudity if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary or scientific contexts," the firm said.
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