Critique of FA’s New Upload Policy

This has probably already been discussed to death, but I want to make good and sure to drive it fully into the ground. I’m good at discussing things to death multiple times. So I’m going to take this issue apart and yell at every piece of it.

I’m not sure what specifically led to this change, but on Oct. 22, 2024, FurAffinity changed section 2.7 of their upload policy. This is the section involving content involving minors, meaning contributions featuring underage characters. Needless to say, as this section affects ABDL/babyfur artists and viewers, the ABDL/babyfur community was in an uproar about this change, especially as it followed directly on the heels of a round of artwork being taken down and accounts being banned for violating the previous policy. Reports were all over social media from artists who found their artwork taken down or their accounts locked despite not actually being in violation, some of whom remain locked out to this day. Users including content creators have been publicly announcing their departure from FA and their making other arrangements for displaying their content and taking commissions. Many are mourning the loss of what they had thought was their home, where they had once found acceptance and made friends, but which now seems like hostile territory.

It recently surfaced that there had been a wave of mass reports on FA, where a small number of anti-ABDL users (one user is known, as they have also created a dox list and attacked a con, though they may have had help) were reporting every ABDL/babyfur submission they could find even the most threadbare excuse for reporting. FA’s moderators had rejected some of the reports, but taken action on others, with nothing approaching a consistent interpretation of the policy. The community was already in an uproar because of this, and then FA decided to “clarify” the policy, although whether the new policy had already been in the works or was in response to these events isn’t fully clear. This is what they somehow came up with, quoted verbatim from the Oct. 22 announcement.

The New Policy

Upload Policy, Section 2.7 – Content Involving Minors

Content featuring minors is not allowed when the minor is in Mature or Adult content outlined by our Content Guidelines (Section 1.1) nor the presence of sexual activity, sexual objects, sexual language, adult themes, nudity, fetish or kink content, or other prohibited content (examples detailed below); however, exceptions may be made for non-sexual depictions of birth and breastfeeding.

Definitions:

• Presence is defined as directly being in or the implication of being in the same scene, such as sharing a comic panel, contiguous image, reference sheet, or specific section of a story where characters are engaging each other.
• Minors are defined as real or fictional humanoids, animals, or fantasy creatures with a childlike body, the consciousness of a child, or younger than 18 years of age.
• Fetish is defined as a specific sexual fixation (objects, body parts, activities).
• Kink is defined as uncommon sexual activities.

Enforcement of this section is done on a case-by-case basis and upon the totality of the content being reviewed, including the upload, submission description, tags, artist/uploader’s comments, profile page, intent, style, and more.

Minors are also not allowed in the following content:

• Genital Bulges. Minors may not have detailed bulges or outlines of normal or hyper genitalia, clothed or otherwise.
• Pregnancy. Minors may not be depicted as pregnant.
• Messy Diapers. Minors may not be shown wearing messy (depicted as brown, yellow, leaky, lumpy with excrement, visible wetness/soiled indicator, etc.) diapers. This does not apply to big or puffy clean diapers.
• Restroom Activity. Minors may not be depicted relieving themselves or in content focused on them using the restroom.
• Body Part Emphasis. The focus (e.g. zoomed in, primary part of the content) of the content may not be on specific body parts of a minor, such as their feet, groin, butts, clothed or otherwise. This does not apply to content where the focus on these parts is coincidental.
• Regression. Characters that have been regressed to being minors, physically or mentally, may not be depicted breastfeeding, being born/unbirthed, or having their diapers changed.

My Critique

First of all, just from a practical standpoint and excluding my feelings on the matter, I have absolutely no problem with banning content depicting minors in unambiguously sexual situations, as that is CP and illegal in most jurisdictions in the world. I can understand banning depictions of nudity in minors to keep the site safe from legal accusations of hosting CP, even though some such depictions could have innocent intent. I am against CP personally, but more than that, it can get the entire site in legal hot water. I must also acknowledge that some images posted to FA are photographs rather than artwork, and the policy has to apply to those as well.

However, keep in mind that the community is already in an uproar about the previous policy’s being applied inconsistently by FA’s moderators, which is evidence that some of them are biased against ABDL/babyfur content. Anti-ABDL people demonstrably exist; I cite the mass reporter already mentioned, who has been poring over FA’s archives for days, weeks or months looking for posts to report because of their hatred for ABDLs. Moderators have leeway to harass ABDLs/babyfurs because the policy’s language is vague, and therefore at the very least every effort should be made to remove vague language, not to increase rogue moderators’ leeway to harass and ban at will. FA could further show its goodwill toward the babyfur/ABDL community by removing those biased moderators.

But let’s go through this piece by piece, shall we?

“Content featuring minors is not allowed when the minor is in Mature or Adult content outlined by our Content Guidelines (Section 1.1) …”: To discuss this I would need to refer to Section 1.1. This says that content is considered Mature if it involves

• profane language
• nudity (even artistic or educational partial nudity)
• sexual situations (including implied sex acts, light or comedic references to fetishes, mild sexual situations or discussions)
• violence (even “content that may be disturbing or repulsive to sensitive users”)
• blood or bodily wastes (even if not excessive and not sexual)
• drug use against the user’s will (even if not sexual in nature)

I’m not going through the criteria for Adult content, as that goes beyond Mature. In other words, this language by itself already forbids a lot of what is mentioned later, so why mention it again? Because of this, this policy is highly redundant.

“… nor the presence of sexual activity, sexual objects, sexual language, adult themes, nudity, fetish or kink content …”: Sexual activity, sexual objects, sexual language, nudity, and fetish content were just covered, so this is all redundant. “Adult themes” is vague and undefined (it is not defined anywhere in the upload policy), and anything vague can be used by biased anti-ABDL moderators to harass users, which is exactly what the community has been accusing some of FA’s moderators of doing. “Kink” has not been mentioned but will be defined shortly.

“… or other prohibited content (examples detailed below)”: I will deal with the “other prohibited content” when we get there, but I will note that “examples detailed below” implies that the list of other prohibited content is only a list of examples and is therefore incomplete, so this is therefore vague language.

“… however, exceptions may be made for non-sexual depictions of birth and breastfeeding.”: This states that exceptions “may” be made and not that these are actually exceptions. Again, this leaves things up to the opinions of moderators. Why not state that these are actually exceptions? This is obviously a deliberate loophole left for moderators, and rogue moderators will exploit it.

And now for some definitions.

“Presence is defined as directly being in or the implication of being in the same scene, such as sharing a comic panel, contiguous image, reference sheet, or specific section of a story where characters are engaging each other.”: This term did just appear, and it doesn’t appear in Section 1.1, so it does legitimately need a definition. An underage character being depicted in the same scene as sexual activity would be covered by this definition. I have no problem with this part. However, it then goes on to give examples, and any time you do that you imply that the list is not exhaustive. Examples should not be part of a policy. This is also ambiguously worded. Does the phrase “where characters are engaging each other” apply to “comic panel, contiguous image, reference sheet, or specific section of a story,” or does it only apply to “specific section of a story?” Because, grammatically, as written it means only the latter.

“Minors are defined as real or fictional humanoids, animals, or fantasy creatures with a childlike body, the consciousness of a child, or younger than 18 years of age.”: Although I understand the intent behind mentioning “real or fictional humanoids,” as photographs of real people can be posted to FA, is that truly necessary? Likewise with animals or fantasy creatures with a childlike body – one could just say “any person or character who appears to be younger than 18 years of age.” The test is and must be whether an average member of a jury in a courtroom would look at the subject and see a minor. Some Pokémon are cute and childlike even as adults, and fans of that genre know that, but we’re not talking about them; we’re talking about whether the photo or artwork, taken out of context, could be shown to a juror and used as evidence of CP in a courtroom.

And then there’s the “consciousness of a child” phrase. This is absolutely fraught with vagueness. We may be talking about some sort of mental age regression, or we may be talking about the mentally disabled, but is there a hard and fast way to determine such a status from an image, especially one taken out of context? Are we instead talking about the ability to consent? Although consent is important, I will note that the word “consent” doesn’t even appear once in FA’s entire upload policy – and once again, we’re considering the possibility of an image taken out of context and examined by itself. A textual description, on the other hand, could have more context, but even in such a case this is vague. I believe the intent here may be to ban fictional situations where a child is age-progressed or body-swapped into an adult body and then subjected to a sexual situation of some kind, but that would need to be mentioned specifically or simply not mentioned, as it’s very much a gray area whether such a case would be legally considered a child or an adult (as such situations cannot happen in reality). If instead the intent is to ban content in which a mentally-disabled adult with a childlike mentality is placed in a sexual situation (which can happen in reality), the law would consider it rape or sexual assault, but it wouldn’t consider depictions of it to be CP.

“Fetish is defined as a specific sexual fixation (objects, body parts, activities).” This is factually incorrect. A fetish can only be a fixation on an object or body part. There is no such thing as a “fetish” for a situation or activity; that would be something other than a fetish.

“Kink is defined as uncommon sexual activities.” The word “uncommon” makes this definition so vague as to be meaningless. What is common in one community, society, or culture can be uncommon in another. I would suggest not using the term “kink” at all, as it’s notoriously hard to define.

“Enforcement of this section is done on a case-by-case basis and upon the totality of the content being reviewed, including the upload, submission description, tags, artist/uploader’s comments, profile page, intent, style, and more.”: This sounds as if it allows the artist/uploader the benefit of the doubt, but upon examination it really allows the moderator to do whatever they want. It tells moderators that they may consider the artist/uploader’s “intent” (ultimately, how can that be judged without reading the uploader’s mind somehow?) and “style” (a subjective judgment that cannot be made less vague), as well as the ever-popular “and more,” which is as vague as one can get.

“Minors are also not allowed in the following content:” This begins what is presumably (though this is not clearly stated) the list of “examples detailed below” that were mentioned earlier.

“Genital Bulges. Minors may not have detailed bulges or outlines of normal or hyper genitalia, clothed or otherwise.”: Why mention “hyper genitalia” at all when one could just mention “genitalia?” “And why is this not already covered by the ban on nudity from the first part of the first sentence? Why does this need to be here? “Otherwise” is already covered by the ban on nudity, so that is redundant. Therefore what this is really about is visible outlines of genitalia (of any size) under clothing. Why not simply say that?

“Pregnancy. Minors may not be depicted as pregnant.”: I’m not sure of the impetus behind this ban, but I can think of these situations:

• A person/character with an adult body but with the aforementioned “consciousness of a child” being depicted as pregnant (as that has been included in the definition of a minor) – see my above objections to that phrase
• A person/character past the age of puberty but who is still not an adult being depicted as pregnant – teen pregnancies happen in real life, though I don’t see why this requires a ban, as this doesn’t imply that any nudity or sexual acts are depicted
• A person/character who appears to be below the age of puberty but isn’t, depicted as pregnant – I would think that anyone seeing such a depiction would simply assume they were at least past puberty, just small, as otherwise pregnancy would be impossible – see underage pregnancy above
• A person/character who actually is prepubescent and yet somehow pregnant – this would have to be some kind of imaginary/fantastic scenario, as this is normally impossible, but still, if there is no depicted nudity or sexual situation, why does this require a ban?

“Messy Diapers. Minors may not be shown wearing messy (depicted as brown, yellow, leaky, lumpy with excrement, visible wetness/soiled indicator, etc.) diapers. This does not apply to big or puffy clean diapers.”: Some may look at this and say “gross,” and some may look at it and say “hey,” but how many things is that true of in furry art? That’s not justification for a ban. Minors in diapers wet and mess them in real life; in some cases this is a realistic depiction. Where it isn’t realistic (wet and messy diapers aren’t often immediately obvious to look at, but for emphasis some artists draw them visibly distended or discolored, and then there are the hugely exaggerated diapers sometimes seen), is even that justification for a ban? Although in such cases diapers are shown as discolored, the actual bodily wastes aren’t visible, so it doesn’t run afoul of the ban on minors in those situations. It is unclear why minors shown in diapers must always be shown in clean diapers. Banning this categorically makes as much sense as banning minors shown wearing bibs with food stains on them or carrying visibly chewed toys.

“Restroom Activity. Minors may not be depicted relieving themselves or in content focused on them using the restroom.”: If one removes what is already covered by the existing bans on nudity and bodily wastes in conjunction with minors, what is left of this more specific ban? Nothing, that’s what; this is completely redundant.

“Body Part Emphasis. The focus (e.g. zoomed in, primary part of the content) of the content may not be on specific body parts of a minor, such as their feet, groin, butts, clothed or otherwise. This does not apply to content where the focus on these parts is coincidental.”: This is so ridiculously vague as to be inapplicable. Are we saying that art is banned if it focuses on a minor’s hair? On their left earlobe? Who is to determine whether such focus is “coincidental?” Once again this vagueness opens the door to abuse of the policy by a biased moderator.

“Regression. Characters that have been regressed to being minors, physically or mentally, may not be depicted breastfeeding, being born/unbirthed, or having their diapers changed.”: This unprecedented “example” is actually an entirely new rule that opens several entirely new cans of worms. These situations cannot happen in reality, so no photographs can be banned under this rule; only artwork and textual work can be. And in some cases this is redundant. In images, characters who have been physically regressed to minors are visually indistinguishable from actual minors when taken out of context and therefore would run afoul of other policy rules. And as mentioned before, an adult character who has been “mentally regressed to being a minor” would be visually indistinguishable from a non-regressed adult character in most out-of-context cases. The aforementioned possible exception against breastfeeding and childbirth is here arbitrarily rescinded in the case of an adult character who has been age-regressed, as if there would be some visual distinction between the two cases. We’re now mentioning unbirthing scenarios, which are apparently OK for actual minor characters as they aren’t mentioned anywhere else, but now they’re arbitrarily banned only for regressed characters. And then there are diaper changes. Apparently it’s OK to show those for ordinary minor characters as long as no nudity occurs and no bodily wastes are shown, but even with no nudity that isn’t OK for regressed characters.

And to add even more vagueness, is a “character that (sic) ha[s] been regressed to being [a] minor” now a minor, as defined above? If so, why not just use the rules that already apply to minors? If not, how can one say that they have been regressed to a minor? The arbitrariness, illogic, and vagueness of this “example” militates for its complete reworking, or, better, deletion. What purpose does this “example” serve?

FA Has Lost Its Way

Some of these rules seem reasonable in order to protect FA from legal action. Some are redundant. Some seem arbitrary and have no justification. And much is left meaninglessly vague. But also unclear is what precisely FA’s goals are here. What are FA’s intentions regarding babyfur artists and the babyfur/ABDL community? In the announcement of this policy on Oct. 22, FA states that it still welcomes the babyfur/ABDL community. But this policy changes so much and seems to knuckle under so completely to bigots like the mass reporter that such nonspecific welcoming statements seem like empty words.

If FA’s goal in amending its policy was to clarify, they have obviously failed completely at that. But what are FA’s goals in its upload policy in general? Those goals should extend to this section of the policy. But it’s difficult for me to propose any specific changes I’d like to see, because it’s unclear what their goals are. What is the overall guiding principle governing what content is to be allowed and what is not? FA badly needs to revise this policy again, but before they do, they need to make a decision about what guiding principle to follow and stick to it.

But more than that, they need to decide whom they are revising it for. Are there members of FA’s administrative staff who are made uncomfortable by certain babyfur content, and are they writing a policy to appease that person or people? Are they revising the policy with the overall legal protection of FA in mind? Or are they revising it so FA can better serve its users, the people without whom it would have no reason to exist? FA must decide. And then it must act, and soon.

Because creators are leaving, and without creators, FA dies. It may already be too late. I’ve talked to several creators who have left FA bitterly and will never return no matter what the site does. I’ve talked to others who have some very specific ideas of what FA would have to do to get them to come back, or to prevent them from leaving, for those still making plans. Meanwhile FA seems to be silently trying to “let it all blow over,” assuming that things will be fine after this extreme change. If FA doesn’t want to become known as “what used to be the world’s biggest furry website, but babyfurs aren’t allowed there anymore, so who knows who they’ll kick out next?” they had better do something.