e621 - Archiving the "Archive Website" Admins

(The images still exist, Discord just blocks embedding now. I'll slowly migrate them to Imgur.)

TL;DR: e621 administrators have established a pattern of permanently banning, purging artwork, and placing "Do Not Post" (DNP) statuses on artists who express disagreement with them. They also engage in a scorched-earth approach to conceal such incidents, swiftly issuing permanent bans to anyone inquiring about the affected artists.

E621 admins have also been taking similar actions against other artists over personal qualms with no valid reasons:

More people are taking notice:

Current known list of users permabanned for mentioning this incident or anything about Kitwran:

Permabanned User Reason Provided Actual reason
Kemonymous (Kemono furry artist) "I don't know whose alt this is, and honestly, I don't even care. I'm tired of you white knighting for Kitwran. I think we are done here." Suspiciously talks just like Rainbow Dash. (Cinder is totally, definitely not a sock-puppet account shared by different admins guys!!) Banned for politely clearing up NMNY's chain of lies and giving his side of the events he witnessed. That's right — they permabanned yet another artist for quite literally no reason, further proving their MO of blindly accusing anyone that speaks out against them of being an alt.
Dew (Writer for PMD: Together Forever) "Attempted Raid". (No source or explanation provided.) Banned for asking for an explanation in the forums.
HelluvaGabbs "Attempted Raid". (No source or explanation provided.) Banned for commenting on Dew's forum post.
Cobler "Troll Account". (This account was over 5 years old. No source or explanation provided.) Banned for defending Kitwran.
koboldklub "Oh no, won't someone please think of the children." Banned for defending Kitwran.
LeafyIsntHere "Ban Evasion". (No source or explanation provided.) Banned for uploading one of Kitwran's new drawings with permission.
dragonslurpr34 ""Oh no, I'm scared of being banned for bringing this up" he said, brining up the same drama again and again. Well, here you go, I guess. You got what you wanted." (3 sources provided: 1 forum post and 2 deleted comments.) Banned for vaguely mentioning the incident and saying they're scared of getting banned like all the others if they named the artist. Turns out, they were right to be scared.
nament "Raid"/"Troll"/"Spam". (The reason was changed multiple times. No source or explanation provided.) Banned for creating a forum topic linking to this Rentry.
am_over1 Reason given: "Raid"/"Troll"/"Spam". (The reason was changed multiple times. No source or explanation provided.) Banned for creating a forum topic titled 'NMNY is abusing the takedown system', likely in reference to the purge on Kitwran/Carpetwurm's art.
glacib "Welp, you literally asked for it." (Source links to a deleted comment.) Unconfirmed; recently banned for a comment that was subsequently deleted.

Current known list of users warned or temporarily banned in relation to this incident:

  • NeroSable - Warned for downvoting the admin's comments. Reason given: "Don't mass-downvote people." (There is no rule or restriction written on what counts as "mass-downvoting".)

(There are likely many more missed incidences, as the admins are very quick to delete any related forum topics and comments before anyone can see them.)


Contents

Summary

After enduring relentless harassment, where individuals injected politics and Twitter drama into his e621 art submissions, Carpetwurm decided to rebrand as Kitwran. Unfortunately, Kitwran faced renewed harassment from persistent individuals who made it a daily mission to identify him as Carpetwurm and generate animosity towards him. This cycle persisted with almost every image he uploaded, and e621 administrators remained largely unresponsive at best, while occasionally justifying his harassers.

Fed up with enduring constant defamation and false accusations, Kitwran finally responded to one of his harassers' comments to address the claims and defend himself. Almost immediately, an administrator, Rainbow Dash, permanently banned Kitwran for his response, demonstrating clear political bias in the ban reasoning.

The aftermath saw a wave of people criticizing the administrator for abusing their power. Rainbow Dash responded by issuing arbitrary bans with condescending justifications and continued to slander Kitwran in the comments section, labeling him "anti-trans" and implying intolerance toward "right-wing talking points." This pattern revealed a recurring theme among certain e621 staff, showcasing the admins' political bias and intentional misrepresentation, including false quotes.

As the criticism of the abuse of power mounted, Rainbow Dash resorted to using a mass administration feature originally designed for emergencies, like mass shootings, to hide and disable the comments section entirely.

Not satisfied with merely permabanning Kitwran and silencing his supporters, Rainbow Dash further escalated the situation. After rallying the administration team in what they termed an "internal discussion," they persuaded the website's head admin, NotMeNotYou, to completely purge every piece of Kitwran/Carpetwurm's artwork on the website spanning his 7-year career. This drastic action was followed by forcibly placing him on the "Do Not Post" (DNP) list.

Rainbow Dash, having stalked Kitwran's Twitter, discovered that hidden comments were still accessible to savvy users. In response, he painstakingly deleted each individual comment and proceeded to permaban anyone mentioning the incident, using questionable or outright nonsensical justifications[1][2][3].

It has been 3 months and counting with no reply to Kitwran's appeal (which Rainbow Dash told him to make). This is not surprising, given that the sole person handling appeals is the same individual responsible for unilaterally wiping Kitwran/Carpetwurm's gallery without providing an opportunity for a fair hearing.

Full screenshot archive of the comments section before it was purged and wiped clean:


To my knowledge, the "transphobic" allegations stemmed from the artist liking a Tweet that suggested more effort should be put in therapy and informed consent before encouraging minors to make permanent, life-changing alterations to their bodies. For some reason, people treat this as the equivalent of advocating for trans genocide. Thus why he felt the need to clarify his stance.







Someone else's archive of the incident:

Extras:



The writer for one of Kitwran's comics wrote a forum post asking for an explanation. They were instantly permabanned for it, along with the person that commented. There reason? "Attempted raid"... They aren't even trying to justify themselves anymore.


The incident gained some traction in the forums. The admins quickly put a stop to that by issuing a slew of permabans, edits, and deletes. Note how they couldn't even settle on a ban reason and had to keep editing it to make it sound less suspicious.


A list summary of some of the things the admins did.






Link




Link








Link







Link

Older responses to harassment

As usual, there was no admin intervention for any of the drama starters. This is only one of many, many other uploads of his that he received deliberate harassment and libel on.


Exhibit B of the artist defending himself and getting punished for it.


I also find it funny how the harassers get WAY more chances than artists. This guy has at least 6 different recorded incidences of harassing 2 different artists, yet the most he got was a 1 week ban. Meanwhile, Carpetwurm made a total of 3 comments simply defending himself against harassment and somehow went from a note to a sudden permaban, forced DNP, and complete nuke of his gallery.

Totally fair and unbiased!

More cases of blatant bias, political agenda, and etc.


Funny how criticizing admins always seems to be the final straw

Rainbow Dash REALLY hates it when people talk about protecting children, for some reason. They also seem to have something against Koolaid — they just CAN'T stop telling people not to drink it.


Funny how Rainbow Dash goes out of their way to protect a known and proven groomer a week after permabanning another artist for defending himself against harassment. Definitely no bias here!


Someone offering to explain what JasonFX did outside of the comment section? Instant permaban.
People repeatedly harassing and slandering Carpetwurm directly in the comments of his artwork? Slap on the wrist, punish the artist instead.


Edit: This explains a lot


If I recall correctly, this is the same admin that banned two people in the comments of Carpetwurm's art because they used the same popular drawing for their PFPs, thus proving that they rely solely on their gut feeling (on top of personal feelings) for dishing out "alt account" permabans. (The ban was only reverted after multiple people pointed out that there's 0 evidence of them being alts, further proving that the admins don't so much as check IPs before making baseless alt accusations.)



This user didn't understand why it'd be a problem to tag a gay pride art piece with a gay pride (LGB) tag. Apparently, not being well-invested in the latest trends in transgender politics is something that e621 admins will not tolerate. The admin also made sure to word their negative record in the worst possible way to make the user sound transphobic.

What can we do?

Well, since so much as mentioning the incident or questioning moderation is enough to get you permanently banned, the admins made it clear that they won't budge on this. That means our next best step is to take it above their heads.

e621 is a company, and it's bigger than you think

Some people know that e621.net is owned by Bad Dragon, but few realize just how deep their involvement goes in the furry community. Bad Dragon Enterprises, Inc., the company that creates animal-themed sex toys, is the owner of a vague holding company known by Dragonfruit LLC (possibly known previously as Dragon Fruit Ventures LLC or Dragonfruit Ventures LLC).

So what all does Dragonfruit LLC do? I'm not fully acquainted with all the lore behind these companies, but here's what I've manage to find so far:

Wikipedia
Wikifur

Hold the company accountable

The best thing we can do is raise awareness to the staffing issue at e621, both within and outside the company.

Contact Bad Dragon

On their Twitter. Their support team responds to both DMs and replies on their Tweets.

Share this Rentry

On Twitter, Discord, or anywhere else that won't get you banned for doing so.

Support alternative websites

SoFurry and Inkbunny come to mind.
SoFurry Beta and TailCurl are in the works, though the latter is more of an idea than a product at the moment.
FurAffinity has recently had similar issues of admins completely disregarding their community.


DUMP:

(Random stuff I've found or been sent that I'm too lazy to go through right now)

https://archive.ph/2019.03.06-042556/https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1103148071465017345.html
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wfBWsn4Ij2DUpXVh6I3DqfFY2PtvtpfYd6URkCNrbIU/edit

NMNY mass-permabanning hundreds of people for downvoting his comment


NotMeNotYou gets paid for moderating e621


Known e621/dragonfruit management email adresses:
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected]

Edit
Pub: 10 Sep 2023 06:50 UTC
Edit: 07 Apr 2024 18:06 UTC
Views: 8216