Upload Policy, Section 2.7 Policy Revision and Clarification Update

After much time and consideration on the matter, as well as community outreach, we have decided to make an update and announcement in regards to recent incidents involving 2.7.

A few weeks ago, Babyfur/ABDL accounts and submissions were mass reported. We investigate every report and take action accordingly. While many of the reported submissions violated policies and were correctly removed, a few were mistakenly taken down. These were reviewed during the appeals process and restored with explanations and apologies.

As per our Upload Policy, violations of Section 2.7 were highlighted to warn users that violations under that category may automatically be escalated to a 4th Level Offense which states: 4th Level Offense - You will be temporarily suspended for 1 week, and will receive a final warning to cease violating the relevant section. For more information on our penalty system, please see Section 7, Enforcement, of our UP.

The Current Upload Policy

Upload Policy, Section 2.7 - Content Involving Minors

Content featuring minors is not allowed when the minor is in the presence of sexual activity, sexual objects, or nudity, though exceptions may be made for non-sexual depictions of birth and breastfeeding. Presence is defined as being in the same scene, such as sharing a comic panel, contiguous image, reference sheet, or specific section of a story where characters are engaging each other.

Minors may not have detailed bulges or outlines of normal or hyper genitalia, clothed or otherwise. Minors may not be fetishized. Minors may not be depicted as pregnant. Minors are defined as real or fictional humanoids with a childlike body or younger than 18 years old, and any adolescent animals or fantasy creatures.

The removed content that caused confusion and sparked debate was content that featured minor appearing characters with messy/dirty diapers and age regression that was either labeled under kink accounts or showed fetish content. When making decisions on those types of works we refer to and use the dictionary definition for fetish and kinks.

• Fetish is defined as a specific sexual fixation (objects, body parts, activities).

• Kink is defined as uncommon sexual activity.

Feedback and Enforcement Changes

We received a lot of feedback from users who felt the rules were unclear and the punishments too harsh. Rumors also spread that Fur Affinity was unfairly targeting people in the Babyfur/ABDL community. Many users were unsure how their content violated our policies. After reviewing the situation, reports, policies, and staff procedures, we realized that automatically giving a 4th-level offense to accounts in good standing that didn't post explicit sexual content, nor intended to post kink/fetish, was too strict. We apologize and will make changes to handle these situations better in the future. However, we want to be clear that content featuring minors in sexual situations will still result in an automatic 4th-level offense, as we have a zero-tolerance policy on this.

Part of the feedback we received was that while we go by the dictionary definitions of fetishes and kinks, many people in those communities do not consider them sexual. They did not like the rule being put into the suspension message accusing them of sexualizing minors. We spent time speaking to many members of the babyfur/ABDL community trying to clarify our rules better in a way that is understood without using harsh accusations.

While we were speaking to members of the ABDL/Babyfur community, we found that while some do not find messy diapers sexual, some do, and some only if the messing is to a certain extent. There was not a good consensus on where the line is because the content matter is too subjective and open to interpretation to be able to properly moderate. So while no rule change had happened to start all of this, we are making one now in hopes of bringing further clarification and fairness to our rules. We want to be clear. We are not pushing out or removing the babyfur or ABDL community. You are welcome to still post your content on Fur Affinity so long as it abides by our Upload Policy.

Content Featuring Minors (New Policy)

Along with the clarifications to Upload Policy, Section 2.7, we have also decided that no minors will be allowed in mature or adult-rated content. This means that minors may now only appear in General-rated content. You can read full rating guide here: Content Guidelines

We feel that this covers the issue in the most fair and equally enforceable way without asserting a subjective intent or meaning behind the submissions.

The New Upload Policy

Upload Policy, Section 2.7 - Content Involving Minors
Content featuring minors is not allowed when the minor is in Mature or Adult content outlined by our Content Guidelines (Section 1.1) nor the presence of sexual activity, sexual objects, sexual language, adult themes, nudity, fetish or kink content, or other prohibited content (examples detailed below); however, exceptions may be made for non-sexual depictions of birth and breastfeeding.

Definitions:
• Presence is defined as directly being in or the implication of being in the same scene, such as sharing a comic panel, contiguous image, reference sheet, or specific section of a story where characters are engaging each other.

• Minors are defined as real or fictional humanoids, animals, or fantasy creatures with a childlike body, the consciousness of a child, or younger than 18 years of age.

• Fetish is defined as a specific sexual fixation (objects, body parts, activities).

• Kink is defined as uncommon sexual activities.

Enforcement of this section is done on a case-by-case basis and upon the totality of the content being reviewed, including the upload, submission description, tags, artist/uploader’s comments, profile page, intent, style, and more.

Minors are also not allowed in the following content:

• Genital Bulges. Minors may not have detailed bulges or outlines of normal or hyper genitalia, clothed or otherwise.

• Pregnancy. Minors may not be depicted as pregnant.

• Messy Diapers. Minors may not be shown wearing messy (depicted as brown, yellow, leaky, lumpy with excrement, visible wetness/soiled indicator, etc.) diapers. This does not apply to big or puffy clean diapers.

• Restroom Activity. Minors may not be depicted relieving themselves or in content focused on them using the restroom.

• Body Part Emphasis. The focus (e.g. zoomed in, primary part of the content) of the content may not be on specific body parts of a minor, such as their feet, groin, butts, clothed or otherwise. This does not apply to content where the focus on these parts is coincidental.

• Regression. Characters that have been regressed to being minors, physically or mentally, may not be depicted breastfeeding, being born/unbirthed, or having their diapers changed.

We hope that this clears things up in a way that is better understood in regards to content under 2.7 that is not allowed on Fur Affinity.

In regards to the escalated 4th level offense: Escalations will only happen with 2.7 if it is pornographic content with minors. The rest will follow the typical warning and escalation system.

Grace Period

We hear the members of these communities when they say that previously 2.7 was unclear and punishment too harsh. With these clarifications now in place we wish to give users that have this kind of content featured in their galleries 6 months to remove violations and bring their galleries in line. During those six months, any reports made on content posted before this announcement will receive warnings only unless it falls under clearly sexual situations. Those will stay the same in enforcement. Anything posted that violates these rules after the posting of this announcement will be enforced as it should be and will not receive the same grace period. Please do your best to bring your galleries up to date with these guidelines and if you have any questions about these changes or the guidelines themselves, please file a ticket under the Question About Site Policy category here https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....roubletickets/.

TL;DR

• Upload Policy 2.7 was not new and has not been changed in the past year until this journal. The processes staff followed was consistent with internal policy.

• Staff are not permitted to "witch hunt" and moderation must only act on content reported in Trouble Tickets. We received an influx of tickets relating to babyfur/ABDL content. While some content featured adults and was not removed, other submissions featured characters depicted as minors in NSFW content and resulted in penalties.

• UP 2.7 is being changed now to no longer allow any characters depicted as minors in Mature or Adult-rated submissions per community feedback.

• UP 2.7 enforcement is being revised to be more lenient for users in good standing, while remaining strict on severe violations.

• Minors involved in General rated content (non-sexualized images) are permitted.

• The Babyfur and ABDL communities are still welcome on Fur Affinity, and no rogue moderator targeted them for removal.

• We've added two members from these subcommunities to our team for advice and perspective on related issues.

• Staff has not been ignoring or ghosting users, and we apologize for extended wait times. We are all still recovering from the loss of Dragoneer and hospitalization of Sciggles. We are working hard to get things back on track and we appreciate your patience during this time.

• Fur Affinity is not being cleansed for sale, despite rumors. These claims come from someone who hasn't been involved with staff for nearly 10 years. Please be cautious of social media rumors.

As we live in the age of social media, information is as abundant as misinformation. Please be vigilant and take a moment to validate claims made by individuals in regards to what is or isn't happening with Fur Affinity instead of taking their claims at face value. While everyone is entitled to their own thoughts and opinions, when those thoughts and opinions are presented as fact, it can cause unnecessary tension for both us at Fur Affinity and for our users.

We understand emotions can run high in regards to these topics, but we do not condone or tolerate any attempts to harass or dox/wichhunt our staff for responding to user tickets.

🔞 New Feature: Disable Access To Minors 🔞

We recognize that many in our community have been using our rating system as a way to restrict access to their content by increasing the rating to Mature or Adult. While this has helped in limiting access for users under 18, it has also led to content not being rated appropriately according to our guidelines.

With our recent update focusing on ensuring that minors are entirely removed from being in Mature or Adult-rated content—and to emphasize the importance of proper content rating—we’ve introduced a new feature. This can be found under your Global Settings and allows you to restrict access to your userpage, gallery, scraps, favorites, commissions, submissions, journals, and watch lists specifically from users under the age of 18.

Please keep in mind that anyone who is logged out of Fur Affinity can still access your page and general content unless you have disabled access to guests, which is also a feature currently available and directly accessible above this new feature.

You can find these settings here https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....site-settings/