give it time.
theres a lot more thats going to get banned in the next few years.
You can see it coming a mile away by looking at the rest of the net.

Well, FA won't go full-Tumblr on us because that would be suicide. IMVU should know exactly what they were buying.

The deal happened because IMVU had free cash flow and wanted to turn it into capital, and FA needed someone to take on its operational expenses. IMVU could easily have thought "we can squeeze out some IMVU users from the userbase, which appeals to a younger crowd than we have now, run ads to cover the costs, and anything that's more trouble than it's worth we trim off". What counts as the latter might change over time depending on circumstances - but note that underage nudity was technically against the rules way before the purchase, so it might have been taken as excluded already.

Given the tone used early on by some of their reps, which seemed aimed to appeal to juveniles (remember "#furrific!"?), I suspect much of IVMU didn't know what they were getting into. FA was presented as "a community centered around sketching and animations" - some of which was found to have worked its way into IMVU via unauthorized third-party sellers. Of course that could just have been them being polite... surely it didn't take their community staff long to wise up.

I certainly suspect as much! It would've been interesting to see how those pitches went down, and if the adult content was downplayed. Regardless, yes, I can see the general rules regarding nudity have been much the same over FA's history but that's not exactly what I was getting at. Is FA's policy due to a specific state law (which InkBunny seems to be immune to) or is it due to an advertiser or something else?

It's ultimately because FA lost its AlertPay account in 2010. They had a couple of polls which came out roughly 50/50 either way, but the loss of the ability to take payments for site upkeep was key. So did IB and SF, a week later, but IB just said "screw it, then, we don't need you", and SF did too until it became a perceived issue in attracting artists (and I'm not sure the artist in question ever joined...). F-list did the same after being asked to block a swathe of content.

For context: FA's hosting bill was $1700 in late 2010. That's roughly fifteen times what Inkbunny was paying - and it's still five times what we're paying now. FA also allowed under-13s, and sexual content involving humans; Inkbunny has always been 18+, and humans were and are restricted (albeit that we allow you to link off-site directly to a work we wouldn't host, if the content is clearly noted, while on FA that'll likely attract a ban and you have to link accounts).

So the situations were different, but that's partly by design. If you want to set your own rules, you can't be subject to financial or social coercion, and that means running lean and having a community that is supportive of you, even if those outside are not. What matters most is that some cohesive group sees you as the best place to be; merely banning stuff people don't like (see Weasyl, FN, Furiffic) isn't a path to success unless that contributes to making you the best spot for a significant number of artists and the fans they rely on for attention/money.

Finally... Someone who knows what they're talking about and is willing to share it. Thank you for these references! Did you previously help maintain FA's website too?

I find it interesting that the 2010 article you wrote about FA specifically says that they "banned adult artwork of underage characters" (my emphasis) and that "Non-adult artwork will not be affected". It sounds like things got less permissive from there.

Now that IMVU owns FA, it should be up to them to decide if they want to take a new stance on permissible content, but I'd wager that they want as little to do with it as possible.

I remember when F-List went through that issue. I'm surprised they didn't start accepting donations via BitCoin, but I guess redeeming it might be the tricky part.

I've never been on FA's staff, no; the only help I've provided is to point out problems, either directly, via tickets (my usual route) - or, failing that, through articles on Flayrah (including this April Fools piece, which references several issues I had reported or was aware of having been reported). You might find the archives educational!

[There were similar issues with Inkbunny, only I got to see it in alpha/beta. When I reported them, they were fixed and I was brought on as a security expert/tester, and also as a moderator, from my WikiFur experience. Over time, I took on more duties, until the founder wished to step aside at the end of 2013 to pursue further studies and I took it on full-time.]

While the terms "adult" and "non-adult" were used, it's not necessarily in the context of the FA rating system, but a more general understanding of "adult content". Much work technically deemed Mature here could be seen as "adult content" by, say, a payment processor. As the F-list link demonstrates, a three level rating system may be insufficient to cover the detailed demands of a third-party.

Frankly, at that time they were still working out exactly what would and would not be banned, given the scale of material to deal with. IB similarly forbids some Mature work involving human genitals, but not the mere display of human breasts (absent a clear sexual theme, such as kneading or kissing with saliva) - even though they are Mature as well.

Bitcoin is a mess when it comes to transactions and I'm not surprised that they didn't want to go with it for something as big as a subscription system. Very few have it; even fewer wish to use it. We've had only a handful of donations in it.

And yet they allow tones of nasty things on here!!!!!

So was he posting human photos? Cause I’m pretty sure Devaintart is a much better website than fa in pretty much every way possible

I specifically said drawings. And they're not even human drawings. They're anthro. Not that it matters in the case of this AUP.

he was posting furries but they were naturalist. so they were clean and non sexual, just doing normal everyday stuff, but they didnt wear clothing. since there were naked children that were not either breastfeeding or being born, its considered sexual to FA and thus banned.

So rl furries? Sorry I’m so confused

no no not real life at all.
he made drawings that had naked cubs.
not sexual, just no clothing. so like playing, reading, hanging out, just doing normal kid stuff but with no clothing because naturalists dont wear clothes. The whole family of characters were like that.
but to FA, if you are not giving birth or breastfeeding, then a naked child is ALWAYS sex related so they shut him down.

Ahh ok. Yeah I can kinda see that being a grey area. There are a lot of creeps who get horny thinking about naked children and just being naked is enough to get them off. Honestly he should have known and just posted on inkbunny if he was really wanting to upload.

FA hasn't allowed anything cub or under 18 in years. Pretty sure he knew he was sneaking around it, anyone else that wanted to post this stuff went to InkBunny. I know his stuff's innocent nudity, but even I knew not to post it here at risk of being banned.

If you're not going to help, then please don't comment. You're entirely missing the point.

Haha oh, reading it again it sounds more like you're unhappy with how the mod team's handling it, since they're not really responding or being clear about who's sending messages. I think I get ya now sorry. (:

Yeah... It's a bit of everything. I feel like both of us have been let down with the lack of openness here.

Thought it had something to do with the young naturists. I can see why something like that would make a subset of people uncomfortable, but it's never in a sexual nature, and Fur Affinity would do well to recognize that children in real life participate non-sexually in naturism.

I'm all for having restrictions on cub porn, but Samareck's work is too tasteful to lump it into that category.

It's tricky. Legislation like this means a court has to judge things like "it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal." What is "reasonable" here may not be what is "reasonable" to a furry fan. It's hard to say what would they think of "Free Dress Day", for example.

And can be sure that FA staff don't want to be in that position, either (any more than IB does with humans). They want a hard and fast rule and that is what we get.

Indeed. I really want to know more about how IB manages to distance itself from such laws by being non-human, and whether other sites like FA can do the same, or if it varies on a state-by-state basis. Laws around this are pretty stupid, both in the USA and other developed countries.

For a start, we distance ourselves by being hosted in the Netherlands! But that's not really an answer, since we have caches all around the USA, as well as other countries.

The simple answer is that every jurisdiction I'm aware of implicitly or explicitly excludes animals from legal personhood. They're seen as chattel, not people. They can't own copyright to their selfies - anything they make is either in the public domain, or owned by a human who exerted creative control over their activities. Zoos aren't false imprisonment, beef isn't murder, and David Attenborough's latest nature documentary on the breeding practices of mammals isn't pornography.

This principle applies around the world, but if you want to look at U.S. law in particular, ask yourself what the implications of 1 USC 8 mentioning homo sapiens are for people trying to clam that pictures of non-humans count as a "person" or "child". Heck, most places are still using "natural person", which used to exclude slaves.

That said, if you've clearly just stuck cat ears on a human, all bets are off - prosecutorial discretion has its limits. So don't do that.

I think being hosted in the Netherlands is a pretty good answer to many of these questions, actually.
I would have thought that laws referencing humans, people, etc. could never be applied to fictitious characters and drawings thereof, and the USC is certainly very clear about that. There must be something else causing the problem... You know much about those Americans who were arrested for owning certain Japanese comics?

The Netherlands has actually not been as liberal in recent years as you might think. But it does have relatively cheap hosting and transit (being one of the biggest hubs in Europe, which has far more free interlinking between networks than the USA). Our primary host, LeaseWeb, is well-known for providing services to adult content providers. (They also famously hosted servers for Megaupload or one of its predecessors.)

I'm afraid I don't know more than what is available on Wikipedia for the cases you are talking about, and I'm not particularly qualified to advise on U.S. law either - but the wording of the UK law is clear, it is intended to apply to "a fictional person/child" (and there is language in there intended specifically to capture nekos and bug-babes with ears/antennae attached).

If any were convicted, or plead guilty, it seems likely that some did not have the money to mount an effective legal defence, had sought a plea bargain to avoid the possibility of a worse sentence, and/or did not think that a jury would acquit them. Again as far as I know there haven't been cases involving furry cubs, but underage humans or those very close to them.

Bear in mind that even if a work doesn't technically fall afoul of more-specific laws, it may be deemed obscene, which is more a matter of community standards than "does tab A fit slot B?" And some areas are quite conservative, or have police wishing to make a point. There was, again quite famously, a case involving Omaha the Cat Dancer (among others) which inspired the foundation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Within fandom, often the concern is more appearances than anything - or a balance of costs and benefits. The company behind Softpaw Magazine commissioned legal research almost a decade ago now which found no particular reason why it should be especially problematic in a legal sense, but it was still banned by several major conventions. Similarly, Bad Dragon was very popular at Anthrocon (perhaps too popular...) but it and other adult toys were banned from the Dealer's Room.

Nothing else comes to mind right now, but thank you kindly for contributions to this conversation.

It's barely tricky. The legislation you reference above and below more than likely exists with the intention of protecting real, human children, though it is troublesome that they include "references to an image of an imaginary child." Does that include Shota and Loli art? If so, why is the uncut version of the film Pretty Baby (1978) not currently banned under UK Legislation?

Frankly, drawn images of young-looking fictional anthropomorphic characters with genitals visible in a naturist context are more easily defensible in a court of law than drawn images depicting violence (including sexual violence) between fictional anthropomorphic characters in an obviously sexual setting, which Fur Affinity allows.

In many cases, the characters depicted experiencing violence and sometimes death can be connected with real individuals whom the characters represent, which could communicate an actual threat if drawn without the permission of the character's owner. Why is this more acceptable than images depicting happy naked animal children with no discernable real life counterpart?

I get Fur Affinity wants to cover their ass to the public eye, but they're using a huge blanket and leaving their genitals exposed, so to speak. That these illogical policies come to harm the ability of artists like Samareck to make a name for themselves is unfortunate and unjust, in my opinion.

I know the purpose of the legislation in question quite well. Police seized some hentai images from someone they had previously convicted of having images of child abuse. They were unable to confiscate it because it was not illegal, and had to give it back. They hated that. So they got a new law made and then re-arrested and re-convicted them.

There was discussion in the commons and in committee about the wording; the upshot is that they really did intend to criminalize shota and loli, on the grounds that "if they're getting their rocks off from this, it means something, and it might lead to something more, so we should forbid it". No research was involved - the feeling of the police and child charities combined with the potential points-scoring with their political base for both Labour and the Conservatives (the one Liberal Democrat on the committee tried to oppose it) was sufficient to prompt the legislation.

There are exceptions for complete works that has been officially rated by the BBFC in the UK (but not for frames extracted from them), just as there are clauses which protect hosts such as Inkbunny from inadvertent use for distributing work found to be illegal (as long as they take expeditious steps to remove it once they become aware of it). The goal was not to criminalize "art films", although some artists - particularly comic artists - certainly felt threatened.

Obviously, the legislation is ineffective at preventing such work from entering the UK. But it means it can be seized if found and gives the courts a tool by which to put away or control someone they believe is at risk of harming a child, or who concerns other people by their presence in their community.

Note that views of that particular film's impact have changed over time. Originally it was passed with an X, and that with two cuts. Four decades on (in 2006), and they had to argue to keep it at 18, rather than 15.

I agree that nudity itself is not inherently sexual (let alone pornographic); indeed this contrast is shown by other work from the artist in question which is both. Nonetheless, FA's policies are what they are. I cannot speak to their consistency, or relative levels of harm - although some of the work published on FA might also be considered deeply problematic under separate "extreme pornography" law in the UK (again, a lack of humans might help with this).

Thanks for keeping us in the loop RR.
It actually looks like his account was restored as of this time, so your efforts on his behalf appear to have been successful. :-D

I'm afraid they haven't. See the "!" next to his name? That means he's suspended/banned. Sam cannot do anything when he's logged in, except see the suspension message as shown in the screenshot.

I miss him! I can’t find his works anywhere anymore!🥺