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Questionable content on Furry Art Platforms
4 years ago
I've been researching what we can and cannot do with the new art platform Fellden that we are developing. Our primary goal is to encourage and protect creative expression and innovate on the tools and resources to do so. Obviously most of the content on these types of platforms are adult-oriented, which seems fairly straight-forward to moderate with a common sense TOS that bans and removes any illegal content. Please note that this journal is not an endorsement of the following mentioned content, but to obtain more infromation from the community as to high profile cases and legal history pertaining to furries and these types of platforms.
The legality and morality of fictional illustrations (specifically underage characters) varies depending on which country you reside. To my knowledge, there has yet be a high profile case of someone being charged for possession of furry art that appears to fall under this category, however cases do exist for depictions of cartoon characters like the Simpsons, and another involving pixies and elves, which is more commonly considered fantasy. Both cases were appealed, but it still puts users (And plaftorms) at risk. There have been a few accounts of anime that contains loli (underage human girls) being seized at borders. Some countries will lump in digital/virtual porn with the real thing.
Inkbunny is well known for allowing young depictions of furries on their platform, however human depictions are banned. This implies cub content is legal in their location (And by extension the international servers in which it is hosted). To my knowledge, no legal strife has come their way in over a decade as a result of hosting this content. FA originally allowed cub content but then pulled the plug in 2006 after receiving pressure from their payment processor and it has remained that way since.
I live in Canada which is one of the countries that considers fictional illustrations in the same boat as the real thing. This has me worried that the new platform will need to take a scorched earth approach to young-looking characters. This is worrisome because there are a lot of furry species and characters that have small bodies and big heads but may not necessarily be underage like Otters, Rabbits, Foxes etc. The same can be said for character designs that fall under 'Short-stack'. If elves and pixies aren't protected, neither would these. Hopefully, so long as it is clearly stated that a character is 18+ that they would be fine, but how do you prove it if it's just an image? What if a user saves an image without the associated disclaimer tags and then gets in legal strife?
We will be scheduling an appointment with a lawyer who specializes in these types of platforms but for now it would be interesting to hear what the community thinks on the matter. Out of the high profile digital art cases in the last decade, not enough information is available online to get a consistent answer for these more strict countries. If we do need to ban this type of content in order for the website to operate safely within local laws, I hope our users understand as it may not apply to their own country.
The legality and morality of fictional illustrations (specifically underage characters) varies depending on which country you reside. To my knowledge, there has yet be a high profile case of someone being charged for possession of furry art that appears to fall under this category, however cases do exist for depictions of cartoon characters like the Simpsons, and another involving pixies and elves, which is more commonly considered fantasy. Both cases were appealed, but it still puts users (And plaftorms) at risk. There have been a few accounts of anime that contains loli (underage human girls) being seized at borders. Some countries will lump in digital/virtual porn with the real thing.
Inkbunny is well known for allowing young depictions of furries on their platform, however human depictions are banned. This implies cub content is legal in their location (And by extension the international servers in which it is hosted). To my knowledge, no legal strife has come their way in over a decade as a result of hosting this content. FA originally allowed cub content but then pulled the plug in 2006 after receiving pressure from their payment processor and it has remained that way since.
I live in Canada which is one of the countries that considers fictional illustrations in the same boat as the real thing. This has me worried that the new platform will need to take a scorched earth approach to young-looking characters. This is worrisome because there are a lot of furry species and characters that have small bodies and big heads but may not necessarily be underage like Otters, Rabbits, Foxes etc. The same can be said for character designs that fall under 'Short-stack'. If elves and pixies aren't protected, neither would these. Hopefully, so long as it is clearly stated that a character is 18+ that they would be fine, but how do you prove it if it's just an image? What if a user saves an image without the associated disclaimer tags and then gets in legal strife?
We will be scheduling an appointment with a lawyer who specializes in these types of platforms but for now it would be interesting to hear what the community thinks on the matter. Out of the high profile digital art cases in the last decade, not enough information is available online to get a consistent answer for these more strict countries. If we do need to ban this type of content in order for the website to operate safely within local laws, I hope our users understand as it may not apply to their own country.
I'll be interested to see where things go with the new platform.
(Basically if the age of consent is 14 in one country, and the age of consent is 18 in an other, I feel like 18 should be the age restriction for all the content.)
honestly what id suggest is having the servers hosted in a place where the laws are essentially non-existent.
I'm not sure how server hosting works, but would that make Canadian law obsolete since the content isn't physically being hosted there? Obviously our company will need to be placed under an LLC but it all gets rather complicated. Perhaps that is how Inkbunny is doing it, since the US falls into one of the 'Grey Area' countries that neither explicitly states cub is legal or illegal.
Japan understandably allows loli/shota but still censors genitalia seemingly due to tradition. I don't think the world will ever come to a full consensus on adult content.
I take a Laissez Faire approach to creative expression I do not personally think fictional characters depicted in virtual art is harmful, however I'm not a lawmaker. It really does seem unfair to furry artists where small characters and varying proportions are common.
I know Im using a lot of shock narrative but don't tell me the opposing doesn't. Also doesn't make what Im trying to say any less true.
I may be overthinking this content but I'd rather do my homework than to be willfully blind.
To prove my point, there is nothing illegal about my phone case: https://twitter.com/Word_Caster/sta.....160143872?s=20
Sometime around the year 2000, due to a poorly worded law that was partially struck down, the age of consent in Canada was briefly 14.
As a vore artist I wonder if some people think I actually want to be eaten.
And to answer this: erm. NOOO? It would kill me? XD
but yeah. better ask a lawyer first. or more lawyers
(vore has often be targeted , but mostly by private persons, I had this often enough) ^^
what I think about that rule is: I understand the worry but if you take this worry for real every fictional work can be harmful. Did you know that Lion king caused at least one suicide? We can never know the artists intention . Putting up a disclaimer also does not help as I have noticed no one reads disclaimer anymore. And people will see what they want to see if the want to get triggered. From MY very personal point of view I must say I hope no one drawing such stuff is also doing such stuff. But I can only be sure of myself at this. So. Either we ban all stuff sooner or later or we have to learn these kinds of art are out there and hopefully just pics. I mean. No one expected Agatha Christie to be murdering people though she wrote about it...
yeah most people want to censor others as long as they are not censored themselves.
Oh yeah, I have been called a nazi and SJW from either side under the same comment several times. XD So seems like I must have been centrist and the only rational person in that conversation XD
And about agree to disagree . I even see it more like : try to udnerstand why the other is having his point of view. maybe he has a point. I jsut wish the other one would do the same.
And yes, I read it. ATM I feel like many should not be allowed to vote and also a lot not to be voted. I am just a bit.. done with it ^^ Just start to learn not caring anymore and having fun with watching people fucking everything up.
I read too much in my 41 years to not know where all of this is heading and I know that how much they care for their reputation and to be seen as good by others.. It is worth nothing as everything is doomed to end some day. And yet they care sooo much for how they are seen by people that are also gone some day. In the end. Nothing they do is worth anything. And this gives me the calm of : I know you will end, I know the world will end, the universe will end. You did all this shit for nothing. It makes me laugh
Let me not stop you from hoping though ^^
And nah, you are not annoying me at all ^^
Xontext? Why asling for context if you could flag someone and show the community what a "good" and "caring " person you are. as if those really care for the children XD
Most normies don't really understand furry culture so when they hear about anthromorphic animals having sex, they just think actual animals having sex and freak out about it. Similar logic to whats going on with this Canada law where fictional and digital equates to real harm. We've seen this opinion before in the video games = real violence debate. Things are just still to new and taboo to be understood.
Over time as the idea of a 'furry' character is more well known, laws will become more sensible.
If there will be any censorship of fiction on another art platform, especially over moral / ethical primitivism in the 21th century, it's the same thing as Furaffinity in my book; Not much point in even putting in effort to create a new platform in that case. This is why the FA alternative I dream of creating someday will be fully decentralized / federated and uncontrolled by any group.
As I have said, I do not know the laws about hosting said content in Canada but be wary, and certainly look into the legality
From my understanding after looking into the case files they really didn't have anything on him beyond the artwork that was on his google drive and a connection to that person. His case file, and what I've seen of the evidence at the time, was mostly furry artwork however there was some dealing with anime characters. He was a fairly soft spoken person and the furthest from confrontational, as such he took a plea deal and plead guilty instead of trying to fight the charges and have a trial by jury.
Not to mention it also depends if the laws care to be enforced or not. Like, you aren't going to jail if you have a basement full of loli-Japanese porn, even if it's "illegal", law enforcement has much better things to do than file an investigation, get a warrant and seize a bunch of porn comic books. It's the same reason why ads for crappy phone games get away with false advertising or how people can sell unofficial Pokemon merch at cons. It's simply much more of a hassle to try to fix the problem, it's better to let the problem persist.
Not that I necessarily agree with the law, I think that getting in trouble for art or drawings is absolutely stupid, and full of double standards. Glorifying violence is fine, be it in art, movie, games, even media, but there's so many weird limitations when it comes to sexual stuff ?
That said having no interest in "cub" myself, it's not a hill I was willing to die on. I will however defend feral art because not doing so is betraying a sizable part of our community. Looking at you, FLO and twitter crazies.
I've seen too many slippery slopes come pass when free speech is abridged and while this type of content isn't something I would make myself laws prohibiting putting a character that doesn't even exist in reality should be fought against. Hard. That's not likely to happen though given the overall public opinion on that sort of content is that it should be banned period.
That being said though given it's Canada's laws you'd have to abide by at the risk of getting your site shut down it's gonna largely be based on the advice of your lawyer at this point.
This is where the virtual kiddie porn laws came into play but somewhere along the lines that slippery slope happened and now you've had people taking plea deals since prosecutors have been using those laws to charge them for having images of cartoon characters not even remotely related to a real person being depicted. One dude in New Zealand got 3 months for viewing obviously non-human stuff ( https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar.....ixie-porn.html ) and apparently wasn't even into it for sexual reasons but more as a laugh according to him. To me this echos my point about the slippery slope that always seems to happen without fail when something blown out of context is banned.
It's interesting how fantasy is fantasy for everything else BUT objectionable sexual fantasies. Seen plenty of calls for banning drawings of bestiality and rape even within the fandom. Even more concerning is we have at least one example here of a court backing that mindset of banning something fictional simply because they think it shouldn't exist in society to any degree, not because a child was actually exploited.
On that note though Inkbunny's approach I think is the safer course and probably why it hasn't been flat out taken down.
It's similar to the music piracy cases where a couple of individuals are made examples of by the music industry and pressured to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars only for neither party to ever pay anything due to the obvious grey area it provokes and mass media covering of laws going too far. I'm unsure if/when a furry will be charged for art, but the risk is there and I wouldn't want to lead users into a false sense of security by making our rules vague. If we could at least get answers as to what we -can- do with furry art, that would help a lot.
But the Law is the law sadly. Besides, IB is already there for people who are into that stuff. But I'd imagine not having that red tape to deal with when running a new site would be way less headache inducing for the admins and the users.
I mention that because it will make a serious impact on the socialization strategy that you create withing the platform itself. Wlill minors be allowed to interact with others in a place where adult content is shared?
I know it's not what you asked, but I thought it might have been useful to include this other angle in the discussions with your lawyer.
While legal (this is what TPB does, BTW), it is questionable and so you'll have to protect yourself from those that will try to bring out the fact that you're canadian-based resident and it might be a possible claim that the laws in here should apply to you. Ask your laywer about that as well, and include in the question yourself and whoever you employ, and whoever you pay. They're all on the hook for it.
We'll make sure our lawyer gives us a proper TOS that covers all bases.
I've seen thousands of images and people really do come in all shapes and sizes. Each generation is looking younger than the last so I have no idea what they think looks under 18.
Of course, you do what you have to do when it comes to legal matters. I think consulting with a lawyer is a very smart idea. Back in 2018, the admin of SoFurry banned cub artwork based on "changing social attitudes" and "how [laws are] interpreted and acted upon" without citing any actual legal precedent justifying the change. The policy garnered a lot of backlash because it came off as resulting from baseless hysteria. If you can be diligent in getting as many facts as possible and design the platform's rule set around those facts, your user base will not only appreciate the transparency but also have greater respect for any policies they understand are necessary due to factors outside your control.
If I don’t want to see scat or gore then it should be out of notice.
Is Spike a baby dragon with a job and no parents really a issue?
Whatever rules you decide just enforce those rules with a even hand as to not stifle creativity!
Have a sense of community and endorse laughter over authoritarian bullshit!
I wish you the best!
oops rambled sorry. just saying hope this works out for you and that you don't have to go through with said policy.
There was a case in 1986 where someone was arrested for selling furry adult work. Authorities at the time thought was bestiality. No idea if laws changed since then, but there was mention of it in this article: https://insidepulse.com/2006/03/13/47134/
... but yeah, if you're going to start something like that up in Canada, lawyer up if you can.
Also, be aware of defamation laws while you are at it. In Canada, an accusation is all that is needed for a conviction most of the time. Canada is one of the few countries that never got around to reforming those laws - and almost no one is willing to test it.
In regards to defamation laws, do you mean that if our platform or staff members are targeted then we can easily charge users, or that we as a platform need to be very careful not to falsely accuse a user of nefarious behavior?
With regards to the defamation laws, it's a blade that can easily cut both ways. If someone says something that is definitely not true, then, yeah, you can legally pursue them. On the other hand, let's say someone is banned for harassing other members. In theory, that person could try to file a lawsuit for defamation. It's obviously ridiculous and you can very easily prove that what you said is true, but even under the best case scenario, it's going to be a legal uphill battle because you would be trying to set a precedence which is notoriously expensive.
Another angle might be that someone posts something on your site and someone else finds it defamatory. It's theoretically possible that the person thinking of filing a lawsuit could say that your site allowed this to be posted, therefore, you are liable. In the US, it's not a threat because of Section 230 protections, but I'm not sure if Canada has such protections.
Unlike many other countries around the world, Canada never really bothered reforming defamation laws at all and, instead, left it to the courts.
Probably a better resource than me would be this Wikipedia page, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canad.....defamation_law
At any rate, my interpretation is that any website you open up, you'll always have that potential of defamation lawsuit threats directed towards you. The chances might actually be slim for this happening, but it's not zero.
All tags will also have icons so it's not a wall of text!
At the same time, creators also need to be held responsible for performing their own accurate tagging. There was trouble on IB before when some artists started finding 'creative' tags to evade peoples' tag blocks, and FA tags are a complete fuster cluck.
Anyway, it got removed and banned due to it being made somewhere up North, like Sweden or something, where testicular damage and other such violent porn is forbidden. This as a pixel art game full of fictional characters, straight up illegal now.
Just throwing that out there as another example of how pissy this entire situation can be. It's a legal minefield at the best of times.
Not that it matters much, since the context of the subject doesn't depend on dates, but the date's a bit off (at least according to the wikifur page you linked). Reading it, it says that FA STARTED allowing it in 2006 (so it would not have been allowed before that), and stopped allowing it in 2010. As seen here:
https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Cub#Fur_Affinity
Although it is a wiki page so idk, anyone could have edited it to make it wrong.
We also have a second store in the circumstance that the first is taken down, both of which use different payment processors. We also have enough savings to allow this new website to operate in the red for potentially years without feeling the pressure from political heat.
There are plenty of payment processor options that are adult-content friendly, though the catch usually boils down to higher rates and slower transfer times as it's considered high-risk content. Consumers buying adult products are more likely to charge back, making it a liability for the middleman.
I'm beyond fear and cynicism, what matters most is revitalizing the free creative spirit of our community and that requires bold change even if it requires sticking your neck out to do so.
The problem though is YOU are in Canada and anyone else of the team who is. They are petty enough to just try and grab you for whatever they can and anyone else who lives here or in the states (Cause we have that agreement and all to hand over or prosecute criminals... bunch of legal jargon that I won't pretend to understand right now.) if enough noise is raised about it, because catching the big bad boogeyman and putting them in jail shuts them up for a while.
My fursona is 4'6 so is of the bigger end of the smol scale but I haven't ran into any problems personally about their size, and probably because there is no way of mistaking her for a child, but I'm sure I'll run into it eventually.
There's also the option of decentralized storage, I believe.
My idea would be that the page itself puts maybe a little watermark on the bottom of each picture with the disclaimer.
that way it cant be downloaded and shared without it.
If artists agree to a disclaimer that their sexualized characters are of age that would be great, but we'd need to make sure that actually makes it okay.