The e621 Kitwran/Carpetwurm Ban Incident
TL;DR
An established furry artist (Carpetwurm/Kitwran) was permanently banned from e621, had their entire 7-year gallery purged, and was placed on DNP status after responding to persistent harassment. This occurred following a pattern of targeted harassment that administrators failed to address, culminating in a controversial ban that demonstrated clear administrative bias.
Under Construction
Some sections are unfinished or missing content.
Context
Carpetwurm is an NSFW furry artist who's been drawing and posting to e621 since late 2016. While he's an interesting character on his own, this docυment will attempt to be as concise and unbiased as possible in regard to his ban from the site.
After announcing that he was straight and Christian in March of 2023, he became the target of harassment for many in the community. Whether due to this harassment, or from further self-discovery, he had decided to return to drawing gay furry pоrn and abandoned Christianity shortly after in May of the same year. Nevertheless, harassment continued on every place his art was posted, including e621.
In an attempt to distance himself from the drama, he rebranded as 'Kitwran' and attempted to pretend he had no connection to his previous handle — though this only lasted a matter of weeks. Soon after, the harassment resumed and dedicated a-log trolls continued seeking him out to "expose" him as Carpetwurm. (As if it wasn't blatantly obvious from the style and content of his artwork.)
The event of his ban takes place during this period, where previously he seemed to ignore comments harassing him as Kitwran.
NSFW Images Ahead
The following contains NSFW profile pictures of commenters.
Prelude
Before the decisive events that led to the banning and purging of Carpetwurm/Kitwran’s content, there was a lengthy period marked by repeated harassment and a notable absence of proportional moderator intervention. This section documents that critical prelude to the incident.
Continuous Harassment & Moderator Bias
ThatOneGinger
Another instance highlighting biased moderator engagement involves the user ThatOneGinger. ThatOneGinger posted the following comment:
"Carpetwurm is a grifter, he only draws gay art for money and otherwise really dislikes us. :/"
Instead of taking prompt action, this comment was dismissed as "external drama" in a neutral note and was allowed to remain pinned at the top of the page for all to see. Later, when ThatOneGinger harassed other artists, similar comments were deleted, marked as harassment, and the user received negative notes and bans.
Screenshot of harassment by ThatOneGinger
- Link to comment
- Comment timestamp: 2023-07-30 21:40:15 -0400
Screenshot of ThatOneGinger's moderation record
The bottom neutral note was issued for the harassment against Carpetwurm, while the remaining negative notes pertain to other harassment incidents against other artists. The sources/links in the negative notes are no longer visible because those comments were removed. The harassing comment on Carpetwurm's image remains visible to this day.
Taffyy
Another instance highlighting biased moderator engagement involves the user Taffyy. Taffyy posted the following comment:
"Idk why the fυck you guys are supporting carpetwurm here. He had a homophobic/transphobic meltdown on twitter a couple months back, and now has decided he's gay again actually? Just a couple weeks ago Amaso posted screenshots of him saying horrible racist shіt on discord. Doesn't get more clear cut than this."
In response, user 244641 (Carpetwurm's pre-Kitwran account) defended himself by posting two comments:
- First response:
View first response - Second response:
View second response
Admin Rainbow Dash intervened with a negative note on Taffyy's profile in reply to his comment, which implicitly validated the harassment by referring to Carpetwurm as a "POS":
"Absolutely not. We are not rehashing drama on carpetwurm posts again. I don't care if he's a POS or not, the comments section isn't the place for it."
- Rainbow Dash's Negative Note on Taffyy:
View negative note
Additionally, Taffyy's harassing comment remains visible on the site:
- Screenshot of Taffyy's Harassing Comment:
View comment
Finally, admin Rainbow Dash issued a negative note against Carpetwurm for his responses, stating:
"Unacceptable behavior. Yes, they attacked you. Sure, you were only defending yourself. But you still don't get to tell people to fυck off in the comments. Report it and sit back next time."
- Rainbow Dash's Negative Note on Carpetwurm:
View negative note
This record reveals a marked discrepancy in moderator treatment: while Taffyy's slanderous comment remains displayed, Carpetwurm, despite defending himself, receives punitive action and a record for "Harassment," whereas Taffyy's infraction is noted merely as "Refusal to Use Blacklist." Furthermore, Rainbow Dash's instruction to "report and sit back" effectively forces Carpetwurm to endure ongoing harassment while Taffyy's defamatory comments remain visible, and his explicit remark that he "doesn't care if he's a POS" serves to further undermine Carpetwurm's position.
Conclusion
Collectively, this evidence illustrates a community environment marred by persistent harassment and selective moderator bias—circυmstances that set the stage for the extreme measures taken against Carpetwurm/Kitwran's gallery.
The Incident
NSFW Images Ahead
The following contains uncensored screenshots of the original artwork that the incident took place under, as well as NSFW profile pictures of commenters.
The Artwork in Question
The following image was directly uploaded to e621 by Carpetwurm (then Kitwran) on 9/2/2023. On 9/4/2023, a takedown request (Takedown #19460) generated by lead admin NotMeNotYou resulted in the instantaneous deletion of all artwork tagged with the artist Kitwran
or Carpetwurm
, including this one.
Meta Info
Falsified Takedown Request
The Exchange
- The Inciting Comments
Screenshot of the harassing comments by AkariTheYeen.
- Kitwran's Response
Screenshot of Kitwran's reply.
- The Immediate Ban
Immediate Aftermath
- Community Response
- Administrative Actions
The instigator received a slap on the wrist with the admin subtly affirming their harassment:
- Comment section lockdown
- Mass deletions
- Further administrative statements
[Pending...]
Appeal and Purge
The sequence of events following Carpetwurm's ban:
- After receiving his initial ban, Carpetwurm posted about the incident on Twitter.
- Shortly after, before any appeal was made, administration completely removed all of his artwork from the site through Takedown #19460.
- Following the content purge, Carpetwurm sent an appeal email to the administration:
Hey, can I just ask why exactly all of my work has been nuked from the site and I've been made DNP, without my permission?
I'm fine being banned from the site. I'm not going to come groveling to you and whining about the actions another admin made, because it's chіldish of them to make the situation your problem, instead of taking responsibility for their actions. But, why go as far as to wipe all of my content off the site? Can a handful of admins not handle being on the other end of backlash for once? I've been having to deal with this kind of hate for years now as a content creator in this community. Are they so bυtthurt over a fraction of what I have to put up with on a daily basis, that they're just allowed to memory hole me from the entire site? How utterly embarrassing.
I was under the impression that e621 was meant to be an unbiased website for archiving and preserving furry artwork, and like it or not I've been contributing to this fandom for the better part of a decade, consistently making better and better artwork for it. So why the unfair, extraordinarily biased treatment? I haven't done anything wrong, and the people who have done wrong continually get off scot-free with (at most) a slap on the wrist.
This treatment of artists, especially one as prominent as I am, is completely unjust and unfair. I hope you get your administration team under control, because now I fully understand why Ratte and the others in his server were fed up and quit. All I ask is that you at least undo the destruction brought upon my gallery. I'm fine being banned, hell, it's probably better that I am. I was willing to work around that and have my fans upload my work in my place, and of course the second I get infrastructure for that started, I'm suddenly DNP. Funny, right? I won't be surprised if you feel like you guys are in the "right" for depriving me of a platform, due to the constant harassment others sling at me, and my "poltical views" being "wrong". (Didn't know caring about the wellbeing of others was somehow political.) Easier to just remove the artist rather than enforce the site's anti-harrassment/derailment rules, huh?
- Administration then retroactively cited this appeal email, along with his tweets about the ban, as justifіcation for the content removal they had already executed, labeling both as "harassment". He was never given a response to his appeal.
This sequence demonstrates how administration first took extreme action in removing all of Carpetwurm's content, then sought to justify their actions after the fact by characterizing his legitimate appeal and public discussion of the ban as harassment.
Screenshots
Ban message/feedback left by Rainbow Dash instructing Carpetwurm/Kitwran to appeal directly to the lead admin (NotMeNotYou):
Carpetwurm's appeal via email:
Ongoing Impact
To this day, bringing up the event, Carpetwurm, or any of the accounts affected by it results in swift removal by e621 administration (with some deleted for the erroneous reason of being "AI generated"). His account remains banned, and he is still on the site's Do Not Post list.
Despite these obstacles and continued harassment stemming from his Christianity incident in 2023, he has continued creating artwork and has reportedly begun work on a new game.
Conclusion
While having content removed from one website may not seem like a big deal, it's important to consider that for furry artists, e621 is one of (if not,) the most important website for sharing their work. Administration is well aware of this, and know that purging artists in this manner may result in an end to their career. Hence, it is important to archive and call out their hypocrisy in cases such as these.
e621 staff have often fought the claims that the site is simply a "furry pоrn site", priding themselves on its value as an archive for all furry artwork, yet resort to extreme measures such as these over petty disagreements. (Or, in this case, simply being embarrassed by the backlash they had received from their rash decision.)
It's ironic that a supposedly unbiased furry artwork archival booru would take it upon themselves to ban and reject the archival of one artist's work due to perceived political differences. Banning the user is one thing, but removing their years of work and claiming it was the artist's will is another. Accounts are not tied to posts on e621. They could have simply banned Carpetwurm — and may have been right to do so, but there was no reason to remove his content as well.
Full Archive
[Pending...]
(Fun edition)