well shit. I would hope they are reasonable and not expecting people with hundreds if not thousands of pictures over multiple years to go through every pic for something that people may think is 'too young' weather or not they actually are.

Over on YouTube, their bots are doing exactly that work and giving penalties to videos years or even decades old that violate... according to the bots.

The problem of course is that the rules are enforced based on reporting so if someone wants to be harsh on you, they can be.

unfortunately, there's an incentive for FA to cut their tail of niche/semi-controversial content that may not get much airplay compared to their normal porn fare, since it doesn't get as much eyeballs, so not as much as revenue

tbh I don't see it getting better, barring a massive change in the status quo of where furries meet online (which, things happen gradually and then suddenly, who knows)

So what if said vore content is story based? And is sfw or safe vore? Is that still not allowed? I am quite confused and would like some clarification on that.

Some of my stuff that got deleted was stories with no sexual content whatsoever, like a kid with weird powers feeding people to his animal friends. The trouble ticket I got back asking for a rules clarification said ANY vore with a kid around it against the rules.

"some of which did not involve minors but merely size/species differences that could imply that some of the characters were minors"

Oh trust me, if they start taking down pictures with a small pred that's an adult, FA is losing a large chunk of the vore community.

I hate rules like this because a good portion of the cases are completely subjective, and at least one of the mods (if not more) are completely incompetent when it comes to interpreting what is and isn't a minor. A full grown woman with tits but she's small? Clearly a child, time to suspend the artist.

That makes me concerned about my kelpie mule as her normal height is 4ft tall

Someone literally decided that an effeminate male of mine with a dick almost as big around as their wrist was a cub... They got the FA anti-cub brigade on it, and I watched them do mental gymnastics to equate what was clearly a lithe ADULT MAN with girlish hips to a cub, despite not meeting any of the criteria they gave.

It was hell getting that mob off my back, and it's only getting worse. All it takes is the right person with clout to point a finger, and anyone is basically done. All so people can feel like they're an activist on the internet.

For reference, this is the character: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16108118/

If people see that as not sexually mature, they could see anything that isn't some ripped he-man as such. LOL.

Whoever decided THAT was a child is clearly incompetent and should step down as a mod.

It was years ago at this point but they never got any recompense for it. They also didn't seem to get it for stealthily deleting submissions of that char AGAIN after a higher admin told them it's clearly not a kid. FA's moderation has always been pretty bad.

I worry about the state of my gallery because there are no minors in my FA gallery, but I do have smaller characters. However, if a character like your's can get removed for being cub, how does that bode for other characters?

Sadly common. This is something I see from time to time, someone whines 'think of the children' Yet they do not really think of the children, its just an excuse to attack others. Hell, I know of people who got charged with child porn cause they took some pictures of there family at the beach. I mean seriously, wtf? Its sad, cause this sort of thing puts the focus on other people, aka, people with small characters and the like. Take a look at SL where you can be acused of being a one of thoes, just cause you are smaller. People have been permabaned on SL cause they where less than 6 feet tall. I had an adult fennec fox av and would sometimes get flack for being a child av, even when I was very clearly an adult av.

Can it really be considered fetishized if it's in the same vein as fairytale-esque scenarios like Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf? If they're gonna crack down on minors in vore art, their guidelines need to be more specific in writing so that misunderstandings aren't made.

Obviously, nsfw vore scenarios where characters are getting aroused should be prohibited when minors are involved. But the kind of routine fantasy vore-peril that already frequently depicted in TV shows and movies deemed suitable for minors? That needn't be taken down.

I have at least three comics where kids get eaten and the kids are never involved in sexual escapades. One of the comics does end in sex so I will probably remove that page just to be sure. (The kid involved is long since digested by that point.) having kids available as occasional victims is a useful storytelling device, it let's me have people do dumb things without being drunk or horny. Kids get eaten in Goosebumps books and fairy tales, after all.

I suppose whoever owns the rights to Goosebumps and whomever airs the show gets to choose if such content remains in circulation. As for fairy tales, it's like Greek Mythology. And there's some pretty old notions (That modern society may take offense to) to be found in those. I understand that Zeus had a lot of fun with transformation sex.

On a totally different track... I just noticed one of the ads that was pushed onto the page. 'Help children of heroes'. Complete with pictures. Oy...

"Kids get eaten in Goosebumps books and fairy tales, after all."

It still happens on PBS from time to time. And that will be why I feel this will ultimately blow over: Because, per Rule 34, ANYTHING may be considered a fetish. And considering the very first "Specialty" tag is "Baby Fur", I seriously doubt F.A. will ever be willing to go to the length of banning any and all mention of kids.

The very first time I ever involved child prey was in direct reference to Pokemon: Sun, which gave Pelipper the pokedex entry "Its spacious beak is large enough for a small child to fit right inside". Six years later, Violet gave it an entry saying "It protects its young in its beak". And last I checked, both games still had the "E" rating in the U.S. -- appropriate for all ages.

Ultimately, I think this will blow over with the admins being forced to further clarify. Though what I really think will do it in is the "no nudity" rule when some troll or another tries to report fan art of Bluey, Paw Patrol, or something else where the characters in the canon are clearly stated to be young but don't wear pants in the original source.

In a world that still has flat-earthers and Confederate monuments, I really shouldn't be that surprised that we still need to have the "just because it's on F.A. doesn't mean it's intended to get your rocks off" conversation. But... Yeah, it still grates on my nerves that it isn't just trolls still trying to peddle that crap.

Yeah, another example of it of kids getting eaten is in the movie It, where it is the main premise. Hell, the original Jaws movie had a kid eaten by a shark. There was even a scene where the two main characters cut open a captured shark to see if it really was the culprit (it wasn't or it would have be a lot shorter movie).

Jaws sticks in my head as that got me into vore in the first place when I was a wee lad. I saw it when it came on cable TV or something way back then, I forgets. But it did awoken my vorish nature that is for sure. The though of being a shark and eating people appealed to me way back then. I fairly quickly shifted to a dragon though.

I do hope it'll blow over. Remember all the hoopla about litter-boxes in schools thing? What a joke that was.

This has been going for over a decade, and it's seemingly picking up steam. People into questionable fetishes will always seek someone 'lower' to look down on. It's been that way as long as I've known furries.

And kids get eaten really horribly in the 80s Blob movie.

Feels like this came from the whole Foshu incident

I was told the Foshu and other artist incidents were unrelated, but it does seem like quite the coincidence.

Extremely so. The rules were there but no because of Foshu it seems like it got extra enforced. Not trying to bring that heated debate here. Was just making an observation

The the bannings were all after the rule change.

What is the Foshu thing?

Foshu was attacked by a Twitter mob angry about one of her pic (seven years old) that had child prey in it. This mob was directed at her by an FA user. Now Foshu is at least suspended, maybe banned for "harassment" while the person who set the mob on her hasn’t been punished in any way as far as I can tell.

Our bannings happened after the rule change.

Yeah I was certainly getting ready for this, that I am preparing to have a disclaimer on all my art stating that all characters involved are 18+ just to avoid any form of drama. That being said, I've never been in a situation where I considered drawing a minor and always wanted to aim more for adult ages. I'm conflicted on what to say for words because I have no intention of having drawings or my own words used against me that would spark mass outrage.

The wording of it specifies 'childlike body' which can mean almost anything, depending on what you define as 'childlike.'

Several have already pointed out they have characters who are short. Only children are short, right? Ban. What about those without monster endowments? That female has a flat chest. Clearly, must be a child. Ban. Woe betide a female that is both short and not possessed of an anime girl rack. Turbobanned.Z

Simply declaring them to be adult in text may not be enough.

It's part of an ongoing slight of hand trick being played by the moral crusaders, of insisting up and down that this not necessarily sexual thing is inherently sexual (for a random, clearly unrelated example; being in drag. or just being gay at all). Then they claim that doing or being this thing in the presence of children, or even in public at all, is both sexualizing and abusing children, based on the weight of their fiat declaration that X is 'inherently' sexual regardless of if it is or not.

And now comes the hat trick, where anyone who disagrees with them, or worse, defends those groups being demonized or marginalized, are then accused of defending atrocities, such as child porn.

Considering a lot of this comes out of America, I speak from an American perspective here, certain very loud demographics seem hell bent on turning us backwards and converting us into a totalitarian theocratic oligarchy of lock-step conformity, in the name of freedom of course, and are willing to do violence to get it.

They look overseas at places like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where people are beheaded in the public square for witchcraft, reporters reporting the truth mysteriously vanish, and gays or other social non-conformists are tossed off of buildings, and see that as a model to aspire to. Just with a cross rather than a crescent and star.

Unfortunately, it's a rock-and-hard-place kind of deal and we may have to go back into the closet entirely.

How long before FA starts cracking down on other things the lip-service bible thumping hate preachers find icky? Topics of choice, being drag and transgender. So will they crack down on any depictions of intersex characters? Or characters wearing clothes not conforming to biological sex? Think of the children after all.

Even monster endowments won't save you. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16108118/ tHat got labeled as 'child like' just because he's lithe. By head to body ratio, he's definitely an adult, genital size? Ditto. Never underestimate how far a dedicated mental gymnast will go to make reality fit what they wish to perceive.

Yeah, I had some crazy stuff removed from mine on my ban as well, stuff with like 12 foot tall monster possums and normal human sized adults. just removed.

That's the loophole they're closing. Some people were clearly just plastering a "All characters are 18 or older" on images where it was obviously not draw that way.

I certainly intend to draw characters as adult while stating the disclaimer too. We'll see what happens.

This happened to me last year, because of some changes they made a story I made 3 years before that got me week ban. No warning or anything, which I think is a dick move. I could have just taken it down if they'd just sent a message.

Saw a thumbnail over on YouTube earlier about the 'coming censorship of the internet'. Then again, they are literally dividing that whole service at the 18 year mark. In some respects, this is a good thing. But that movement of control is like an avalanche. First, they implement the foundation for the control. The way that AI is going, 'they' will soon hand the decisions over to the machines. And, before you know it, you had better be walking in the authorized mannerism down the street. Less the automated authority declares you a criminal via the vast network of public cameras. I mean over there in YouTube land, they just authorized their bots to give strict punishments for anyone caught swearing... especially in the first 30 seconds, I think the warnings were stating.

The way things are going, there may eventually be an attempt to divide the internet three ways. Internet for anyone over 18, anyone under 18... and, of course, the dark web. I suppose child approved browsers with some kind of different coding would be for the innocent, and traditional (now red light) internet would require some kind of pass id, or something. Even then, best monitor what you say. Or the Meat Puppets will come to imprison you for a week while they comb through your digital thumbprints. "Hey, look. He isn't painting pretty rainbows. Penalty for each infraction." Censorship has already taken the penny and the pound. Better believe they won't stop at the first mile, either.

the writing of the rule is way too vague when EVERYTHING is a fetish.
like, can minors not be macro or micro now?
can they not show their paws?
there's so many questions that leave a HUGE gray area, and if any one admin says a user went over the line their whole account can get banned! the rule needs clarification

it should be assumed that anything not specifically defined as a minor isnt a minor. my fennec guy is really small, hes been mistaken as cub before, still an adult canonically.

There was a whole bit about that in Zootopia

I mean, title of the journal's accurate. Especially when you're willing to keep up comics, stories, and separate pieces of minors being involved in vore or general smut... and have been even before the loophole was patched. Even though, if you actually had a moral code, you would've seen that the loophole was never there to begin with.

They're drawings, go reeee over something else.

I've always been careful about stories with minors on my FA. I don't think this is the first time they've banned a user over this issue, I think Shyguy was temp banned because the staff thought a character in a picture was a minor. The kicker is the character wasn't, but over on Eka's somebody else added a minor tag to that same picture.

I like veal

seems like witch-hunting started on fa.
what is the reason for this?
cub art is sometimes disturbing, but if i don't like it, i don't watching, like other things i find disturbing: hardvore, or diapers. let them be, they're happy

Punishing the healthy coping mechanism will naturally encourage the unhealthy ones.

Finally, drawn child porn is banned on FA

Would you consider any visual depiction of "Little Red Riding Hood" child porn? Because it would fall under this ban.

I don't know what is "Little Red Riding Hood"

Красную Шапочку - like this.

suspended???

I guess you know it's jumped the shark when you can't even draw the shark eating kids.

If it's okay for Discovery Kids, it's okay here.

I do not agree with the inevitable conclusion that small or cutesy-looking characters are the equivalent of minors, but I know that's going to be a major issue with this policy. Does not affect me so much as it affects well-meaning creators, but of course on social media I would be called a pedo apologist for insinuating this.

That's the plan. Cast a wide dragnet with a vague enough platitude/slogan, then stretch it to fit any and all social undesirables you wish to purge from society. Any who dissent are assumed to only dissent because they're in league with the degenerates and obviously, profligates like that belong on a cross.

So sayeth The Legion (of performative moral outrage)

Yup, this is all intentional, all part of the plan. Poor Strega and others are asking for clarification when being obscure and hard to understand IS THE ENTIRE POINT.

On social media, you will be called a pedo apologist, if not an outright pedo, for having an electric stove.

The trolls have completely normalized the concept -- have made it no big deal whatsoever to be called a pedo because they accuse EVERYONE of being one. And with the new vague-as-hell policy, F.A. just further played into their hands.

And why are they so hellbent on normalizing it, and accusing everyone else on Earth of committing it? Because they're doing it themselves for real, of course. That's their idea of "a normal crime". To you and me, it's unspeakable -- to them, it's Sunday after church. The headline "QAnon believer arrested for child abuse" is on a constant loop.

So congratulations F.A. administrators: You fell for it. Again!

Maybe just private the offending things and if you have alt posting locations then leave them there.
This seems to be a case of give people an inch they take a mile. Don't risk a ban but don't just delete everything everywhere else because I am certain many here follow you on multiple other platforms that are less strict.

The biggest problem is interpreting what is and isn't offending regarding the new ruleset. It would be great if there were hard yes / no's regarding content (as was clear before the rule change), but when stuff gets banned even when no minors are involved or even implied (as has been the case recently), it's a hard choice to try and make- especially when moderators will not provide clarification on what is and isn't an offense under the new rules without banning you first.

Given FA's 2 strike policy, it's incredibly risky to potentially get handed a permanent ban just because you had a character who was 11ft tall standing next to an adult.

Too late; Strega already got the hammer...

! is suspenspention
- is banned
∞ is deceased

FA just perma-suspends accounts and never actually uses the banned status. Goo look at the accounts of notoriously permabanned people, just suspended.

I find it kinda fishy that they suspended Strega before they could fix the issue. Almost like they are going nuclear on anyone.
All this is going to do is force a mass exodus away from here because they are not thinking about small and realistic artists. Case in point there are a lot of Fennec fox furs on here that look young but Fennecs are just small. So they are going to start banning anything small now too? Oh well at least there are a lot of other alternatives besides here but still kinda suspicious to me tbh.
It's like they already know who they wanted to get rid of as soon as they made the rule.

Welcome to dealing with the Anti-cub folks. They were out of control over a decade ago; they're just gonna get worse with time. FA used to actually not tolerate these people harassing cub artists, and had a grace period. That's gone out the window.

In fact, every mod just about that wasn't foaming at the mouth for 'destroying teh pedos' seems to have been booted out. How times change, how times change...

well atleast we all realize we aint alone in this case. seems like most of my friends who been here since the 2000s are calling this stuff out.

"It's like they already know who they wanted to get rid of as soon as they made the rule."

I thought the same thing. They caused a panic by suspending some artists right out of the gate for macro/micro stuff, meanwhile all the art that I thought for sure would be taken down, including some by the artists who were suspended, is still there.

We've been through this before, but it was never this blatant, or this stupid. And that's not even taking into account the proverbial can of worms that is the FA+ membership.

Let's be real for a second: the furry community is full of vulnerable and lonely people. And a lot of them are minors.

Been reading these comments and the vibe I'm getting is that FA staff are doing some nasty shit and want to point as many fingers, in as many different places, as possible.

There is a reason why many of us went to IB(Inkbunny) and SF(Sofurry), as well as Baraag, so anything that was deemed such, even if it isn't sexual would still actually exist.

Sofurry's been rotting for years, not really a good one to point to since it's been a shambling zombie for far too long.

Oh the writing's been on the wall for this for FA for a long time. Whereas once I was the voice of reason for suggesting that interests in fetishes doesn't mean someone is devoid of conscience and actually goes out to do them, they've swung far, far in the other direction, and- their site, their rules, I disagree, but I'll play by them.

what absolutely blows my mind is clearly they dont give a shit about transparency, or even giving anyone appropriate time to adjust to the rules. they just ban everyone gave a fuck ton of people suspensions that if they get another their gone forever. and like this goes against how a site should be ran that even twitter handles its policy better and thats saying something. fa is gonna get fooled if they think peoples good will is going to last forever.

oh yall notice that fa has google ads now? they went to hard banning some pokemon and walked it back. but still banned a bunch of baby furs as well. you can clearly see these people talking about feral and non consensual vore needing to be next in the journals of like foshu and such. like they dont even care they call their next target out publicly. shits gone too far. these people aint furries.

So the reason for tightening the rules is a new advertiser?

I have a bad memory but I remember that years ago the mods and a certain owner said that cub porn art would not be banned because freedom of speech.
Then Paypal froze FurAffinity's accounts stating they got signals that FurAffinity was possibly violating Paypal's terms of service.

(As far as I know a Paypal account was used for advertising transactions.)

Cub porn art was immediately banned with the excuse "no one was looking at that stuff anyway."

Seems money is more important than a place for people to publish and discuss art.

The anti-cub people constantly go and sabotage sites by reporting content they don't like. It's nothing new.

They did it to F-list and others too, all over a bunch of drawings they don't like.

It's incredibly child-ish to do this, regardless of the content of FICTIONAL materials.

If people can't express themselves safely, they will do so unsafely.

So very well said.

Sorry you got hit with the suspension thing too man. Hope to hear your plans moving forward once you're back.

This is all just such a mess.

This could have been done in a reasonable manner, but they went the lazy way and lost a lot of community trust as a result.

I'm curious what artist that happens to be? Its very worrying if size difference is gonna cause this sort of thing too.

A lot of people are worried about that. We just don’t know because the rule,is unclear and they can’t be bothered to enlighten us. An artist friend of mine deleted a third of his gallery because it was size difference stuff.

I had meant which artist got dinged for size difference stuff. I was gonna investigate the content that was removed on the FA archive site just to see what's triggering the admins.

I've talked to several artists who mentioned that other artists are worried. An artist I know deleted a third of his gallery because he was worried that those pics featured size difference, but didn't get dinged.