To Derpibooru Community: Please understand what censorship will do to the site!

@Background Pony #5338  
You’re right. Maybe this is not a hill worth dying on after all.
 
I apologize for letting pettiness cloud my words.
 
I’m officially bowing out, I don’t like this version of me. I think I need a giant cup of coffee.

@Skoon  

I still don’t understand why that’s not a workable solution to the problem for some people. There is art of another subject type not allowed here, and the solution many people took to that was posting a specifically cropped picture with a link to a place that allowed hosting of that kind of material. It’s a little more awkward, admittedly, but it functions fairly well for the purpose of what it needs to do.
 
And yes, to all the people who will respond on that, I know that it works like that because it’s actually illegal to post that stuff here. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t work for this.
 
 
@Filiecs  

Honestly I think that’s part of the problem that set this all off in the first place. If this was anything remotely approaching a normal year, maybe the change to the rules wouldn’t have been quite so emotionally charged an issue. I don’t doubt it would have still been fought, mind you, but I’d bet it wouldn’t have escalated quite so rapidly. But we’re just past the halfway point of a year that seems to be pulling an Office Space moment and having every day be the worst day of our lives, and a lot of people are just on edge and out of patience for anything anymore. And then when something comes along affecting one of the few places they have left for simple enjoyment…
 
Let’s just say, even beyond the various personal philosophies and opinions that are conflicting here, it’s not hard to see why people are so angry.
 
Which is why it’s important too that we take a moment, take a breath, and actually make an effort to try to come together on this. I really don’t want to see the site die, and the more time we spend calling people Nazis and communists and blanketing entire groups with whatever buzzword or political position or meme based designation most makes us feel better about our own view, the worse this whole situation is going to go.
 
I really do believe we can fix this. I do. We just all need to maybe dial back a bit, and focus more on how we can move forward.
 
 
@Skoon  

Oh right… As I recall that was “Over Protective Parent Pony”, right?
 
…God I feel old all of a sudden.

@Background Pony #EB4B  
Yeah! That was her working title. haha Good times. We were all brothers then.

@Background Pony #5E78
 
Nazi’s have no place here.  
Nazi imagery that is not in a documentary, museum or media where they are clearly the baddies have no place.

@Skoon  
You are completely right. There will always be people that hate you or think you hate them no matter which side you are on.  
The only way out is to be above, and to follow what you truly believe.
 
From this drama, I have read papers documenting the horrifying impacts censorship has had in places such as china. I have also read papers the the potentially harmful effects of disparaging humor, as well as research that shows that forcing people to censor their prejudice may be even more harmful by causing a ‘rebound effect’.
 
Like you, I have been with the fandom from the very beginning. I have seen things change.  
I remember defending you on Ponychan when people got angry about you drawing lewd art of Berry Punch and Pinchy, saying it was immoral.  
I remember when Derpibooru first announced their lolicon ban. I personally didn’t like the rule change (even though I’m not into lolicon), but their explanation that they need to because of real legal issues made sense. Now some mods have actively said that the reason for the ban is that it promotes pedophilia and the people who like it are all pedophiles. That doesn’t sit right with me.  
I have also noticed mods get even more strict over what is or is not allowed, banning images simply for being too controversial.  
Then we have the mods announcing that anything criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement, directly or indirectly, is banned. They had said it was only temporary, but TSP more recently said that it was actually until they don’t need to ban images for criticizing it anymore because almost nobody would be criticizing it anymore, which could take literally forever.  
Now we have the censorship of Aryanne, who for many people is in fact a mockery of the Nazi ideology. To many people, she is like a child who doesn’t understand why her anger is wrong, but she is ultimately harmless. The idea of her eventually overcoming her racism, or her being consumed by it and becoming a villain (only to be destroyed in the end) is appealing to us.
 
For many of us, this is in fact not a slippery slope, but a very visible trend backed up by evidence that we are concerned is not going to stop. There is no evidence that it will stop at just banning Aryanne. No formal argument or even acknowledgment that people who like her might not even all be racists. Just more rules we have no say in. And it is truly terrifying.

@Skoon
 
Well, in my last replies to you in this thread I wasn’t trying to troll you or anything.
 
But you chose ignore it, or not to answer.
 
And I don’t know why. Either because I wasn’t clear in the expression of my thoughts and arguments, or because you didn’t know how to counter-argument at that point.
 
Well, it’s your choice either way.
 

 
I just want to add, that objectively, from a non-biased point of view, there are a lot of other controversial things on this site, besides that pony…
 
Heck, I even like some of those controversial things myself! While I do understand that it’s wrong of me to like them.
 
Honestly, I didn’t even expect myself to be defending the Aryanne OC, because I never even was interested in that OC in the first place.
 
What made me do so is simply the fear of further censorship and that the freedom of art expression is being taken away from majority of people because of a vocal minority.

@Filiecs
 

 
Exactly!

@Background Pony #EB4B
 
Mostly because people have participated in this community, built this community on a certain principles, in a certain way. If it was initially built in another way could it be better (note: there is no universal measure for “better”; even if we ignore pure financial success, and only look at how it affects members of the community we would still have many different goals)? Maybe it could be better. But here as in many other situations we see that people demand that community (with everything sunk into it) should change it’s rules.
 
I would be against rule change on censorship an any case but if it was proposed in advance, debated etc. I could see at as community “growing” even if it grew in direction I didn’t like. But what is happening is either staff unilaterally changing rules to further their politics, or staff caving before the mob. It’s not good either way.
 
I cannot remember anyone of note on Derpi having a good word for Tumblr change of policy in December 2018. Many ignored, like many ignore the current kerfuffle, but everybody who spoke spoke against censorship and against appropriating existing communities (as opposed to building new ones). Now something has changed and I cannot see that change as a good change.

Just check how other sites handled this issue, here is Furaffinity:  

 
https://www.furaffinity.net/aup

@CruFox
 
The question is not how someone else handled it.
 
The question is what will happen next, if we go the same route here in deripbooru.
 
And next will happen this: some public article will criticize such art sites like derpibooru and others that have some sexual arts of forbidden in real word things.
 
And then the public will attack derpibooru.
 
And then we’ll get yet another thing censored here, and then another, and then another…
 

 
Interesting logic there, too.
 
What next?
 
Those people will demand to burn history books and eradicate every mention of Nazi just to avoid being reminded of Nazi existence?
 
Not showing Nazi being denounced will make people forget of all the bad things Nazi did…  
And that would be disrespectful towards the victims of Nazi’s actions.

@CruFox  
And that’s limiting for no good reason. Many, many universally acknowledged pieces of art would be banned by that policy.
 
Finally I do not see how it could be consistently resolved unless everybody is in 90% political agreement (and a few outliers have no power to challenge the consensus). Many countries ban public display of Communist symbols (usually the same countries that ban Nazi symbols, but not necessary). And definitions of “hate group”, “terrorist” etc are open to highjacking.

@CruFox  
And yet they have 5160 images with “nazi”. I understand and appreciate examples, but it doesn’t mean that they are true (or wrong).

@Background Pony #4592  
No no, I apologize. It gets hard to reply to everybody, I wasn’t dodging on purpose.
 
Truth be told I am starting to grow confused about how I feel.

@Skoon  
“Wait, haha, I would still get attacked because you can’t do that these days either!
 
I want out. But I can’t be out.”  
Yes you can. You know exactly what group of people forces you to comply to their political ideologies. If you flipped script and said you are anti censorship nobody here would even hold it against you. Twitter on the other hand….

@Background Pony #5338  
You’re pretty cool Skoon. I like your artwork and I’ll try not to let this whole debacle from last night ruin that. It’s pretty obvious you’re just a regular person with opinions like everyone else and not one of the radicalized crazies. You don’t need to involve yourself in this garbage.

@Background Pony #6564  
That’s not entirly true. Many “righties” joke about everything, so discussion with them is nearly impossible.

@Background Pony #5338  
Well, that’s the difference. It’s all jokes. All we’re trying to defend is our right to shitpost. This fandom started on 4chan. It’s embedded in us.

@Background Pony #6564  
That’s sadly not entirely true. Take a look in the anti-censorship DNP thread. I eventually got angry because of those guys being super dicks.
 
 
@Background Pony #6564  

 
I do genuinely appreciate that. I really try to stay centered. It’s not easy, unfortunately. Especially when emotions fly high.
 
I’m also, as I say to most of my lefty friends, just some hick from rural Appalachia. There’s a lot I haven’t adjusted to, still, about social sentiments. I do get confused.

@Background Pony #6564  
I understand that and I’m with anti-censorship. But sometimes where is discussion you have to be serious. When we attack each other we just attack parts of fandom. And I love ponies and so I love fandom.

@Background Pony #5338  

 
I can see that they changed this section in their rules 2 months ago: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9468101/
 
I can’t see any “report” buttons on Furaffinity for specifc posts, only site-wide report is possible. Maybe nobody did that for those post. Also most (not all) of the submissions tagged with “nazi” do not depict real nazis, just some jokes about grammar nazi or german soliders without nazi symbols.
 
@Lisboeta
 

 
EDIT: I’m not saying I 100% approve of the way FA handled this, I’m only showing how they handled this.

@Skoon  
That’s probably the biggest problem with everything going right now. The charged atmosphere of the world/community, combined with personal pressures inside and outside the site, has created an environment where it becomes difficult to reign in emotions. Everyone’s tired and angry, and it is progressively making things worse. I think what everyone needs is to step back for a bit and breathe, then come back for a discussion on how to fix this.

@CruFox  
Thanks, but this is hilarious:  
“You may post content containing German soldiers, but not Nazis”.

@Background Pony #5338  

It is not. Here is an example:
 

Some people dont seem to understand that this is supposed to be an art archival site, not a social media site. Accept that the public and media will never give us any credit and stop giving them the time of day. Just enjoy poni and filter what you don’t like.

@CruFox  
That’s why I think it’s hilarious. But in a bad way. I even understand why furaffinity don’t want nazi symbols, but BF V case is just tragic (and hilarious, laughter is healthy).