Look, I don’t really have a horse in this race. As many of you know, I'm moving away from doing porn altogether. But the new policy changes rub me the wrong way. It doesn’t achieve its stated goal. Instead it uses its stated goal to manipulate you into accepting its actual end.

Before we dive in, I’ll give a brief overview of the policies failings, and the purpose of this post.

The new policy stated goal of getting borderline minor content off its site would have so many unintended victims with the current implementation. That it can only lead one to believe that its “unintended” targets are what the policy actually wants to get rid of. And it achieves this effect by wielding two elements;

Vagueness and Targeting.

Secondly my main hope is to help people identify this type of manipulation in more important situations. FA is a furry art site, and it truly does suck that artists might have their livelihood threatened over this. Also these are the type of tricks governments use to try to drive marginalized peoples out of their homes, or prevent them from getting necessary care.

Policy Vagueness.
In short the issue with Vagueness in rules of any kind put the power of interpretation completely into the hands of those enforcing said rules. Moderators in this case, often the police in real life. And gives a giant umbrella for those groups to do whatever they want case by case. Often based on the enforcers bias, more than anything else.

In this case the offending line is “...have childlike body proportions or appear as adolescent animals will be treated as any other when in the presence of sexual activity…”

What they're trying to do by saying “having childlike body proportion” and the more egregious “appear as adolescent animals”. Is evoke an extreme case of this violation in the reader's mind. It even mentions that they will be treated just like all minor art is already treated (An odd statement considering that Pokemon & Digimon have always been subject to the same rules as every other pic on that website.) The issue is it’s saying these things while ignoring its actual implementation. What constitutes childlike proportions, and how many childlike elements do there have to be present to cause a violation?

An example of a childlike proportion element are arms and legs that are the same length. This is a well known phenomena, that adult humans have legs that are longer than their arms. And the meme images of medieval art children often lack this. It is also an element of almost all quadrupedal animals. And semi anthro works almost always have this trait. Let’s talk about Zootopia. That world has a character design rule. Large animals are fully anthro while small animals are semi anthro. Are all the small animals like Judy, Nick, and Mrs.Otterson in violation? Under the current vagueness in the rules, it would be completely up to the individual enforcing said rules.

Let’s use my own work next. My own Sona and main character of Driftwood, Ferro. The world they live in also has a character design rule. Species based on large animals loosely take the proportion and heights of tolkien fantasy human/elves. And small ones loosely take those of fantasy dwarves/hobbits/halflings.

An image of Ferro, a rat based creature next to a canine based creature.
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40019851/

Now dwarf proportions are different from child proportions. Dwarves in real life have the same torso and head proportion as a “normal” person. If a dwarf is sitting on the floor next to a non dwarf, they’ll have similar seated heights, even though the dwarf will be much shorter if both people were standing.

An image of Ferro as a child
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40125545/

Now what’s the difference when Ferro was a child. Well they tick off more childlike proportion boxes, Small torso, larger head, smaller ears, and short tail. Depictions of childlike proportion are obvious with how many traits they trigger. But without a minimum number of traits needed to trigger a violation. The person enforcing the rule is free to file false positive traits as violations. If for example, the individual had certain perceptions of how bodies “should” look. And dwarves don’t fall into that group.

And there are all types of false positives that can come from this. Cartoon Style. Large eyes on nocturnal animals. Cute art style. Anime, Chibi, Feral art. (maybe you could argue it’s not when they're on all fours. But what if you draw a missionary pic. This is being judged an a per Image basis after all)

And out of the examples I gave, what is more likely for an individual enforcer, biases and all to give a violation. A hyper popular multinational pillar of the community like Zootopia, or a small independent thing they probably won’t care to look that deep into, like Driftwood? If the rule were firmer and more exact, the two would be judged equally based on the rules standards.

And finally, the line about “...or appear as adolescent animals…”
Notice that’s an ‘or’, not an ‘and’? What this means is even more vague. But means art with 100% adult human proportions can still be found in violation at the enforcer’s discretion. The umbrella is so large here it’s hard to know what to start with. Art of someone drinking out of a juicebox? Art of someone in a diaper? Anything that has design elements from animal adolescents. Like any deer that has spot patterns still in their fur?

Maybe you’re the type of person who thinks, sure. But the people enforcing the rules SHOULD be able to interpret who violates that rule. Despite seeing the result of that, killings by police with immunity from the consequences of their crimes. The rich and powerful just being able to get away scott free with a crime that would otherwise land a poor minority in prison. Well the next thing is far, far worse.

Targeted Rules
When rules are targeted at specific groups of people it’s a very obvious red flag, and a show of what said rules are actually meant to oppress. Regardless of what the power’s stated reason is.

“..any reports we receive of Pokémon or Digimon who have childlike body proportions…”

Well, forget about every single thing I said about Zootopia or Driftwood. Cause those properties are exempt from the new rules. I don’t think it’s even hyperbolic to say that the equivalent to this in real law are old laws that only applied to black, irish, or jewish populations in America. It’s a shame because It’d be important to talk about how lots of modern racist laws are passed. Often cutting up cities along racial lines and policing each district separately. But they aren’t even hiding it, they just said the only two communities these rules will effect.

A false equivalency is drawn at the start of the policy change between a previous rule, and this one.

“... removed the classic “1000 year old loli vampire” loophole trope by expanding our definition of minors to include humanoids with childlike body proportions, including canonically adult characters who look like children… and based upon additional feedback from our community, any reports we receive of Pokémon or Digimon who have childlike body proportions or appear as adolescent animals will be treated as any other when in the presence of sexual activity…”

Why is this a false equivalency? Well the ban on canonically adult characters who look like children is site wide. This has always included Pokemon and Digimon who are canonically adult characters who look like children. People have been banned over this in those subcommunities already as a result of that rule. What this false equivalency accomplishes, is an attempt to show the Pokemon and Digimon community as “loopholes for artist to draw minors without getting banned”. Rather than what they actually are. Sub-communities within the furry fandom.

When you are confronted with a targeted rule, ask yourself. What would this rule accomplish if it was instead applied to everyone, rather than just the targeted group. Well in this case. If the rules were completely just, clear, and fair. Nothing would happen.

There is already a rule against adult characters that look like children that is applied to pokemon, digimon, and everything else! Moreover, If that rule didn’t exist, targeting it only to the pokemon and digimon communities would just let the mainstream furry community draw as much minor content as they want.

But because the rule is vague, unclear, and in the hands of enforcers. The result of the targeted rule is that these sub-communities in particular will come under harsher, more unfair treatment. While the main community and sub-communities outside of these ones will be completely immune from its effects.

It’d be nice to think that the FA management is just really stupid and doesn't really understand what they are doing. But I simply find it hard to believe. This was never about minor content, if it actually was, their implementation would have been completely different.

Minor content was always just their fabricated reason to attack the Pokemon and Digimon subcommunities in particular.

So what do we do now. Ultimately there isn’t much tangibly you can do. The FA staff have final say over their site. I just hope this makes people more aware of what manipulation looks like. More ready to deal with real instances of this you can actually influence, however small.

I wanted to stay quiet over this. I'm not even a porn artist really anymore. But I just couldn’t hold my tongue over something like this. Hopefully this post will help me quiet my mind. I guess that’s something you can do. Don’t lie down and take it. Be loud. Make it known you see through their manipulation!

That goes for this case and out in the real world too!