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(IMPORTANT) STAND FOR JUSTICE - updated
2 years ago
Apparently, Furaffinity moderators want to censor me for speaking against discrimination.
Some of you already know that one of my artworks has caused quite a flame war and earned me some enemies. Eventually FA mods removed the artwork and suspended me for a week under false accusation of "supporting Russia's aggression against Ukraine". I believe this decision was unjust.
Here's the artwork that was labeled as "pro-Kremlin": https://twitter.com/I_hurl_NEET/sta.....79243974266883
As you can clearly see, there's nothing that connects this picture to the ongoing war. There's no imagery associated with modern Russia's military or paramilitaries. Modern-day Russian Federation is built on different foundations than those of Soviet Union; it doesn't use Soviet imagery or rhetorics, and its leaders have never made claims that they seek to "restore USSR" or anything like that.
Soviet Union and Russian Federation are not the same. SovietFurs are not a "hate group". Motto "Motherland needs you" is not encouraging viewers to participate in any ongoing real-world conflict. It was a half-parody, half-homage to posters from long since nonexistent state, and should be viewed as such.
Furthermore, the description I posted under the artwork unambiguously shows my condemnation of the invasion and desire for peace between nations. To (mis)interpret it as "supporting an invasion", one has to completely turn it inside out, or make accusations based not on what I actually say but on what their flawed logic tells them I "would" say. Luckily, someone has taken a screenshot so I can prove my claim: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrxLqCx.....amp;name=large
There was another important message in the artwork description: that we must not discriminate against users from Russia (or any other state) for decisions of their government, which they have no control over and which they're just as likely to condemn as we do. This statement has infuriated certain kind of users even more than the red banner in the artwork. More on that later.
A number of my comments was also labeled as "pro-Kremlin" and added to the charge. Here, take a look: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrxLrT9.....p;name=900x900
To interpret these as "supporting Russia's aggression" one has to completely twist my words into what I never said. I wrote a detailed appeal to FA appeals email, to explain what exactly I meant and leave no room for misinterpretation: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrxLsdJ.....amp;name=large
...and it all fell on deaf ears. Despite sending reminders daily, I only received one response from FA staff member well after my suspension term was over. The response itself? "After careful consideration, I have decided that the content warranted removal; however, it is entirely possible that it was not your intention to promote propaganda concerning the invasion. Because of this, I will have clemency on the offense, but the content may not be reuploaded." My next message to them went unanswered.
The day my suspension term ended, I tried to contact FA admins via trouble ticket. It went unanswered for more than a month, until I started sending daily reminders again. After which admins just closed the ticket, claiming that "this dispute was handled via our Appeals email address". In other words, FA staff decided to ignore my reasoning.
It's hard not to think that whoever handles these matters is heavily biased against users from Russia, and those seen as "pro-Russian".
Since my artwork got taken down, I learned about several similar cases when users were suspended for expressing support for their country (exactly country and not the war its leaders have dragged it into). One of them was punished for a picture that she didn't even post on Furaffinity, even though Code of Conduct explicitly states that "we neither accept third-party reports nor act upon incidents occurring outside Fur Affinity unless a substantial and direct correlation can be made to an incident that is imminent or occurring on Fur Affinity", in the very first paragraph. That's justice for you. Does that mean I'm going to get banned on FA for posting Soviet-themed artworks (which I plan to continue drawing) anywhere, not just this site, on demand of some spiteful user?
On the other tip of the scales we have a number of users who see themselves as "pro-Ukrainian", while in reality they're just petty and hate-filled individuals who think that their country's miseries give them moral and legal right to be openly chauvinistic and repeatedly violate site's rules when they feel like harassing some user from Russia.
(I believe that genuine love for one's country and its people is incompatible with hatred towards any other nation. I have said it before and I'm repeating this: Ukraine is beautiful and deserves peace just like any other country, so please don't associate it with bunch of self-righteous Internet bullies.)
Sadly, Furaffinity administration seems to agree with them on what they are allowed to do, and apparently gives them "special treatment" aka "positive discrimination".
Now, due to FA terms of service, I can't point directly at the biggest offenders, because that is considered "harassment" (oh irony). Chances are that you've seen them somewhere: under my deleted artwork, under journal entry with helpful info for Russian artists (who got affected by indiscriminate sanctions), under basically any submission that features Russia or Russians in non-demonizing way - everywhere you'll see same self-proclaimed "patriots" bullying people. Hate speech, insults, victim blaming, occasionally even threats of violence - at most they get their comments hidden by admininstration. One would assume that systematic violations would grant them a more serious penalty, but no.
Part of me desperately wants to believe it's just some sort of misunderstanding and problem I described isn't really there, but evidence is hard to ignore. And if you agree with points I make, please share this journal and raise public awareness. This is one thing we can do at this point.
I have to warn you: given the apparent tendencies, it won't be surprising if this journal gets taken down under another false accusation, I get banned, and you who decided to help me get punished as well. However, this is precisely why it's important to spread the message.
Furaffinity is the largest online community of people sharing common interest in furries, which goes beyond any state borders. It's supposed to be a safe haven to escape from hatred that plagues way too many real-world societies, and we mustn't let a clique of hateful narrow-minded people usurp it.
Let's raise our voices for equal and just treatment of everyone. Let's stand against discrimination, hypocrisy and double standards. Justice for all!
The journal will be updated if I have any important info to share, and if I'm able to do so.
- Edit 1: the previous version of the journal was taken down, because calling out users for repeated violations is punishable. I had to edit all mentions of particular people out, then resubmitted the journal.
Some of you already know that one of my artworks has caused quite a flame war and earned me some enemies. Eventually FA mods removed the artwork and suspended me for a week under false accusation of "supporting Russia's aggression against Ukraine". I believe this decision was unjust.
Here's the artwork that was labeled as "pro-Kremlin": https://twitter.com/I_hurl_NEET/sta.....79243974266883
As you can clearly see, there's nothing that connects this picture to the ongoing war. There's no imagery associated with modern Russia's military or paramilitaries. Modern-day Russian Federation is built on different foundations than those of Soviet Union; it doesn't use Soviet imagery or rhetorics, and its leaders have never made claims that they seek to "restore USSR" or anything like that.
Soviet Union and Russian Federation are not the same. SovietFurs are not a "hate group". Motto "Motherland needs you" is not encouraging viewers to participate in any ongoing real-world conflict. It was a half-parody, half-homage to posters from long since nonexistent state, and should be viewed as such.
Furthermore, the description I posted under the artwork unambiguously shows my condemnation of the invasion and desire for peace between nations. To (mis)interpret it as "supporting an invasion", one has to completely turn it inside out, or make accusations based not on what I actually say but on what their flawed logic tells them I "would" say. Luckily, someone has taken a screenshot so I can prove my claim: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrxLqCx.....amp;name=large
There was another important message in the artwork description: that we must not discriminate against users from Russia (or any other state) for decisions of their government, which they have no control over and which they're just as likely to condemn as we do. This statement has infuriated certain kind of users even more than the red banner in the artwork. More on that later.
A number of my comments was also labeled as "pro-Kremlin" and added to the charge. Here, take a look: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrxLrT9.....p;name=900x900
To interpret these as "supporting Russia's aggression" one has to completely twist my words into what I never said. I wrote a detailed appeal to FA appeals email, to explain what exactly I meant and leave no room for misinterpretation: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrxLsdJ.....amp;name=large
...and it all fell on deaf ears. Despite sending reminders daily, I only received one response from FA staff member well after my suspension term was over. The response itself? "After careful consideration, I have decided that the content warranted removal; however, it is entirely possible that it was not your intention to promote propaganda concerning the invasion. Because of this, I will have clemency on the offense, but the content may not be reuploaded." My next message to them went unanswered.
The day my suspension term ended, I tried to contact FA admins via trouble ticket. It went unanswered for more than a month, until I started sending daily reminders again. After which admins just closed the ticket, claiming that "this dispute was handled via our Appeals email address". In other words, FA staff decided to ignore my reasoning.
It's hard not to think that whoever handles these matters is heavily biased against users from Russia, and those seen as "pro-Russian".
Since my artwork got taken down, I learned about several similar cases when users were suspended for expressing support for their country (exactly country and not the war its leaders have dragged it into). One of them was punished for a picture that she didn't even post on Furaffinity, even though Code of Conduct explicitly states that "we neither accept third-party reports nor act upon incidents occurring outside Fur Affinity unless a substantial and direct correlation can be made to an incident that is imminent or occurring on Fur Affinity", in the very first paragraph. That's justice for you. Does that mean I'm going to get banned on FA for posting Soviet-themed artworks (which I plan to continue drawing) anywhere, not just this site, on demand of some spiteful user?
On the other tip of the scales we have a number of users who see themselves as "pro-Ukrainian", while in reality they're just petty and hate-filled individuals who think that their country's miseries give them moral and legal right to be openly chauvinistic and repeatedly violate site's rules when they feel like harassing some user from Russia.
(I believe that genuine love for one's country and its people is incompatible with hatred towards any other nation. I have said it before and I'm repeating this: Ukraine is beautiful and deserves peace just like any other country, so please don't associate it with bunch of self-righteous Internet bullies.)
Sadly, Furaffinity administration seems to agree with them on what they are allowed to do, and apparently gives them "special treatment" aka "positive discrimination".
Now, due to FA terms of service, I can't point directly at the biggest offenders, because that is considered "harassment" (oh irony). Chances are that you've seen them somewhere: under my deleted artwork, under journal entry with helpful info for Russian artists (who got affected by indiscriminate sanctions), under basically any submission that features Russia or Russians in non-demonizing way - everywhere you'll see same self-proclaimed "patriots" bullying people. Hate speech, insults, victim blaming, occasionally even threats of violence - at most they get their comments hidden by admininstration. One would assume that systematic violations would grant them a more serious penalty, but no.
Part of me desperately wants to believe it's just some sort of misunderstanding and problem I described isn't really there, but evidence is hard to ignore. And if you agree with points I make, please share this journal and raise public awareness. This is one thing we can do at this point.
I have to warn you: given the apparent tendencies, it won't be surprising if this journal gets taken down under another false accusation, I get banned, and you who decided to help me get punished as well. However, this is precisely why it's important to spread the message.
Furaffinity is the largest online community of people sharing common interest in furries, which goes beyond any state borders. It's supposed to be a safe haven to escape from hatred that plagues way too many real-world societies, and we mustn't let a clique of hateful narrow-minded people usurp it.
Let's raise our voices for equal and just treatment of everyone. Let's stand against discrimination, hypocrisy and double standards. Justice for all!
The journal will be updated if I have any important info to share, and if I'm able to do so.
- Edit 1: the previous version of the journal was taken down, because calling out users for repeated violations is punishable. I had to edit all mentions of particular people out, then resubmitted the journal.
FA wants to enforce their "no harassment" policy, despite the users being named in the OG journal were continuously harassing others with little to no consequences.
Good to know that those users in question are not facing any sort of punishment while victims are still being discouraged from speaking out.
Unbelievable... Just unbelievable...
I've seen FA not helping harassment victims before. It's gonna keep happening regardless. Not that I'm okay with this however.
This needs to stop sometime. I mean, what's it gonna take for FA to actually deal with harassment cases properly?
'Cause if things keep going the way they're going, eventually it'll get to the point where someone who doesn't know how to handle these kinds of situations, does not have any kind of support, or any means of defense against the harassment. And something bad will happen to that person. And I've seen how bad harassment can get.
You had moderators already visiting the topic, as that one user was censored for hatespeech on the last journal and said journal stayed up for hours after that point so they had obviously seen the journal and found it tepid enough at the time to leave up. I assume.
The people harassing you either just mass reported you again and cited some part of the TOS... or more specifically, one of the people you named and called out had told all their little twitter followers to report you and cite a specific part of the TOS. I also assume.
Providing I'm correct in either assumption, I just wish some codebase for sites like these would include a visual "reporter map" for moderators/admins. Find accounts/users that regularly take part in trouble ticket floods, so admins/moderators could make a rule against participating in artificial report mobs / calls to actions made off site, and then enforce against people. All too often we expect people will act right and not abuse systems put in place meant to safeguard people. Instead the report button is weaponized against the least malicious by the most malicious.
Your propositions are all sound, if only right people took them into consideration.
Cause if so, that would've been funny.
You might see a twitter account with low engagement, and no mention of a discord, but you have no idea what their twitter DMs look like. They probably have a private discord server that they distribute via DMs. I'm a member of 3 artist's private discords and they don't disclose them publicly, and yes, they do often link to FA posts they really like, or really hate.
Same situation could be happening with some of these people. You're looking at what's public, but you have no way to know how much they're doing just under the surface.
Situations like this is why steam had to come up with a review bombing algorithm. A certain rate of reports is normal. Somebody with your follower count should not be causing the same number of reports on a journal as someone with 5 times as many followers. People's first thought to seeing a flooded moderation log is "this is a problem" instead of "Is this a problem, or are the children organizing again?"
You don't support Putin's invasion of Ukraine. You haven't been uncivil or a bully. You are following the rules and aren't harassing anyone. I almost want to call this anti-Russian discrimination, but for all we know it could be mods doing useless virtue signaling, being incompetent or being biased towards siding with users.
I don't support any politics in post-soviet states, even Lukashenko (I understand belorussians because I'm from Ufa, Bashkortostan, and situation in region where I'm live was similar in 00s and 90s). All of them lie, all of them enemies of people. Nobody truth. I want to stop the war. I support peace.
Especially, I'm not support people who wants to revive the USSR (don't confuse with communists). It's not able, because some of countries went to another unions. Baltic lands in EU, Moldova, Georgia become there.
And of course Ukraine. I understand ukraine people, because this is their land. And they ready to shed blood for that. Even russian. Even russian nationalists. Yeah, do you know that russian nationalists from Ukraine fight for Ukraine, not for Russia, DPR or LPR? I was suprprised, because our propagande tell about rusophobia in Ukraine. That's so strange. I'm not support Ukraine and Russia. I support people who tired about this war. And who don't believe to words both of them.
Make love, not war.
A few weeks ago, I caught one harassing yet another Russian user. When I confronted them, they kept making the same tired excuses you'd hear from them as well as doubling down on their nonsense.
They even resorted to attacking my character by calling me a "pacifistic hippie", as if that's gonna win any arguments.
Gotta love that ad hominem, am I right?/s
One of their buddies even tried to jump in with a response of their own, then blocking me immediately after so I wouldn't respond to them. Something a coward would do, don't you agree?
That's speaks VOLUMES on them right there. Best to block these kinds of people. All they wanna do is spew their nonsense and use any excuse to be shitty people.
Not to mention, if I do report their behavior, they could use the fact that they're from Ukraine to not only play victim, but try to slander me like they did to you. And that is scary to me.
I could note you a link to a few journals made by Russian users that have been harassed to show you what these guys are doing. We could start tomorrow.
I can't report the users in question since they harassed other users and not me.
A bowl of buckwheat and a cat wife! +10 rating :)
I found only one solution. Improve myself at other more free and tolerant social medias (like twitter, VK, Deviantart and telegram) because I don't want any hypocritical admins tell me what to draw. Don't think that FA will be impartial one day...