Look, I need to vent about the absolute mental gymnastics going on with the recent bans on certain feral art (like Eevee). The justification being thrown around by the mods makes zero sense when you actually look at what this site is.

We are talking about a platform that explicitly allows feral yiff: quadrupedal, fictional, fantasy creatures. But suddenly, mods are trying to map real-world legal and moral frameworks onto fictional pixels, and it's creating a massive double standard.

According to the mod statement, adding a human facial expression magically separates feral art from zoophilia, but then they turn around and say "young is young, no exception" for these exact same fictional animals. How does that logic even work?

An Eevee is a fictional Pokémon. It doesn't have a human lifespan, human developmental stages, or a real-world legal age. Applying the concept of "childhood" or "age of consent" to a quadrupedal fantasy creature is completely arbitrary. Who decides when a fictional fox-thing looks "too young" versus when it's "adult"? Is a Pichu automatically banned, but a Pikachu is fine? Is an Eevee a child until it touches a Fire Stone?

It's completely hypocritical to allow explicit content of quadrupedal creatures, but then draw a random, highly subjective line based purely on a moderator's personal vibe check of how "young" a fictional animal looks.

If the site is going to allow feral fantasy art, it needs to accept that it's all fictional fantasy art. Trying to retroactively apply real-world purity testing to specific Pokémon just feels like arbitrary censorship based on personal morality, not logical rules.

Not because a fictional creature exist that by default it can't be considered young.
A lot of pokemon design are very close to look like real young animal.

If you can make the difference between a puppy and a full grown up dog, that same can sort of be applied to fictional creature as well.

It can for sure be a little frustrating that there is indeed no way to have a perfect rule to clarify that.
Because, it would be impossible to do for the thousands of fictional creature our there. So, yes it is in a way partially a vibe check. There is no way around it.

And, it has nothing to do about personal morality, e6ai does not allow young in explicit context, and this apply to feral as well. It would not accept an image of a puppy having sex, so it will also not allow creature that seems to look like a puppy having sex as well.

That said, as for my own personal opinion, I do also mostly see that a fictional feral creature, should be fine no matter what. Except when the image include element that obviously indicate that the fictional feral creature is young (like, showing it was born from an egg recently, or maybe huge size diff of the same species, etc).

But, e6ai at the moment is more on the safe side of thing in regard to possible young in explicit content, and I can't fault them for it.

Hi Oni-Brian, thanks for reaching out,

oni-brian said:
We are talking about a platform that explicitly allows feral yiff: quadrupedal, fictional, fantasy creatures.

This site is nothing more than a big curated art gallery. Some content is accepted, some content isn't. That's really simple: feral content is allowed; suggestive young/cub content is not.

oni-brian said:
But suddenly, mods are trying to map real-world legal and moral frameworks onto fictional pixels, and it's creating a massive double standard.

That's because the website doesn't work in a vacuum, it's better explained by notmenotyou, one of the highest admins (if not the big boss himself, I'm not sure), on e621

TLDR, even if it's not illegal in the USA, it's still problematic.

Oni-Brian, I think it's really essential that you consider this carefully:

It doesn't even matter what's legal or illegal, moral or immoral, or any other criteria but this:

If you do something unpopular enough with the general population of this planet, consequences will find you. The more you do that thing, the more prominently you do that thing, the more frequently you do that thing, the more likely and the faster it is those consequences will find you.

It doesn't take something being illegal or immoral for it to become existential to any business -- and this website is ultimately a business. It has to make enough money via advertising to operate, or it eventually goes away.

If something is unpopular enough, those consequences start to impact the bottom line.

You want a place to make whatever you want? Hey bud, that's what your own computer isolated from the internet is for. You want to put it online? Then you're either paying for it yourself and taking on the consequences yourself, or you're asking other people nicely to take that risk for you.

And now they're saying no.

That's it, that's all. Don't think the world isn't going to keep on changing. Don't imagine the consequences brewing won't get worse. They will.

Sometimes in societies new lines start getting drawn in the sand and the people who won't fall into line get state-sanctioned violence and incarceration applied to them... but they'll also face the consequences of public approbation, too. And those can be financially ruinous long before the law gets involved.

So, basically, what you all are saying is: "We personally feel disgusted by cub art, so we will ban it."

Glad that someone here is honest enough to not hide behind a fake sense of morality.

Also, Bahufaru, good speech, but the same problems with a business that come from cub art also affect feral art. Don't hide behind business consequences when the rest of the world feels disgusted to feral art regardless of how young or adult the character looks.

What the law says:

Child abuse laws — such as Canada's Section 163.1 of the Criminal Code — specifically tie their definitions of illicit material to the depiction of a person (which the Supreme Court of Canada clarified in R v. Sharpe includes both real and imaginary human beings/humanoid characters). Feral art (characters that are anatomically quadrupedal animals without human physical characteristics) does not legally fall under the definition of a "person", meaning laws regulating child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or virtual CSAM do not apply to it.

Payment Processor Policies:

Mainstream payment processors (like Stripe, PayPal, and major credit card networks) operate on automated risk management and strict category-wide bans rather than evaluating the specific fictional age or context of an animal character. Their terms of service uniformly prohibit explicit content involving animals (bestiality/zoophilia), and their risk engines treat any feral explicit art as a policy violation. They do not differentiate whether the feral character is presented as young or adult — the entire category is rejected flat-out due to financial risk, chargeback rates, and standard acceptable use policies.

Well, for my part, I was mostly talking about how e6ai view/restrict young for feral.

Since, I personally don't mind people liking underage/cub/gore/etc.
As long as you don't plan to harm someone / an animal in real life for it, like what you want.

But, the choice to ban young feral was made by those who own the website.
And, they own the website, they decide how much risk they want to take.
It is safer for them to not allow it, it is less possible problems.

There are other website that allow young feral/AI young feral, e6ai is just not willing to allow that at the moment, if ever.

You all claim that you're drawing this line to mitigate "risk", but you're treating the general public like a scalpel when it's actually a sledgehammer. To the "normal" outside world, explicit furry art (especially feral art) is entirely radioactive. The general public, media, and corporations don't care about the difference between a Pikachu and a Pichu. They see the entire category as taboo and reject it outright.

Acting like if banning the "young" feral art protects this site from external risk is just a comforting lie you're telling yourselves. The actual risks to this site (like losing domain registrars, server hosting, or DDoS protection) come entirely from hosting explicit feral content, not from how old the character looks.

Let's be real: this ban is an internal, subjective decision driven by the staff's own boundaries, personal disgust, and the community's "vibe check". But instead of owning that and just saying, "We run the site, and we personally draw the line at what looks like a young animal to us", you're externalizing the blame. You're projecting it onto "laws" that don't apply to feral characters, or "business risks" that already apply to the adult-looking ones.

If you all genuinely believe that drawing a line at "young" feral art will somehow pave the way for general society to accept "adult" feral art, you are completely detached from how the real world actually works.

General society's rejection of feral art isn't a minor misunderstanding that can be smoothed over with incremental compromises. It's rooted in deeply ingrained, foundational human taboos around bestiality. The general public doesn't view explicit feral content as a progressive spectrum where "adult" eventually becomes okay; they view the entire concept as a hard stop.

Pretending you all are defending a defensible position is just a massive coping mechanism. You all are trying to create an internal hierarchy so you can point to a more taboo group and say, "See? We aren't like them, we draw the line at the young stuff, so we're the reasonable ones". You think respectability politics will save you, but you fail to realize that to the outside world, you are in the exact same bucket. A corporate ad network or a standard internet user isn't going to look at explicit art of an adult Eevee and think, "Ah, yes, this is mature and acceptable". They're going to react with the exact same disgust.

Believing that adult feral content will one day achieve general social acceptance is pure fantasy. Using that fantasy to justify arbitrary, subjective moderation rules while claiming it's "pragmatic business risk management" is peak hypocrisy. It's just an attempt to feel morally superior and safe on a ship that the rest of society already views as completely beyond the pale.

UPDATE:

As a way to amuse you all, I have checked what NotMeNotYou have said in his forum post (which ironically is called: [Rule Change] Explicit young human and human-like content is no longer allowed to be posted.) and these are his literal words:

NotMeNotYou said:
Due to challenges stemming from changes in the political and legal environment, both offline and online, we have had to adjust our content guidelines to preserve access to our site. As a result, any content featuring young human or humanoid characters in explicit situations is now prohibited and will be deleted.

He only mentions "young human or humanoid characters"; not cubs.

NotMeNotYou said:
Any submissions containing underage human or human-like characters involved in explicit sexual activities, or featuring those characters nude with visible genitalia and / or anus, are not allowed. "Human-like" means all humanoid fantasy races, especially ones that have more skin than fur, and either no or only very minor animal features, like tails, ears, claws, etc. This includes, but is not limited to, elves, orcs, vampires, dwarves, gnomes, "human but has a tail and animal ears", stylized humans like The Simpsons, and similar content.

Again "underage human or human-like characters"; not cubs.

NotMeNotYou said:
What exactly is now forbidden?
Young humans and anything that looks vaguely like a young human in NSFW contexts. This includes plain humans, stylized humans like cartoon characters (The Simpsons, etc), elves, orcs, vampires, zombies, kemonomimi, humans with a few glued on animal features (noses, tails, ears, whiskers, etc.), and similar content. Basically, if it mostly looks like a young human (even with stylistic or other small changes), it is no longer allowed.

Again "Young humans and anything that looks vaguely like a young human"; not cubs.

And here is the last nail in the coffin:

NotMeNotYou said:
What about cub / anthro?
Young anthro characters / cubs are unaffected by this change and are still allowed to be posted.

As you can see, NotMeNotYou never aimed at cubs. This is purely a personal choice of the moderators of e6AI.

oni-brian said:
You all claim that you're drawing this line to mitigate "risk", but you're treating the general public like a scalpel when it's actually a sledgehammer. To the "normal" outside world, explicit furry art (especially feral art) is entirely radioactive. The general public, media, and corporations don't care about the difference between a Pikachu and a Pichu. They see the entire category as taboo and reject it outright...

I agree with your general sentiment but here's the issue. None of it matters. Mods must follow the rules set by the owners, that's the end of it. Owners make the final choice on the matter however vague or illogical or whatever you might want to call it and given how this site is literally their property, it needs to be respected.

Putting that aside, it's neither the fault of the owners, the corpos, or the users. It's the general culture that developed on the internet the past 15-20 years, and you won't fix it on e6ai forums. It's what happens to any hobby or space when a big crowd gathers, be it the internet in general or smaller communities within it. If you haven't realized the pattern yet then you need more time to do so. But as someone who has, let me just tell you that it's not something that can be fixed, it's like trying to fight entropy, unscrumble an egg or unstir your coffee. It's just a natural progression of bigger communities. The only thing you can do is find a community for your niche and stick to it and hope it doesn't grow.

For your sake, stop wasting your energy here.

kiyoka said:
For your sake, stop wasting your energy here.

To be fair, Oni-Brian's update/edit seems pretty damning. I think NotMeNotYou might be higher than Jelloponies (site lead). That's not to say the administration under NMNY can't make their own changes since Bad Dragon trusts Jello with the direction of the site but from a quick glance search in the forums, it seems more like the young feral/anthro ban didn't have the same attention or announcement like NMNY's post. I'm on my phone and busy so I can't do a better more thorough search in case I missed something but yeah, this might require an admin's say because this does seem to conflict with what NMNY is saying and I'm not yet able to see how this other rule sprung up. It may have been decided in a guidelines update rather than having a dedicated post but I'm not too sure. This isn't my content of expertise to say the least, so I can't be of further help on this.

I'm pretty sure AI cubs will be banned just in case, because (model or lora) source material can be ~questionable~

No young characters has been a rule on this site since October 2022, set by NMNY, and long before any of the current site staff were ever even staff at all.

sergalbutt said:
No young characters has been a rule on this site since October 2022, set by NMNY, and long before any of the current site staff were ever even staff at all.

Well, there you go. Also, I see now that the forum post Oni-Brian is referring to is one from e621, not from here so that's not even technically a valid reference in the first place. Both sites operate differently regardless of the site owners being the same, so rulings over at e621 can't or won't always equate here. NMNY said that over there specifically in the context of e621's rules, not e6ai and that was never intended for e6ai.

I don't see how the e621 thread contradicts the position of e6ai on young content. Instead I see it more as the primary clue into understanding the decision to ban non-safe young content from the get go: it's shown itself to be a whole lot of trouble and capable of putting the entire site in jeopardy. Why risk it?
Non-safe young content might as well be radioactive when you consider all the containment measures e621 has taken so far to hide it from non-member visitors.

sergalbutt said:
No young characters has been a rule on this site since October 2022, set by NMNY, and long before any of the current site staff were ever even staff at all.

Sorry, but I don't see the name of NotMeNotYou in that page. Can you prove to me that he was the one who actually set that rule?

dfy6c said:
Well, there you go. Also, I see now that the forum post Oni-Brian is referring to is one from e621, not from here so that's not even technically a valid reference in the first place. Both sites operate differently regardless of the site owners being the same, so rulings over at e621 can't or won't always equate here. NMNY said that over there specifically in the context of e621's rules, not e6ai and that was never intended for e6ai.

Kaleth was the one who pointed me at that forum thread.

kaleth said:
That's because the website doesn't work in a vacuum, it's better explained by notmenotyou, one of the highest admins (if not the big boss himself, I'm not sure), on e621

He was the one who used the words of NotMeNotYou as a way to try to justify the ban of cubs.

drla said:
I don't see how the e621 thread contradicts the position of e6ai on young content. Instead I see it more as the primary clue into understanding the decision to ban non-safe young content from the get go: it's shown itself to be a whole lot of trouble and capable of putting the entire site in jeopardy. Why risk it?
Non-safe young content might as well be radioactive when you consider all the containment measures e621 has taken so far to hide it from non-member visitors.

I already explained how delusional is to believe that there is any difference between adult feral and young feral characters. Legally, financially, and socially, the rest of the world don't give a damn about the distinction. They all feel disgusted and reject anything that resembles bestiality anyway. That is the reality that you all keep deflecting.

Lastly, I want to say that my point is not to change the rules of the site, but to make you all admit that this is a subjective choice made by personal disgust. I'm just asking you all to stop hiding behind hypocrisy. That is all.

I'll say it for third time, there is nothing wrong with just saying: "We personally reject cub art, so we ban it."

oni-brian said:
Sorry, but I don't see the name of NotMeNotYou in that page. Can you prove to me that he was the one who actually set that rule?

Scroll to the bottom of this page
The initial changes to the guidelines at the launch of the site (the date and time of which can be seen on this page) were set by NMNY.

Umm, you feel very strongly about things, but it is not as simple.

oni-brian said:
I already explained how delusional is to believe that there is any difference between adult feral and young feral characters. Legally, financially, and socially, the rest of the world don't give a damn about the distinction. They all feel disgusted and reject anything that resembles bestiality anyway. That is the reality that you all keep deflecting.

Legally: In Canada (since you talked about Canada law), it is not guarantee that cub are always legal.
The 163.1 law indeed target human and not animal, but there is nothing possibly stopping you from being accused for it to just being obscene materials, the 163 law itself, not even the subsection 163.1.

Criminal code is a strong guideline, it is not always 100% exact, if someone is deemed too problematic, you could still be accused of something and it may or may not change the law because of it.

I don't know about you, but I was curious in the past and I took meeting with an actual lawyer (actually 2) to be more sure about some stuff, and got similar but not identical answers, it is not always as simple as the criminal code say "X", so not because something is not explicitly stated that it is for sure legal.

Good chance that, yes, cub is "fine" in Canada, but not an hard yes.
Also, e6ai is not from Canada, so it is pretty much irrelevant.

Financially: Yes and no, since often depend, but is not that relevant here.

Socially: Even if yes, bestiality or just animal porn in general is often seems as bad, it will be seen as even worst if it is about cub, you can't possibly think that it is equal. If someone "normal" would see a man fucking a cow (where the cow probably don't even feel anything) VS a man fucking a newborn puppy (where it is for sure hurtful), I can tell you for sure there would be a huge difference in reaction.
Preventing cub on the website for sure help to keep it more safe in the public eyes, even if just a little.

oni-brian said:
I'll say it for third time, there is nothing wrong with just saying: "We personally reject cub art, so we ban it."

And there is nothing wrong for you to be wrong in wanting the staff to admit something that isn't true.
Having being part of the staff in the past, I can tell you that those people are 99% more open minded and accepting about other's preferences compare to other places on the internet.
They don't care if you like young human, young anthro, young feral, gore, pee, shit, extreme violence and etc.
Some staff might like or not like some of these type of content, but won't hate other for it.

There is no point in you trying to "win" the argument by wanting them to say "We personally reject cub art, so we ban it.", because it is irrelevant.
The staff simply apply rules that are currently in places, it is all.

If you were part of an anime website that don't accept furry image, and someone post a furry image, it is not illegal, but it would get deleted because it is against the rule of that website, it is that simple, same logic here.

I doubt there's anything else that needs to be said, so I'm going to lock this thread.