Fur Affinity expands rules against "youthful appearing" characters in adult works to Pokemon and Digimon characters
On May 19th Fur Affinity had announced that it will expand the rules toward banning portrayals of youthful appearing characters, even if the character is addressed as being older in universe, engaging in sexual situations to include digimon and pokemon characters. While situations that portrayed actual young anthro characters in sex (known colloquially as cub porn) had been banned 13 years ago, there were elements of gray area on characters that are determined as mature in age, but younger in appearance that were later expanded upon. This update is a furthering of that expansion.
In the announcement Fur Affinity had noted that there is a method for artists who have posted works that may be in this gray area to discover how they would be handled by submitting trouble tickets against it.
If you have questions as to whether this may apply to your content, please feel free to open a ticket under “NSFW Underage Content” with links to the content in question, and we can verify if the content is in violation or not.
Artists have been informed that the amendment will start to be enforced on July 1st.
Art to be culled as Pokefurs move to exit
Artists known for their work in pieces based on Pokemon and Digimon have posted their intentions on removing the works and shifting websites for posting these works. Argon Vile stated in a journal that the results he had received from the trouble tickets indicated that most of his works would be against this new rule amendment.
I've received admin confirmation via the Trouble Ticket system that about 96% of the images in my gallery are now in violation of FA's policies, and must be removed. Admins have confirmed this includes Riolu, Pikachu, Cubone, Agumon, Gomamon, Koopas and Yoshis as pictured in these submissions
He lists examples of his works which would be in violation. Obviously the links of the examples within the journal are not safe for work images. Due to this, Argon has decided it would be best to remove a majority of his works after May 28th.
Another pokemon furry who commissioned a lot of art of her characters has also been impacted by these rule changes. Totodice indicated that she would also be removing characters from her gallery based on the new rule update. In the statement she highlighted her concerns over the changing winds of furry based community galleries and their usage to engage in fantasy.
I would ask that everyone simply...don't get hung up on details about fictional characters like that. Fiction...art...you should be allowed to enjoy fantasies however you like. If it does not hurt anyone else, then there's no reason to police it. No reason to police how one is allowed to enjoy what they enjoy in a safe environment. I really hoped that eventually this would be realized, that hating others for the content they happen to like is just something I both do not understand and highly disagree with. Everyone is allowed to enjoy whatever they enjoy, and as long as it is kept within a safe environment, away from hurting anyone in real life, then I say go for it. Enjoy it. Indulge yourself. It is what YOU like. And if you like it, then that's all that should matter. not what other people think about it.
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About the author
Sonious (Tantroo McNally) — read stories — contact (login required)a project coordinator and Kangaroo from CheektRoowaga, NY, interested in video games, current events, politics, writing and finance
Comments
Yeah, this is such a stupid rule that accomplishes nothing and further fragments furry artists. This is the same as conservative grannies wringing their hands over violent video games. It also actually lines up with an idea I was thinking of writing. I just need to get my act together and write.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
One of the challenges I face is that I kind of try and not do the whole "drama of the week" thing, to do this I typically allow a few days to a week go by before I decide to write on a topic. The trick with that is, having to retain important pieces of information and organize them pre-emptively in anticipation of doing so. Or having access to tech to do so to get things organized. Getting those pieces together helps to create a cohesive story, the more pieces you have the better it typically turns out.
Given how frequent and fluid things happen in the modern web, I felt that perhaps the things I was doing was a bit outdated and unnecessary. Ironically, the Google and Twitter acts of "we're going to delete the stuff" basically gave me a kick in the pants to probably do more in the future.
Shady and disgusting "opinion" from the resident pedo defender. (Really just a knee jerk whinge qualified by nothing, nobody cares about "fragmenting" since there isn't even an artist representation group for this.)
When police don't exist in a community, can't act internationally even if there is a case for them, and don't have power over the shady behavior called grooming anyways, a standard is needed. The people most concerned about cub porn are ones who stand to get in bigger trouble if caught. For artistic liberty, if your work is that bland and basic as to be identified that way anyways, you're not doing anything special worth caring about. Pokemon cub porn is not going to be in future museums or art history. Pokemon is for children. Get better taste.
Should fan websites be for only catering to items that are "museum worthy"?
Creation is a right of everyone, not just the elite. If you're looking for quality, that's fine, but I think trying to say that anything not worthy of a museum is worth creating creates a sense of sunk cost that can lead to a person feeling that they have failed simply because their works are not placed into the echelons of the elites, yeah?
And should the artist begin to believe that they have an elite talent, and yet are denied what they deem is their right, what happens to the soul of that artist should they fail to meet the unreasonable expectation place upon themselves?
It's not really worth replying to anons; they usually have little to add to the conversation. And in this case, they make silly statements when, just earlier this month, this story was in the headlines. Just goes to show their own ignorance.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2023/05/08/controversial-painting-vand...
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
What I stated about art on fan pages also accounts for commentary in a fan page comment section as well.
They're clearly passionate about what they feel, and they are caught up in rhetoric that actually doesn't help prevent the situations that make them angry, but due to that rhetoric they have a certain protagonist/I'm better than anyone else mentality to the point where they expected Louvre quality art from the average furry fan webpage.
Perhaps it is not the things in front of them that are the reason they are angry. Harm to the underage existed before the existence Fur Affinity and unfortunately will exist well after this is put into place. I wish that wasn't the case.
So since that is the case, we can see that the commenter's anger is not about the content of the art, but the unreasonable expectations they have put upon others and themselves on making the fandom into something bigger than it was intended to be.
Actually a question you might be able to help with. I'm sure there was an article on here about a compilation of furry stories where one of the stories was removed after publication for some or other reason. Any chance you remember that article and can link it?
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
Don't remember that one, sorry. Maybe if there were more details such as the type of story or an author name?
Very flowery but "FA won't host my cub porn" isn't depriving anyone of any right to create anything. You can create as much as you want.
Getting shady junk hosted isn't making a statement against the elite. It's not even helping make a place for art when it's toxic to artists with a soul.
Now you expect the an art site to be the savior of one's soul?
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
The reality is, that no amount of rules that are implemented in Fur Affinity is going to protect furry from the wrath of those who will see people as a degenerate and are so angry at the world they want to kill *at least* half of humanity.
They'll find another excuse to kill you or call you a degenerate. Because that's *their* fetish.
For some reason you did, or was that just more flowery mumbles for no reason:
Sonious — Mon 22 May 2023 - 14:37 "what happens to the soul of that artist"
Yes, yes, people who don't support the loophole version of child pornography are the problem here. The resident pedo defender will validate it while grossing out anyone with a brain.
Most would see the context in which I used those words and the context in which you used them are different situations. But I'll spell it out here since I need to.
A) My use of soul was the corruption that occurs within the individual when they put too much expectation of success on themselves and then resent other who were successful to the point of anger and vitriol toward the existence of the other.
B) Your use of the word soul is that should a governing body not treat people you want to see as criminals as criminals, then everyone in the organization should be destroyed lest all participants in said group are unsaved.
The interesting thing is that the situation of A leads to the believe that causes B from what can be gleaned. Because I was referencing someone specific in my statement.
So the question here is, do you see yourself as a failed artist? For how long? And along that path did you become angry? And if so when did you start blaming other, and listening to other that told you what you wanted to hear?
Cool word salad
Well you don't serve a salad warm, certainly.
I would note that this story is ongoing as new information is being announced periodically, as I suspect it will be true up until the July 1st deadline.
On the 19th journal of the rule update, they indicated that "NO, there is no list of species that we will always take action on."
While in the update today, they had decided to list examples:
So, it wouldn't do me much good to include details about the rules other than the general premise here as the situation is still quite fluid.
I'm going to be honest with you guys, my Twitter For You tab (yes, I use it) was furries complaining about FurAffinity re-re-banning cub porn, and also Cassidy trying to get the guy she thinks got her un-GOH-ed cancelled for being into cub porn. So, I guess we're still not clear on where we feel about this issue, as a group, I see. However, of course, even if you are straight up just for banning cub porn, we can all agree, FurAffinity, true to form, managed to ban cub porn badly.
I guess the moral of the story is to ban not, lest ye be banned. Or perhaps better: live by the ban, die by the ban.
Coming in 2024: Two legs good, four legs bad.
This is so stupid! what are Chibi artist's gonna do? move to inkbunny with all the pedos and their cub??? f.ck that!
A significant number of artists and fans appear to be showing a renewed interest in Inkbunny, with many requesting account restoration (IB reserves usernames after account closure). Daily active logged-in members are up ~2,000 (to ~33,000), while three-day uploads have doubled.
Here's this week's web server requests and CPU activity graphs. Note the dark red/orange indicating idle-priority upload processing, while blue reflects mostly viewer activity on the database and web server. Requests are for the main server (page views and scripts) and do not include most image files, served via IB's cache network.
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Don't waste a crisis, eh Mr. Churchill?
Certainly it's an opportunity for people to try new things.
Time for some ads. "Try pedobunny today, get bonus hard drive bleaching"
My stance on cub.
So the reason i am writing this is to discuss my views on the topic in a rational and intelligent manner, its a topic of heavy debate especially on twitter following the recent events on Furaffinity, with them banning cub and more recently anything resembling and underage or remotely looking like under age, this going for things like Chibi art as well. I personally strongly disagree with Furrafinity’s choices regarding this as it limits artists ability to have freedom of expression. Now I am not saying I condone or condemn cub pornography. Honestly i see it as an acquired taste that, thought not for everyone, and if you don’t like it thats on you. But if you don’t personally like something, you should just not look at it. Just click off it, its not that hard. But anyway here are my honest thoughts after months of self-reflection, study and debate.
————————
So when it comes to cub, Nsfw or otherwise, I firmly belief that it is up to both the artist and the viewer of said art to come to their own moral conclusions regarding the content. Well Cub porn may be seen as pedophiliac, one could use the same argument when it comes to feral art or furry porn in general being zoophilic. The bottom line is, as long as it in legal in the country of which it is viewed, does not portray any human children or child pornography. And as long as the viewer does engage in any legitimate pedophiliac acts against minors online or in the real world then it is not wrong. Morally questionable, but not illegal or wrong.
In contrast, some people decide to just label any form of artwork featuring underaged characters in sexual situations as "pedophilia". They typically don't know that there's a difference between fantasy and reality, or might know that there's a difference but not care. real life children and photos of children in sexual situations is legally pedophilia. Drawings or otherwise clearly fantasy depictions are not.
Canadian law is clear that any art or photographs containing depictions of human ‘persons’ is illegal and falls under indecency laws. However the law does not prohibit Cub art since an animal is not considered a person.
Anyone who considers Cub to be any worse then any other form of art depicting non-human characters is hypocritical.
As for the subject matter of the cub porn, CubXCub CubXAdult CubXFeral it should should once again be left up to the consumer rather over if they are comfortable viewing it or not.
Correlation is not causation, just because a person views something does not me they will become it.
Take the satanic panic of the 60’s 70’s and 80’s. just because someone sees satanism in the media or witchcraft does not mean they are going to become a witch or devil worshiper. The same goes for a person who watches gorey movies or play violent video games. Just because they consume it or fetishize it does not mean they are destined to become murderers.
Now as for those who do have these feelings i feel like Cub can be seen as an outlet for somebody who has pedophiliac tendency’s to engage in them in a way that is not harmful to them or others. I personally would rather have someone get off to images of Furry underaged animals then have them out in the world actually harming minors. So if anyone has these thoughts or feelings i would first recommend seeing a doctor but at the same time actually encourage the idea of using cub as an outlet, even if it is based out of characters that ‘almost’ look human but still have animal features.
In a study on Reddit that involved over 500 voters it was seen that Cub was considered pedophiliac, which means the vast majority of the public seems to see Cub as wrong. But these statistics have to been seen as flawed do to the fact that some of the people who voted may not have even been furries. Therefore the opinion of the fandom itself is more important then that of the anti-fur Discord mod trolling on reddit well taking a break from his Minecraft server.
Sadly i was not able to find an official poll on what the fandom as a whole thought of cub porn in itself. And it is near impossible to find any solid consensus after looking through the thousands upon thousands of pages of people gaslighting each other on twitter. But in the end i would say that the majority seems to be against it well a much smaller precent supports it or is undecided.
So in reality what are we talking about here? Are we talking about law? Are we talking about morality? Or are we talking about preferences of the viewers. I think its partly all of the above. But the begging question here is, does a tolerance of cub art equal a tolerance of pedophilia in the fandom? No it doesn’t. It is extremely clear that both pedophilia and zoophilia will never ever be tolerated in the furry fandom. The people who commit these crimes against nature have absolutely zero place in the furry community. I personally feel the community should take drastic steps to get these people the help they need instead of just chasing them out of the fandom, and Perhaps getting the law involved if needs be rather then just spreading it all over the internet. Honestly i’m guilty of this foolish behaviour myself. Because in reality what does chasing out or “Canceling” someone really solve??? All that happens is they run out of the community, lay low for some time and then try to make a come back, this can be seen in Kero the wolf’s case. With the furry fandom in being the strong community that we are, we need to take a firm stand and let these people know they are NOT welcome here. But at the same time encouraging they seek medical help or getting the law involved if needed. The furry fandom is not about cancel culture or outing others, it is about self-expression and freedom. It is about finding unity in a shared interest. Putting politics aside and just living in the moment. Being who you wanna be and having the freedom to express that. But at the same time the fandom is not and never will be a safe place for pedo’s or zoo’s.
But when it comes to cub porn or feral porn or any other kind, leave people alone! Don’t kink shame people for having a fetish or something that they like. Don’t be worried about your reputation when it comes to being with people who like something, even if you don’t agree with it. Instead if you truly like that person, then you will be able to look passed their fetishes and accept them for who they are, and not what they like. Instead stand by them, help them when others are pushing them down. Having these kinks does not make a person any less human. Deep down we are all people with thoughts and feelings and emotions. And if we are truly dedicated to solving the problems of pedophilia and zoophilia in this community, then we must go for the roots of the problem, and not the things that correlate to it.
I honestly could write a book on my thoughts on this matter but its something that i just needed to write, in one big long testament rather then in the other poorly constructed attempts i’ve posted regarding this matter. I hope you all understand where I’m coming from in this matter and have actually taken the time to read my article instead of just flipping through it and blocking me. I have likes, i have interests and even fetishes. And it is better off if i never go public about them. Why? Because its my private business which nobody needs to know about. Again i am not condemning nor condoning. I’m just giving my view. I really hope this has enlightened you all. And i hope that within regards to FA and there new rules that they seriously consider giving these things a second thought.
—Banjo
Encouraging bad people to get the right treatment so they no longer be a threat is a plus in my book, however I want to criticize: the idea that some of these people must never be welcome might partly be contributing to why some of these people never get the proper help they need but I'm not sure if you're on the same page as I am on this take. Do you mean people who want to join the fandom and hurt living beings alone? I certainly don't welcome a furry being an abuser, however that doesn't mean said person can't be a furry alone or lose the future of socializing innocently when no longer a threat. I also feel like what you're saying is conflicting especially when you say it's not about cancel culture. Claiming to be open for innocent expression but then arguing against people like Kero just expressing innocent anthro stuff (less related to what he did) seems a bit two-faced, but like I said I am not sure if that's what you meant.
Anyway I worry about the message might lead to harassing certain people against their rights to be a furry all over a 'past' action they no longer do.
Some people can't help being a furry and once and a while, some awful people might have this. So for me using a Kero the wolf example, trying to tell him to get the right help but then broadly telling him he's not welcomed in the 'furry community' as if any typical stranger has a right to gatekeep that kind of stuff, as if it's a "crime" to merely be in the fandom for innocent interests alone (such as merely being a furry), is probably not solving much of anything and might even be contributing a negative reaction to getting the right treatment, especially since being kicked out of the furry fandom will not save animals. If Kero actually did get the proper treatment and was successful, then just wants to be a furry, rehabilitates back into society after, then I see nothing ethical to argue he suddenly can't exist as a furry and innocently socialize. To go against that is exactly the same level as saying "Hey, I want you to get the right treatment but you can't be yourself innocently. You can't be happy. You can't get normality back!"... Yeah... don't be surprised they failed to become safe around others again.
That being said, I'm not saying that Kero being a threat should be online socially, however this shouldn't be about about the topic of "furry" as if him leaving that would make that much of a difference.
Also less related to this, you said "does engage" but I'm sure you mean "doesn't engage"? Somewhere in the first paragraph under the line you put. I assume that's part of the reason you wanted to edit your comment.
Disclaimer: I am not actually sure if I got anything correct here. I also feel like my writing here is a bit sloppy today.
Sorry my text thing fucked up, won’t let me take post down to edit it X3
What cracks me up is that KOOPAS violate the policies for looking too young. Now, what do we see them doing? Fighting. That's right. They're banned even though we know them to be MILITARY AGE LMAO
Child soldiers are still children, I guess. People can join the UK army at 16, which is the UK age of consent, but they wouldn't be allowed in cartoon pornography there or FA.
Cutting through the bullshit this is, of course, just more of the gang running FA trying to thin the community of everything that doesn't involve their own particular extreme fetishes - many of which are quite gross by the standards of most people. They have always seen the website as a tool for building a cult of personality around themselves - they're probably just feeling lonely again as the subculture moves on and leaves them behind. This is a device with which to re-exert their feeling of control.
Feels like the exact opposite to me; whoever's hosting the servers or the data center they're at probably putting pressure on them. Pokemon got thrown under the bus, but the rules as written otherwise are vague and hard to enforce. We'll see when the rule actually goes into effect what actually gets "enforced" but this feels mostly like Fur Affinity "doing something" that doesn't actually require them to do anything to appease a third party.
Swear to God, furries be all "you can't let corporations into furry, it'll water us down", and then you can't recognize an attempt to water down furry as possibly corporate.
The trouble is vagueness could mean anything; the specific cases they've confirmed have already given cause for some to move.
I'm doubtful that it's the hosting provider; they're unlikely to be liable for what FA is doing, especially if they're just providing rackspace, power and networking. They might be concerned about actual CSEM, but cartoon animals ain't it. Maybe more if they were cloud-based, but I think Dragoneer likes racking his own hardware.
My theory is they're getting pressure from PayPal (critical for FA+/Shinies), a major publisher like Nintendo (seems unlikely; why stop at Baby Pokémon?) or prepping for a sale (if fundraising and ads aren't enough).
I agree with you that they probably don't want to do anything, but more because it's a heck of a lot easier for users to self-censor than for staff to have to do it. A few seem keen.
Actually, yeah, PayPal. I think they were (to slightly misuse an aphorism) the "power behind the throne" 13 years ago.
The thing about the non-vague responses is that they're responses; this is probably the closest I'm coming to talking out of my ass, but I wonder if Argon Vile wouldn't have a problem if they'd just kept their mouth shut and carried on as normal, and not pointed out the fact that Baby Pokemon are Baby Pokemon, because once you've pointed that out, I mean, what the fuck were the admins supposed to do?
The reason Argon had nothing really to lose by trying to acquire clarity, even at the risk of having it publicly known his items would be removed, is that he has used PostyBirb on his entires to upload his works to a variety of webpages.
So if FA wanted to change the rules that would force him to take down more of his works, then it's merely a closed door and not an execution.
That's great for current and future work, but I imagine there's a fair amount that's just on FA, or maybe the VCL where nobody's really looking at it. Plus related comment threads, +favs, etc.
Also it's fine to say "I'm other places", but getting others to follow you there may be a challenge, and as he quite rightly points out there's no guarantee that they will stay up indefinitely either.
He does benefit from knowing as soon as possible before the impending deletions, though, as it gives more time to prepare.
Yeah, I think "trying to acquire clarity" was the wrong move. I think the vagueness was a feature, not a bug.
Honestly, I think a lot people are assuming Dragoneer is 100% behind everything bad that happens at FurAffinity because they don't like Dragoneer. If I can offer my neutral perspective of "I don't really give a fuck", I'd say nothing in Dragoneer's history indicates he has any particular bug up his butt about cub porn; if anything, having to ban popular works by a popular artist like Argon Vile seems like something he would want to avoid if he could. If I can impute negative motivations to the guy, because why not, everyone else has, I'd say he's a "clout chaser" who's primarily after popularity, not some power-hungry, control freak autocrat. This seems to be something he's being pressured into, which means either an outside party, or he's got a recent friend/admin who does have a bug up their butt about it.
But the vagueness of the ruling implies to me that nobody really does. Look, if FurAffinity actually gave a shit about this stuff, and/or Dragoneer was on a power trip, they'd just ban it, and the artists that make it. I mean, when I said earlier that this rule bans cub porn badly, I meant that. It doesn't actually do much; it's basically saying "it's bannable if an admin says it's bannable", which opens up the possibility that the admins won't say anything at all. Yes, you can point out that it is getting stuff banned, but I'd point out if they're being pressured into this, they're going to have to sacrifice something, and it might as well be the guy who approached them and is all like "hey, like, is the baby in this porn I drew, you know, underage?" I mean, duh!
The only thought I give Dragoneer in this case, which did not mention him in any prior comment or in this article regarding this situations, is that it is quite expensive to buy back a site from IMVU to, allegedly, protect your site from being pushed toward the getting "cleaned up", only to be "forced" to have to do it anyway for some unknown reason.
Maybe we don't give TellTale games enough credit for making inconsequential decisions seem grand. Life may have more of those then we wish to believe.
Sorry, the "blaming Dragoneer to blame Dragoneer" bit was more aimed at the original anon that I replied to when this subthread started up. I guess they never said Dragoneer's name either, but it felt implied.
It was AlertPay back then, although I'm sure that was because PayPal had already banned them.
Asking what staff would do faced with a mound of work not censored is indeed an interesting question, although I suspect the answer is to suspend the whole account.
"other Pokémon such as Cubchoo, Cubone, Torchic, Ralts, Eevee, and Gothita, and Digmon such as Agumon, Impmon, Gatomon, and Veemon as these characters have childlike proportions or look like adolescent humans or animals."
Are you kidding me? While I don't know about all of these characters, Cubone and Eevee are not cubs nor do they look like child-like proportions. If I recall right, worry is reasonable if it actually looked like actual humanoid children, but for a fictional four-legged creature like those, it's usually no longer simulating humanoid proportions thus no longer having the issue. I got the feeling that whoever was in charged of this made this out of personal perversion rather than in worry that some people could legally get in trouble and seeing they are including non-cub Pokemon that don't look like humanoid children shows a lot of this. Seriously, what exactly is the point of having the rules do this?
What's next, banning adult characters for differently matured Disney characters just because Earth years are technically below 18?
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