These are the updates to our previous statement on Squidge Image hosting:
- Furry art is allowed. Adult-themed is also allowed as long as the intent of the art is to depict all characters in it being people 18 years and older
- D&D art is allowed. Adult-themed is also allowed as long as the intent of the art is to depict all characters in it being those of 18 years and older/those beings considered adults
- “lolita” or “shotacon” which depicts those under 18 in sexually explicit or sexual situations, is not allowed.
- “Porn for porn’s sake” – this is for the people that screen capture porn for personal and shareable “spank bank”. Think about it as if looking at a wall of picture and saying “These 50 pictures would be more appropriate on the wall of an adult bookstore” – that is porn for porn’s sake, and is not allowed. It’s like porn bots on Tumblr or other services where the person posts porn just to post porn. Their only intention is to post porn that has zero to do with fandom. Just because Squidge Image hosting allows adult images doesn’t mean we allow porn for porn’s sake.
- Anything, including drawings and anime, that depicts humans under 18 years of age in sexually explicit or sexual situations is not allowed. Period.
- Anything, including drawings and anime, that depicts child or child-like non-humans in sexually explicit or sexual situations is not allowed. Period.
FYI, the Squidge.org Terms of Service have been updated with this statement, important section bolded:
Added September 21st, 2007, with the note that this is specific to personal website hosting, NOT image hosting: We have been asked to clarify what “kiddie porn” means. First of all, the artistic writing in fandoms, such as Harry Potter, is not considered kiddie porn. According to a court ruling in the United States, it is more the actual image that is the problem. Now as for artists who create pieces of work that are in like the Harry Potter or such fandoms, the law is specific. The piece of work must have artistic intent. As an artist doing the work, you are putting forth artistic intent. Thus, for those pages that you have artistic intent work on, we suggest you put a disclaimer stating your artistic value of the work, and that objectors should redirect to Google.com or something. Again, this is for people who use Squidge personal homepages, and not Squidge Image hosting. The differentiation is that with website hosting, there is an interim space where people can “back out” should they not want to see the images. With image hosting, that barrier is not available.
I appreciate the clarity of these guidelines, but I feel that the statement that is now on the image hosting home page is significantly less clear.
I would really appreciate some clarification as to whether “This service […] certainly isn’t to be used for anything to do with sexualizing minors, overtly or covertly. That does NOT belong anywhere near fandom and is not welcome here.” refers to drawings of fictional characters who are under the age of 18, or whether it refers solely to content that depicts or endorses the exploitation of actual children.
Again, the guidelines about what can and cannot be uploaded to Squidge.org’s image hosting are clear, and I’m not trying to argue that they should be changed. I would just appreciate some clarity as to what the site owner feels “does not belong anywhere near fandom”.
I know this policy is for images.squidge, but I have a question on if/how this affects squidgeworld, since I know many people have started using AO3 to host suggestive or nsfw fanart of high school age characters (bakudeku for example). It seems logical (to me) to assume these rules will carry over to image hosting on squidgeworld, but since squidgeworld *does* have an interim space where people can back out should they not want to see the images, would bakudeku etc be fine with proper tagging?
I responded privately to this subject yesterday, so I’m glad to respond publicly. Yes, these images (not hosted on Squidge Images) would be allowed on SquidgeWorld Archive with the caveat that:
A) The image can be embedded into a story from a remote, non-Squidge host
B) The work must clearly be marked with the “Underage” tag
C) The work should be tagged with Posted fanwork includes embedded images not intended for all audiences
D) The work must be locked, making it only available to registered users. It should never be “Open” to the public.
If people can agree to that, it should be fine.
I guess fandom people can’t bring themselves to draw a line in the sand and put their foot down and say “no. we do not allow art exploiting children here.” gotta hand people a loophole just big enough that you won’t be culpable for hosting csem. coward behavior tbh.