Dang, but good to know. Just followed your new Twitter.

And this is why FA, for all its criticism, will never be abandoned as a furry art hub. They know that if NSFW and queer content goes, the entire site goes.

It's easier to fix FA (Add enforced tagging, come up with an algorythm or a retweet system that allows things to spread and go viral, instead of so "Private", and you're done, really) than to fix Twitter.

Twitter, in general, is garbage, specially as an art site, for multiple reasons.

We do have a coder working on tagging and whatnot, and I'd love to do a bit more. Some of it's just a lack of resources/funding. A lot of these functions will just take time.

Something a la e621 would be perfect, where I can just vanish some tags from my sight- frontpage included.

The algorithm part is just something to ensure that content gets suggested, shown, and curated around, instead of the "post and that's it" approach. FA serves very well as a gallery, while Twitter's awful for that, but Twitter does squeeze more "impact" out of each picture.

I understand they're by no means small, but with those two things, I doubt there's anything Twitter has over FA as an art site for the fandom.

Two things I'd love to see are:
1) Tag aliases
2) Enforced tag alphabetization
3) Tag auto-complete

Tag aliases means you don't end up with mm, m/m, and male/male as different tags, which makes searching easier. (Yes, post gender helps with this one, but you get the idea)

Tag alphabetization means you don't get (as many) people tagging posts like this, since it's harder to form coherent sentences in tags:
m/m, anal, canine, arent, these, two, the, hottest, thing, ever

Tag autocomplete means you get more people spelling their tags correctly. More pregnancy, and less pergnancy.

Just wanted to say thank you for your work on FA, while I have you here. It's always been my most reliable posting site fur furry content. Also, thank you for attempting to help over on Twitter, and your advice there. Just thanks in general : )

I don't want to sound negative, but not much happened during the time IMVU was supposedly funding development.

BTW I'm just curious, are you working on rebuilding FA from scratch, or rather building on top of the existing code?

There was a lot in progress. Most of it required securing funds and whatnot, and we were looking to bring on extra coders when things changed. That said, were are working on dev stuff currently. =3

And it's a mix of both. Some systems have been completely rewritten already, others are being modified.

I see. I'm looking forward to it!

Also, is there by chance any word on the status of name change?

So hey I'm late and you're definitely not going to see this, but please allow us a way to blacklist tags and keywords (since most people don't tag their shit properly). Weasyl does this very well and pretty effectively since you're actually required to use at least 3 tags when making a submission.

"...Twitter...is garbage, specially as an art site..."; This. I don't know who first decided it was a good idea to use twitter as their art platform but they didn't know what they were doing and the people who followed suit didn't make it any better.

Because Twitter's stupid simple to upload to. It's easy as hell to get content out there. Twitter makes sharing things insanely easy (something I do take note of) and it also tends to offer more instant feedback. It lacks in long term engagement though.

(/is late to the discussion)

Twitter being so easy seems to be why a lot of people went there after Tumblr's NSFW ban even though it's far from ideal as a platform. Some Tumblr alternatives have popped up but I haven't seen them take off in the same way (eg Pillowfort did and possibly still does have potential but has had issues starting up).

FA, other furry sites, and AO3 (only hosts text but can embed media uploaded elsewhere) are some of the most stable and long-lived platforms that still openly allow user-created NSFW content that I know of (excluding paid/subscription sites and porn sites that seem to want a bit more control over monetizing content)

I really hope Twitter doesn't go down the same route as Tumblr. Part of the appeal to me of using Twitter over other plaforms is the allowance of NSFW content...

Still, I've followed your other account! Hopefully you don't get screwed over too badly by the algorithm.

I'm afraid that that process has already started and won't be stopped. There's a full-scale crack-down through subversive means of killing anything that the powers that be decide needs to be censored, and that includes NSFW, certain political opinions, and support for certain groups that are "not aligned with their mission". Twitter has become yet another vessel to promote specific views and silence others. The moment a platform like that becomes partial is the moment they lose.

I had no idea they were cracking down on NSFW stuff, I thought the owners were very left leaning and encourages a lot of social justice and body positivity and adult content because they were open to that side of things. I had no idea they were targeting porn before this journal. I don't use Twitter for the reasons you mentioned, but It had ways seemed very open to that part of the internet. I'm honestly shocker they're banning it like Tumblr did. You think they'd have learned from that

The biggest problem is porn is *insanely* easy to find on Twitter when you're not even looking for it. They've done a really piss poor job at age gating the content, and there's so many kids/teens on Twitter that it's not even safe to search trending topics. You just come across porn all over the place.

If they had actually implemented tools to limit who can see what they wouldn't have to worry about a problem like this.

Just underlines the point, really. It's not just a crack-down, it's a selective one at that.
Honestly does give me flashbacks of Google and their selective blackballing of Adsense accounts.

Yeah, and FA is kind of blacklisted from Google as well. It hurts us financially because of it. I can only imagine how many other sites are impacted by this shit. I don't enjoy ads, but they allow us to pay for servers, hire coders, etc. We try to keep it minimal. But without access to the Google market, we lose roughly 80% of our ad funding.

FA+ is what keeps is afloat right now. Heh.

Oh for me it was much worse. Not kind-of blacklisted, no, full-on blacklisted with bogus reasons because guess what? I'm making a web browser. I had to find other revenue after Google retroactively killed the project's income by 95%. Anti-competitive? Absolutely. But Google can't be fought over that by any individual.

Donations by individual people are what keeps us afloat right now.

I used to support the ads here by whitelisting FA on Ad-Block. When those ads started interfering with normal browsing and shoving fake "you need to update firefox" pop-overs (the *entire* window, too!), I turned Ad-block back on.

Prove that's been fixed and will never happen again and I'll re-whitelist it.

Not had any reports of those kinds of ads in some time since we moved away from Google. I have no way to prove it. If you choose to ad block the site I respect it.

I respect your respect.

I personally HATE ads of any kind, especially when I'm trying to enjoy a really good piece of art and suddenly have laundry detergent ads smacking me in the face. Its kind of a major turn off lmao

So I'm actually really glad you guys set up FA+ cause now I can turn my ad block on but still be able to support this site more directly.

Also, still hoping those badges come soon...

There will be improvements to the badging system -- it's not where it needs to be, though it will come after high res file support and some other changes. We've already laid the ground work for a few additional badges. but need a bit more time to refine the system.

I use Discord and Telegram myself. Haven't done anything with Instagram, but wherever you go, I will follow

Tbh though, Twatter is HORRIBLE for looking at and enjoying art. From the asshat way they set up page navigation, to the horrible cropping and thumbnails, its just utterly terrible for art of any kind.

And thats not even mentioning the sheer amount of drama and cancel culture BS that goes on there on a regular basis...

I'll personally never use twatter at all. There are so many other, better, sites to use for artwork.

By all means, please list them. I really am looking for alternatives.

I mean, you're on one of them right now lol

But theres also IB, Discord, Telegram, and a couple others that have slipped my mind atm. I just really do not understand the appeal of twatter to artists, because that is the LAST place I'd ever look for new artists, or people who I'd like to commission or follow.

Pillowfort may be an option? Kinda tumblr-esq layout

I don't think it was made specifically for viewing art anyway. At some point people just decided that's what it was for, even if it didn't fit that alternative usage very well.

It wasn't. Twitter's biggest issue is the lack of galleries. If Twitter added folders that may help quite a bit, but I also feel like that takes away from what Twitter was meant to be. Never mind that for most people a tweet has a 12-24 hour shelf life. If your art isn't seen on the timeline or the algorithm decides not to prioritize it things may get missed.

I've always said Twitter is a good place for showing off your latest and greatest in art but it isn't any good as an archive. That is something sites like FA are good at.

Anna:
Oh that cancel culture... the real plague of Twitter: there isn't a day without a random "cancel this user you never heard about" post slapped to my face... the community feels rather toxic compared to other places I tried, maybe except a certain browser game's forum...

I feel like Twitter is a huge waste of time, and the only way to get new followers to get started or grow is to host a free art raffle, this is how I scraped out my few in 2020, and they still don't see my posts anyway (even when I tried using the good timing or viral hashtags), so why even bother?

FA and the dying DA(even after the downgrade it's still better than any alghorhitm-based site) are much better for growth than the algorhithm-cursed places... On FA every new image is on the same field for the first few seconds, allowing smaller users to be seen at all, meanwhile Twitter... you're lucky if >your own followers< ever see your post...

Many artists have a telegram channel as an art and news feed, so that can be an option. This whole anti-NSFW and anti-queer sweep on major social media platforms is why I'm still on FA, regardless of it not being perfect. I'm not an artist myself by any means, but it's one way I can try to support them.

I'm sorry that you have to start over. It's crushing, but Twitter isn't as important as people think it is. Your fans will follow you everywhere, no matter where that is, and you'll always have that. I still followed the new account anyway.

You're not just a porn account. You're a fantastic writer, artist, and person. Twitter can fuck off for censoring everything just because of the NSFW portion.

I'm sorry this is happening. I'd love join a discord, as I don't use Twitter anyway.

You can almost always trace the touch of V*sa and M*stercard any time they get involved. Payment platforms are always soon followed by a swift and brutal purge of all queer content.

Well, it's that... and advertising. Monetizing a site with NSFW content is a nightmare. I know this one first hand. If FA didn't have mature content, we could make a ton of money, hire on a bunch of devs, improve servers... but the moment NSFW content is involved a ton of people back off*. As for Twitter, their brands promoting tweets and content can end up right next to some really hardcore porn. They don't want that. Bad for their image.

Twitter's not done a good job at separating general and NSFW content. Mark tweets as "sensitive" is a half-assed solution that burns people who post general content but occasionally post adult work. It's a really bad system. They've never really worked to improve it.

I don't see Twitter defending NSFW content because it hurts their bottom line long term. And if Apple were to ever decide to pull the Twitter app because people can get access to that content... you know they'd remove it on a heartbeat. The fact they haven't kind of shows the double standard Apple has when it comes to apps with mature content.

Oh for sure, the removal of telegram still stings. We're still using workarounds to use it on iOS for those of us too stubborn to learn a new system. I can only hope something eventually comes up in legislature about establishments like this having that kind of power over platforms. I'm not optimistic, but we can dream.

Twitter has just been going downhill everyday.

Definitely following you.

when twitter became the main recipient of tumblr's porn refugees I called it then and there that this would inevitably happen simply put the same line of reasoning that drove tumblr and apple to shitcan porn was bred on twitter. I say we're in dire need of "new tech" catering to artists and artistic freedom.

once the censorship ball starts rolling it rarely stops
I miss the internet of 2005 or thereabouts

The shadow bans and search bans and the like aren't at all new. It's been a regular, known part of how they operate for a long long time. If your content is predominantly nsfw, in order to prevent problems from coming up in normal people's searches and the like, accounts that make lots of sensitive content will be filtered down by the algorithm.

In sort of summary, it's technically nothing new at all for frankly at least some years unless you're just seeing it for the first time.

Between telegram and discord I would say go with discord and get help from someone that knows how to set servers up for what you'd be doing. The big plus for discord is that you can have multiple text/voice channels and even categories for various topics and feedback.

well I rather see your sfw stuff so I'm following it (not that I see art at all from artist on twitter, I don't use the other 2. good luck with all things and I'll occasionally see stuff here :)

While you aren't shadowbanned, you are definitely search restricted. And you also have reply de-boosting applied.

And it seems that your SFW account is also slightly limited by reply de-boosting.

Unfortunately, it can be fairly easy to track if a user is using alternate accounts and apply the same limitations from one account to another, especially if you're not trying to mask things. =/

I have literally done nothing over on that account except post completely SFW art. It's a few days old. *shakes head* What rules, exactly, did I violate?
Unbelievable.

Ebay is banning the sale of all Adult Content (despite the fact that it's properly sorted away from everything else), something is going down and I don't like it at ALL.

https://shadowban.eu/rukiscroax

Basically a link to check if you are shadow banned. And, to no surprise, you are indeed. Darn twitter :/

It's a Search ban, but yeah. It's nuts. I never violated their TOS, they're just chasing people like me off the platform.

I know that Bassenji's account got temporarily suspended on twitter, but he got it back eventually. But aside from that I haven't noticed any of this.

Twitter's "de-amplification" is just another word for full-blown censorship. The only difference is that you can -theoretically- still find it (but not so much in practice)

Say, Rukus: how do you get by limitations on things like PayPal, if I may ask? I do occasional written commissions and have experienced PayPal also trying to crack down on such things.

Tips for dealing with PayPal:

1. DON'T USE PAYPAL.

2. If you have absolutely, positively, no other alternative whatsoever, in any form, such as SquarePay and even up to and including using cryptocurrency, then send your customer a BLANK invoice, and uncheck the boxes for "items delivered" or anything like that. No mention of anything, at all. No words like "services rendered" or "artwork" or anything at all. You are just sending them a straight bill, exactly as if you walked up to a random stranger on the street and handed them a piece of paper saying, "Pay $200". That's it. Nothing else.

Keep in mind, this requires the customer to trust you, not the other way around.

The customer has no recourse if they suddenly decide to file a claim, because there's nothing on the invoice to specify what was paid for, and no indication of any kind of goods being delivered, electronic or otherwise.

Also, if you have absolutely no other choice than to use PayPal, do the following...

1. Set up a checking account that is for nothing else other than PayPal.

2. Set up a deposit-only savings account. Not a third checking account, it's a deposit-only savings account. This is important. If your bank offers it, set up the PayPal-only checking account to immediately transfer any incoming funds into the deposit-only savings account.

3. Pay STRICT attention to your PayPal account. Enable all the notifications, so that the precise second money hits the account, you get notified.

4. Stop whatever it is you are doing. Pull over to the side of the road, hang up on the customer, don't wait any longer than it takes to get someplace safe, so you can take out your phone and get this done.

5. Log into your PayPal, and immediately transfer the money into your PayPal-only checking account. Again, if your bank offers this service, set it up to immediately transfer any incoming funds into the deposit-only account. Otherwise, do it yourself the moment it hits your account.

6. NEVER LEAVE MONEY IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT. EVER.

If the customer turns out to be a scammer, or files a dispute, PayPal will try to claw the money back from your checking account, but because it's no longer there, and because it went into a deposit-only account, they can't get it.

Now, here's where things get interesting.

PayPal will claim that your PayPal account is now X dollars in the negative. This is not your problem. It is PayPal's problem. Remember, you have your money, they do not.

If you fuck up, and leave money in your PayPal account, or don't move it out of the checking account, then they will have your money, and they'll keep it during the so-called "investigation", which can take up to 90 days. That's three months of you not having rent, paying bills, buying food.

So don't fuck up and leave the money in your PayPal account. Fucking up is bad. Don't do it. I mean, it can be argued - legitimately - that doing any business at all with PayPal is fucking up, but if you're going to fuck up, do it in a way that doesn't leave your asshole bleeding.

Anyway. PayPal is going to bark, snarl, hiss and hurf-blurf about your account being in the negative. Again, not your problem. Just reply to their email and say, "Please contact me when the investigation is completed. If you determine that the customer's claim is legitimate, I will consider the possibility of resolving the negative balance."

Then go on with your life.

I place ONLY what I need to buy something through PayPal. I use a checking account correct to add money, except I have a business account with PayPal so I have different setups that prevent backward clawing for more money if scammed, and my old bank card number is still linked to the Paypal account, so scammers can get N O T H I N G from my main bank account.

I don't trust phones to do banking on at all! I know of thieves that use strippers to monitor your phone call and strip your bank codes off by use of a wifi keylogger.

THE BEST WAY is to Log money into your PayPal with a Credit Union account. Why? because Credit unions do not use the same system as a bank uses so strippers get nothing, they can't strip your card! - And Neither can PayPal reverse charge your credit Union account backclaw!

Good info all around, but I still maintain you should avoid PayPal like the plague.

There used to be an American internet bank but I think PayPal ran them out of business.

Wow!

I'm definitely writing all this down! THANK YOU!

So, SquarePay: how does it handle?

I see a large number of dealers using it, so I'm guessing it works, and works well. They're basically a credit/debit card processor for "little guys" who can't afford an actual machine, or don't want to sign a contract with the Big Three.

squareup.com is where you'll find them? But they're pretty much for someone who's running an actual business.

That's the allure of PayPal.

It allows you to do *any* level of business, from once a year, to full time. But you're subject to their rules, and there's no oversight, like with an actual bank.

<nods> Okay, that makes sense.

Discord can give you excellent control over where and who sees your content if you take the time to set it up properly. You can personalize all the channels you want and it gives you a great deal of power over your uploads! I'd love to follow your work over there.

I'll do what I can to support ya Rukis. I love your work. I needs to be seen.

IDK if you've tried out pillow fort but they recently relaunched and is still NSFW friendly. its super simplistic but its another option

twitter is a cess pool. between the blatant double standards with their TOS banning one person for breaking their TOS and looking the other way for others and the constant mod abuse. An artist here wont drop names got his account banned because his icon was flagged as NSFW. it wasnt. it just a dragon with his mouth open no blush or anything that was it. it didnt break TOS but a mod personally didnt like the picture so the artist got banned. thats why i deleted my twitter back in march. telegram is your best bet because its private has very lax picture posting policies basically can post what you like mostly. discord is another good one but their post rules are a bit tricky.

yeah, i heard what happened to you on twitter and it is really unfair. i know social websites do this because they want to crack down on the porn bots and dirty accounts, but in turn they are making adult content artist suffer as well. social media just keep making it harder for adult content artists to make a living.

Communism executes homosexuals, so does Islam. Twitter is run by the HanBan Corporation, The liberal guy is only a figurehead soon be 'removed' by the CCP. The HanBan Corporation is run by the Ministry of Propaganda in Communist China.

This will be the beginning of death to all homosexuals, you see they never really ever were on Gay people's side. Now both BLM and ANTIFA will get new orders to beat up and kill homosexuals of any kind.

Bezos stepped Down, Gates does not control Microsoft anymore, Zuckerberg is a Hong Kong Citizen he gave up his US citizenship so he would not have to pay taxes on his billions. Each of these companies will have new starts as HanBan corporation companies, they are all already based in communist China anyway!!!

I just added your new twitter to follow.
Twice the content for half the price!

They are doing the same thing as Tumblr... Time to move to Mastodon, or wait for Entail App to be released.

I wonder if Pillowfort would be worth it for you?

They sort of emerged as a response to the pornocalypse on Tumblr, so they're big on allowing NSFW artwork and fiction so long as it's appropriately tagged.

I'm not sure what to think about pillowfort, I AM getting likes on my posts (if I post them to a group because they don't seem to have any other way to get your stuff seen) but noone Followed yet:<

Huh... I have to say, I mostly use it like I did Dreamwidth, for storage more than that, but I don't have much of a viewership. I'm hoping now that Pillowfort is back and working to alter stuff, things will pick up. I figure if anyone can get followers on a site, it'll be Rukis, but it might be difficult until it opens for open reg again though invite codes are back, so that's helpful.

Have you tied using the tagging system? People who search for them could come across your stuff like any site that uses tags!

Guess I must be very bad at tagging, but I tried, thing is likes are given (whenever I reblog to some groups, especially niche-relevent), not rarely several likes come from the same users, but none of them hits the follow button regardless so far:P like I even keep everything one-topic so far to encourage to follow for the given project/characters xD idk, feels like for some reason people aren't there to follow others atm:P or I'm just horribly unlucky? Still, it was easier for me to get 100 followers on my poorly led Twitter than 1 follower on Pillowfort so far xD which simply feels weird:P

noooo

Can you give me some details/proof of this crackdown?

I mainly wonder because I have my NSFW acc marked as sensitive, and so are most of the NSFW ones I follow, and never had any trouble whatsoever. So I wonder if it may be people who share NSFW stuff without marking it sensitive? Because that would be a violation, and I have seen before that many NSFW artists share porn, including extreme fetish stuff without marking it sensitive... which is just bad, very bad.

That's essentially just an accusation, so. . . just say what you mean.
As far as I remember, I tagged my NSFW pieces so that they could be filtered out by folks not interested in that kind of content. And most of what I post are pinups, or couples pieces, not 'extreme fetish stuff'. Since this happened to my account, I've been contacted by a number of other queer furry artists who are facing similar crackdowns for posting very similar content. We aren't making it up, it's really happening, and no one is receiving warnings or temporary shadow-bans before it happens. If we are being reported, we aren't being told. Which is a bad practice in and of itself, since we can't appeal WHY we may have been reported.

I don't understand what you are talking about, nobody was accusing anyone of anything, I asked for more information because this is the first time I hear about this. I follow lots of NSFW accounts and I have no knowledge of Twitter taking actions against any of them.

Also mentioned that I wonder if some people have action taken against them because they post NSFW and they didn't mark their account as sensitive, as this is something I've seen happen a lot.

I really don't want to get into an argument over something this obvious. I don't do passive-aggressive BS. I marked my individual NSFW tweets as such, not my entire account, because my account is mostly clean. This is something many, MANY artists do so that images they post that are not sensitive are not marked that way. It is incredibly creepy to have my pet photos, personal photos or clean art marked as essentially pornographic when they are obviously not. That's the effect this has on my account, and many others, and it greatly limits the reach our clean art gets. If you think an entire account should have the stamp forced on them, I'm not going to argue with you about that. But at this point, they are beginning to limit (de-boosting) my SFW account as well, which has literally nothing even approaching NSFW content on it, which proves they are in fact just going after specific creators.

How do you mark individual images? Last time I looked into it that wasn't possible. That's why I have separate SFW and NSFW accounts.

You can temporarily turn your account to 'sensitive' when you post said tweet, which will mark it as such, and leave a 'NSFW' tag at the beginning of the tweet, so that people who have that and other words filtered out won't see the tweet.

Ah that. I was hoping Twitter finally added this feature properly. :( I've found that workaround so tedious, not to mention easy to screw up if I forget, that I rather just made a separate NSFW account. That, and also because I figured there are people who follow me for art but don't want to see porn, and I'm also following and often replying to lot of general non-furry artists so it's just cleaner and nicer this way.

Do you know if other people who got slammed by Twitter used the same workaround? Or did they also slam accounts that were permanently marked sensitive?

Just to clarify: I'm asking these questions because I want to consider all possibilities and learn all the circumstances so that I'm not jumping to conclusions. I don't question anyone's personal experience, but the truth is that nobody truly knows what Twitter does and why, often not even Twitter, so we can all only try to make an educated guess based on the patterns we see so I always give every claim the benefit of doubt and try to gather more information. Not because I think anyone is lying, but because none of us is unimstakable.