This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss election outcomes and code as a human endeavor.

JOSEPH: This week I got a real wave of ‘oh man this fucking sucks’ regarding AI. I won’t link to it because it’s just a rando person, but scrolling Reddit I saw someone who said they used Claude to build stuff with Max. Max, or Max/MSP, is a visual programming language that is heavily used in the world of music and visual art. It is the foundation of a lot of electronic music. You can build essentially anything in it, if you put in the work to understand how to put it together. And that can be a lot of work.

I’ve built various little things in Max. I made a tool that takes a drum break and generates new, random drum and bass style breaks from it. I am a big, big fan of generative music (both listening and making) where you create rules and parameters, press play, and let the rules decide what comes out. I made another that has various synthesizers, and from scratch manipulates the audio so they sound like Tibetan singing bowls, with their harmonies and individual melodies morphing over time. I also started working on the visual part of Max, called Jitter, to take audio output from Max and generate visuals.

Immediately after the UK banned a wide range of porn fantasies involving choking, breath-restriction, and relative roleplay, adult creators watched platforms remove hundreds of their videos — even when the creators thought they were in compliance with the law. These creators say they were blindsided by the removals, since the content didn’t seem to violate the law at all.

Creators are reporting one platform in particular, Clips4Sale, is purging content with little notice, “a precautionary measure.”   

Some creators who’ve contacted Clips4Sale to appeal these removals have shared screenshots online of the reply the platform sends: “At this time, we have implemented a general restriction on content availability in the UK to ensure compliance with applicable regulatory requirements,” Clips4Sale support replies, according to these screenshots, viewed by 404 Media. “This is a precautionary measure and does not necessarily indicate that your clips contain prohibited content or violate our policies. We are continuing to review affected content, and additional clips will be made available to UK buyers as they are reviewed and cleared.” 

Updates to the UK’s Crime and Policing Act went into force on Friday. The law criminalizes a list of sexual acts, including downloading or publishing choking and incest roleplay content. The law is vague and overbroad, criminalizing “strangulation or suffocation” and “certain types” of incest roleplay. There's a lot of confusion among sex workers and fans about what this encompasses, and seemingly could include various kinds of gagging, face sitting, and roleplay. Violating this law, either as someone in possession of noncompliant content or publishing it, carries a risk of up to five years in prison. 

UK-based creator Sophia Truee told me that Clips4Sale removed more than 75 percent of her content — 392 out of 506 videos — with the platform flagging it as requiring edits without noting what needed to change. Truee makes POV content where she’s alone talking to the camera. Many more creators have shared on social media that content that shouldn’t be in violation of the law has been caught in the crossfire on Clips4Sale specifically.