The Frowning Pony
If that’s not clear, it means any new images featuring seemingly underage characters sexualized or in sexual situations that aren’t “fully pony” will be deleted. Anthro, semi-anthro, satyr, eqg, humanized, centaur, what have you, it’s a no-go.
Images uploaded before now will be largely unaffected; if something went by unnoticed and gets reported we may still act on it, but the assumption is that if it’s already on the site, it’ll stay on the site.
We won’t be allowing image uploads or comments complaining about this rule change; we have forums for discussion, and those that really want easy access to this sort of content may find it hosted on other sites, just not here.
Now for the FAQ:
1. Why?
The site is hosted in France and Germany. Between the two, the laws on underage sexual content is very strict in terms of the penalties they apply for violating them (those including prison, fines, confiscation of all electronic goods and services, and public branding as a child porn distributor/producer/predator).
They are however extremely unclear on what they define as underage sexual content, and very vague on who it applies to. There’s no distinction between real images (ie. photos of real people) and fantasy images (ie. sketches of anime catgirls), or this distinction has been ignored in practice in favour of convictions. There’s also no definition of what a “person” is; the laws don’t give us a checklist of physical features that need to be present to consider a character to be covered by the law or not.
In essence, these kind of images, “anthro foalcon”, are a massive risk to host.
2. Why now?
It’s been five years of us making clear that these images are troublesome, of explaining multiple times a day to multiple people why we deleted this or that image, of spending hours look at these images and discussing whether they’re safe to host or not. In those five years there’s been absolutely no decrease in this, in the not-safe images being uploaded, in explaining why, in the heated arguments that go nowhere, in the time spent moderating it all. Lately this has actually increased, with more than a few people, uploaders and artists, intentionally pushing the line, and more people in comments or elsewhere arguing about the topic.
Trying to chisel the rule into something “perfect” is impossible due to what I already covered above, and given the situation isn’t getting any better, the risk is increasing, and it’s taking more of our time, we’re making as clear a standard for what’s not acceptable as possible and closing the topic.
3. Will this change?
At present, unlikely. We use the host we use because they have good hardware, good service, amazing bandwidth policy, and low cost. We have spent a lot of time over the years looking for alternative hosts, for various reasons, and been unsuccessful. “This or that US state doesn’t have laws against it” may be true, but they also charge ten times more for the bandwidth we need.
People have often mentioned other sites hosting this sort of content without issue. I’m happy for them. In my experience they’re either significantly smaller and not subject to our requirements, are funded by porn ad networks (which, for a lot of reasons, we won’t use here), and/or are really crossing their fingers on not getting caught, either by their host or the law (ever wonder why some image sites just vanish?).
If someone can find us a host that could support our requirements at a cost we can handle in a jurisdiction with better laws, we may consider it. Until then, no.
4. My freedom of speech!
Just because I know someone will want to bring it up, none of that applies here. Disregarding that we’re all in different countries and all that, “Freedom of Speech” applies to the government censoring you, not to your right to use private services as you wish. This is a privately owned and operate website, not the US government; you’re as free to upload content against this site’s rules as you are to post 3 hours of hardcore porn on Youtube. Meaning you’ll get banned, the content removed, and the government will not have had anything to do with it.
The second part of this is that we’re not changing / applying this rule out of moral reasons. We don’t believe in thought crimes, and we’re perfectly aware of the difference between fantasy and reality. Unfortunately that doesn’t serve as a defense in court.
Administrator
13 blinks per minute
The following has been added to Rule #5:
Images featuring anthropomorphic characters (characters who combine both human and nonhuman features) in sexual situations who appear to be under the age of 18 are no longer allowed to be uploaded as of September 2, 2016. Images uploaded prior to this date that had a significantly nonhuman appearance are grandfathered in under a previous revision of these rules, and therefore will not necessarily be removed.
If that’s not clear, it means any new images featuring seemingly underage characters sexualized or in sexual situations that aren’t “fully pony” will be deleted. Anthro, semi-anthro, satyr, eqg, humanized, centaur, what have you, it’s a no-go.
Images uploaded before now will be largely unaffected; if something went by unnoticed and gets reported we may still act on it, but the assumption is that if it’s already on the site, it’ll stay on the site.
We won’t be allowing image uploads or comments complaining about this rule change; we have forums for discussion, and those that really want easy access to this sort of content may find it hosted on other sites, just not here.
Now for the FAQ:
1. Why?
The site is hosted in France and Germany. Between the two, the laws on underage sexual content is very strict in terms of the penalties they apply for violating them (those including prison, fines, confiscation of all electronic goods and services, and public branding as a child porn distributor/producer/predator).
They are however extremely unclear on what they define as underage sexual content, and very vague on who it applies to. There’s no distinction between real images (ie. photos of real people) and fantasy images (ie. sketches of anime catgirls), or this distinction has been ignored in practice in favour of convictions. There’s also no definition of what a “person” is; the laws don’t give us a checklist of physical features that need to be present to consider a character to be covered by the law or not.
In essence, these kind of images, “anthro foalcon”, are a massive risk to host.
2. Why now?
It’s been five years of us making clear that these images are troublesome, of explaining multiple times a day to multiple people why we deleted this or that image, of spending hours look at these images and discussing whether they’re safe to host or not. In those five years there’s been absolutely no decrease in this, in the not-safe images being uploaded, in explaining why, in the heated arguments that go nowhere, in the time spent moderating it all. Lately this has actually increased, with more than a few people, uploaders and artists, intentionally pushing the line, and more people in comments or elsewhere arguing about the topic.
Trying to chisel the rule into something “perfect” is impossible due to what I already covered above, and given the situation isn’t getting any better, the risk is increasing, and it’s taking more of our time, we’re making as clear a standard for what’s not acceptable as possible and closing the topic.
3. Will this change?
At present, unlikely. We use the host we use because they have good hardware, good service, amazing bandwidth policy, and low cost. We have spent a lot of time over the years looking for alternative hosts, for various reasons, and been unsuccessful. “This or that US state doesn’t have laws against it” may be true, but they also charge ten times more for the bandwidth we need.
People have often mentioned other sites hosting this sort of content without issue. I’m happy for them. In my experience they’re either significantly smaller and not subject to our requirements, are funded by porn ad networks (which, for a lot of reasons, we won’t use here), and/or are really crossing their fingers on not getting caught, either by their host or the law (ever wonder why some image sites just vanish?).
If someone can find us a host that could support our requirements at a cost we can handle in a jurisdiction with better laws, we may consider it. Until then, no.
4. My freedom of speech!
Just because I know someone will want to bring it up, none of that applies here. Disregarding that we’re all in different countries and all that, “Freedom of Speech” applies to the government censoring you, not to your right to use private services as you wish. This is a privately owned and operate website, not the US government; you’re as free to upload content against this site’s rules as you are to post 3 hours of hardcore porn on Youtube. Meaning you’ll get banned, the content removed, and the government will not have had anything to do with it.
The second part of this is that we’re not changing / applying this rule out of moral reasons. We don’t believe in thought crimes, and we’re perfectly aware of the difference between fantasy and reality. Unfortunately that doesn’t serve as a defense in court.
