Wanted to start by saying this is NOT a call to attack FA: Unlike the Twitter mob that came after several of us last week, I don't do mobs to harass people. But it does intend to show the extent of the abuse happening on the platform, to the point where logic is pushed to the very limit just to go against artists the site considers undesirable. Needless to say this isn't getting posted on Furaffinity, both because it contains the image I was banned for and joking which is officially forbidden there I guess.

After initially being banned for a week due to the fact that 7 years ago I sketched some joke about foxes eating babies, I was then banned permanently for my latest 3D render. Upon contacting the staff they must have realized how utterly absurd that was so they reverted to the original temporary ban. While this was definitely good news in the moment, I feel there's a huge problem that needs addressing fast.

After new year I made a joke render about the January 6 capitol riot, consisting of bunnies beating and humping secret agents to catch politicians with a news caption calling them the far-right. I never imagined someone would find a way to argue such a thing is against any TOS on the planet, presuming the silly tone made it clear this is intended as pure parody. They not only considered it worthy of a PERMANENT ban, but went for the most absurd route possible in doing so: Suggesting it's COVID misinformation of all things. Two years ago I was warned to stop talking about COVID and ever since I have respected that wish... despite this the ban message suggested they removed more journals where I somehow violated this rule while listing this image as the main reason.

Obviously I didn't care to support or promote anything there: I just realized January 6th would be a fun subject for a project to have fun with. Nowadays I don't even believe most stories about election fraud since Republicans failed to bring more evidence to light... QAnon I legit consider crazy on most things, not all but most of what they say goes too far even for me. If there was any intent involved, it was making people stop taking everything so god damn seriously an making it a taboo you can't even poke fun at... same thing comedians do and are now getting beaten up for on stage for, once upon a time a certain Charlie Hebdo got shot up for it. Unfortunately the people who practically run FA are more in line with how the Taliban reacts when someone makes a caricature of Allah or Mohamed: We're at the point where fun is literally banned if it offends the religiously strict ideology of the day. And thing is, they could at least update their TOS to say "any joke that could offend us is forbidden"... instead they use deliberately vague rules that can randomly apply to anything so anyone can target you if they have it in for you.

I'm not among those who think Dragoneer is evil: I don't know him but from my few interactions and what I've seen he's a pleasant person. He's completely lost control of the site though: Whoever is both writing the rules and appointing moderators are literally doing whatever the heck they want. I literally don't feel I know what can even be posted on the platform any more: Even if I depressed myself by reading their bizarre TOS periodically just to remember every crazy little detail, it's applied so broadly you can't know what will practically get you in trouble just by reading it. In this case it doesn't say anywhere "joking about something automatically means promoting something else that's slightly correlated".

Unless Elon Musk buys FA like Twitter, I don't see much changing to be honest. None the less I at least wanted others to see how bad it is given it's a general current. If in the year 2023 it's literally a crime to draw a simple joke on a mainstream art site, anyone with some awareness should be terrified of where we're once more headed: You know it's bad when you have to make a parody of a parody about being attacked for making a parody.