Topic: Will a free speech crackdown force e621 perform a "Political Purge"?

With the current US administration's crackdown on free speech since the murder of you-know-who,
will the site purge posts that featured the current US president just like they did with young humans?

Like a lot of people, I am not enjoying all the bad that's happening in the US especially since I'm a registered
Democrat and haven't voted for the current president ONCE. I don't support or cheer on unwell gun owners whether their assassination attempts were successful or not or
their their targets are conservative or not. I always fear that things will get worse before they get better,
but I'm not giving up hope. I'm still waiting for the day where a lot of the bad that's happening in the States will go into a screeching halt.
But I'm still worried about the future of porn and free speech and now it feels like it's not safe to publicly criticize what certain people did that's bad anymore.

Please NO political vents or rants or this thread will get locked.

As it currently stands, the existence of any particular political figure in an artwork would not be outright deleted unless it has been deemed unfit for the purpose of the site by one of the conditions below.

• Artworks that depict recent tragedies would be deleted immediately, see Posting Abuse.
• Artworks that depict extreme ideologies would also be deleted, see National, Racial, or Ethnic Hatred.
• Some political artworks, otherwise not specified, can also be deleted under the discretion of the administration.

Thus, there is no reason to self-censor or purge existing posts at the moment.
However, if the conditions were to line up similarly with how the other purge happened, it would be possible for that to happen again for politically-sensitive artworks.

As soon as I heard the news, i was like ... god dammit. Now i'm gonna get put on a list because I like looking at minotaur cock.

I wouldnt be surprised if furries are labeled as a "cult" or something inflammatory and then become a political punching bag. Like, probably some BS anti-furry bills that never pass but make the opposition look crazy for defending "the animal sex people."

We live in such a stupid timeline.

brokenclock said:
As soon as I heard the news, i was like ... god dammit. Now i'm gonna get put on a list because I like looking at minotaur cock.

I wouldnt be surprised if furries are labeled as a "cult" or something inflammatory and then become a political punching bag. Like, probably some BS anti-furry bills that never pass but make the opposition look crazy for defending "the animal sex people."

We live in such a stupid timeline.

I'm tired of living in interesting times.

Free speech doesn't actually exist on the internet. While it (usually) doesn't have real-life, physical repercussions, you can absolutely be banned anywhere for any reason online.

bird-tm said:
Free speech doesn't actually exist on the internet. While it (usually) doesn't have real-life, physical repercussions, you can absolutely be banned anywhere for any reason online.

...free speech is only about the government not being able to lock you up for just saying something, not about preventing a private business from deciding that they do not want service from you in particular, which they can decide for literally any reason because it is a private business

flaminhotcheatoes said:
With the current US administration's crackdown on free speech since the murder of you-know-who,
will the site purge posts that featured the current US president just like they did with young humans?

Like a lot of people, I am not enjoying all the bad that's happening in the US especially since I'm a registered
Democrat and haven't voted for the current president ONCE. I don't support or cheer on unwell gun owners whether their assassination attempts were successful or not or
their their targets are conservative or not. I always fear that things will get worse before they get better,
but I'm not giving up hope. I'm still waiting for the day where a lot of the bad that's happening in the States will go into a screeching halt.
But I'm still worried about the future of porn and free speech and now it feels like it's not safe to publicly criticize what certain people did that's bad anymore.

Please NO political vents or rants or this thread will get locked.

Just to throw in my two cents. I don't think it's gonna be that dramatic. It'll be something where people will need to be a bit careful with what they say. Say he wasn't that good a person all you want, just don't go making claims of him being a fascist or the like. But after a few weeks, maybe a few months at the most, things will blow over enough to where so long as you're not outright cheering on the shooter or calling for more violence the worst you can expect is a warning from your job and a slap on the wrist from whatever social media site you posted on.

brokenclock said:
As soon as I heard the news, i was like ... god dammit. Now i'm gonna get put on a list because I like looking at minotaur cock.

I wouldnt be surprised if furries are labeled as a "cult" or something inflammatory and then become a political punching bag. Like, probably some BS anti-furry bills that never pass but make the opposition look crazy for defending "the animal sex people."

We live in such a stupid timeline.

I don't think that's likely going to happen. I'd honestly be surprised if the whole furry thing even become a footnote in the long run. I think we're more likely to see a return of the "Vidya games cause violence" debate than we are to see claims of "Furries are a terrorist cell."

What we're seeing right now is suppression of the press and attempts to take over higher education. E6 is neither the press or a college, so the site is unlikely to get targeted for that reason.

thegreatwolfgang said:
As it currently stands, the existence of any particular political figure in an artwork would not be outright deleted unless it has been deemed unfit for the purpose of the site by one of the conditions below.

• Artworks that depict recent tragedies would be deleted immediately, see Posting Abuse.
• Artworks that depict extreme ideologies would also be deleted, see National, Racial, or Ethnic Hatred.
• Some political artworks, otherwise not specified, can also be deleted under the discretion of the administration.

I still hold the opinion that extremist artwork should be equally enforced for any party, not just the ones staff personally side with.
That won't ever happen here unless forced by such theoretical purge, for reasons I won't discuss.

thiccfeline said:
...free speech is only about the government not being able to lock you up for just saying something, not about preventing a private business from deciding that they do not want service from you in particular, which they can decide for literally any reason because it is a private business

That is correct. It doesn't however preclude its importance as a concept to foster intelligent discussion.
Businesses may deny speech they don't want, but it will reflect on their reputation.

(Even then, governments will do whatever they want, a sheet of paper isn't going to stop them.)

brokenclock said:
As soon as I heard the news, i was like ... god dammit. Now i'm gonna get put on a list because I like looking at minotaur cock.

👍

eclipse_lunablade said:

I don't think that's likely going to happen. I'd honestly be surprised if the whole furry thing even become a footnote in the long run. I think we're more likely to see a return of the "Vidya games cause violence" debate than we are to see claims of "Furries are a terrorist cell."

Hell hath no furry like an infosec researcher scorned.

aversioncapacitor said:
I still hold the opinion that extremist artwork should be equally enforced for any party, not just the ones staff personally side with.
That won't ever happen here unless forced by such theoretical purge, for reasons I won't discuss.

We enforce this rule across the board, regardless of who posted it or what party it came from. It's not our fault if the majority of it comes from certain groups more than others.
We also enforce it for things that are unrelated to political posting and may even be popular memes, such as the titan submersible.

That is correct. It doesn't however preclude its importance as a concept to foster intelligent discussion.
Businesses may deny speech they don't want, but it will reflect on their reputation.

(Even then, governments will do whatever they want, a sheet of paper isn't going to stop them.)

👍

This is not entirely correct to say. In the US, you can't deny service to people on the grounds of a protected class. This includes things like race, color, ethnicity, etc and yes, this applies to private businesses.

Back on topic though, we have no interest in removing further content. The young human purge, as unfortunate as it was, was content that was already largely outside our area of interest. But to say we'd ban content for the sole reason of it being at odds with what fringe politicians think is 'unpure' is an entirely different mountain.

rainbow_dash said:

This is not entirely correct to say. In the US, you can't deny service to people on the grounds of a protected class. This includes things like race, color, ethnicity, etc and yes, this applies to private businesses.

While that is true, thoughts and speech isn't a protected class, and private businesses can deny service based on what someone says.

snpthecat said:
While that is true, thoughts and speech isn't a protected class, and private businesses can deny service based on what someone says.

Well, also it's hard to prove that illegal discrimination happened. Even when the discrimination is happening out in the open (lots of rent listings will break these laws and do so just openly on a public website) someone would have to challenge it. For a lot of people it is not worth the time and money.

rainbow_dash said:
We enforce this rule across the board, regardless of who posted it or what party it came from. It's not our fault if the majority of it comes from certain groups more than others.
We also enforce it for things that are unrelated to political posting and may even be popular memes, such as the titan submersible.

Shouldn't it be enforced for explicitly pro-MAP (pedophile_iconography) and pro-zoo (zoophile_iconography) content, too?

No, I'm NOT talking about cub or feral art here. I'm talking about art supporting ideologies/movements which promote harmful REAL-WORLD conduct, transcending the realm of "mere fiction".

kadachi-kun said:
Shouldn't it be enforced for explicitly pro-MAP (pedophile_iconography) and pro-zoo (zoophile_iconography) content, too?

Depiction of iconography, on its own, isn't "extremist artwork" that warrants removal. Just as depictions of swastikas isn't extremist artwork that warrants removal for being pro-nazi. If it was expressly encouraging people to do it in real life, that would be something to check, but showing iconography not in a negative light in a fictional image isn't that.

kadachi-kun said:
Shouldn't it be enforced for explicitly pro-MAP (pedophile_iconography) and pro-zoo (zoophile_iconography) content, too?

No, I'm NOT talking about cub or feral art here. I'm talking about art supporting ideologies/movements which promote harmful REAL-WORLD conduct, transcending the realm of "mere fiction".

Any content that explicitly promotes real-life abuse already gets deleted under the Extreme Activities or Content rule.

On another note, the mere depiction of the colours themselves within artworks does not warrant immediate deletion and everything is gauged on artistic merit and message intent.

watsit said:
Depiction of iconography, on its own, isn't "extremist artwork" that warrants removal. Just as depictions of swastikas isn't extremist artwork that warrants removal for being pro-nazi.

thegreatwolfgang said:
...everything is gauged on artistic merit and message intent.

In that case, I'd like a clarification for the reasoning behind this decision:
averi_(fiddleafox)

Art featuring Averi is considered Avoid Posting, due to the character's adoption as a racist symbol by trolls.

Note that this decision was made without any sort of community consultation (to the best of my knowledge).

kadachi-kun said:
In that case, I'd like a clarification for the reasoning behind this decision:
averi_(fiddleafox)
Note that this decision was made without any sort of community consultation (to the best of my knowledge).

To be honest, this is the first time I'm seeing a character tag being implied to conditional_dnp (not exactly avoid_posting), with the exception of a copyright tag to a certain bear.

From the looks of it, the artist fiddleafox may have requested for their character to be DNP due to the reason mentioned, see implication #64499.

EDIT: Looks like it was banned by admin discretion, not by the artist. A simple Google search of the owner/character can give you some hints.

thegreatwolfgang said:
EDIT: Looks like it was banned by admin discretion, not by the artist. A simple Google search can give you some hints.

Yes, I know about the fiddleafox case, thank you very much.
This was still an entirely arbitrary decision by the staff - one which is in conflict with the "iconography isn't inherently problematic" clause.

kadachi-kun said:
Yes, I know about the fiddleafox case, thank you very much.
This was still an entirely arbitrary decision by the staff - one which is in conflict with the "iconography isn't inherently problematic" clause.

I mean, it's the OC (arguably 'sona) of an artist that has been MIA for the past 4 years. I feel like it's a safe place to stand that she wouldn't have wanted her character's legacy to be... that.

it's not a removal of the imagery it's the removal of the imagery in relation to a person who literally cannot consent.

dba_afish said:
I mean, it's the OC (arguably 'sona) of an artist that has been MIA for the past 4 years. I feel like it's a safe place to stand that she wouldn't have wanted her character's legacy to be... that.

it's not a removal of the imagery it's the removal of the imagery in relation to a person who literally cannot consent.

I request official confirmation.
And if this is the case, the wiki page should be updated to mention that this was an exceptional decision done first and foremost out of courtesy for the artist.

kadachi-kun said:
Yes, I know about the fiddleafox case, thank you very much.
This was still an entirely arbitrary decision by the staff - one which is in conflict with the "iconography isn't inherently problematic" clause.

The administration retains the power to delete artworks at their own discretion, even if it doesn't break any of the rules mentioned.

Plus, I don't think this has anything to do with extreme content or ideologies.
None of the artist's actual works were actually purged due to their bad behaviour, see averi_(fiddleafox) status:any.

If I were to guess, this is simply a case of limiting the amount of low-quality shitposts featuring the character from flooding the site, since most of the works were deleted under the reason "Does not meet minimum quality standards (Artistic)" before the CDNP came into place.
Though we wouldn't really know the actual reason until a staff member clarifies the situation.

thegreatwolfgang said:
The administration retains the power to delete artworks at their own discretion, even if it doesn't break any of the rules mentioned.

Doing this without transparency doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

I think this thread has run its course and is now off topic.