Topic: Thread for concerns regarding government censorship laws that may impact e621

I want to make a thread for discussion on upcoming or current laws that might put this site's continued existence at risk, or impact personal privacy, or individual accessibility for people 18+.

I for one would be really upset if e621 got suddenly nuked off the internet, I think so many artists and fans would be unprepared for something like that, that's one thing I think we should be able to see coming and have a plan for.

I also think everyone deserves a level of individual privacy, and something like a government mandated 3rd party age verification is counter to that. I won't get into specifics but suffice it to say from my experience the (are you 18+?) popup combined with community moderation is more than enough.

I love this platform and I would be sad to see it go, we should be doing what we can to keep it alive!

Any potential legal battles are in Bad Dragon's hands. They're the ones with the money and the legal team. Not much the staff here on e621 can do about anything.

For the time being you should download anything you don't want to lose (this is a good rule to live by even in "normal" circumstances). I would recommend Hydrus Network if you want a combination booru scraper and media browser. It uses a booru-style tagging system which will be familiar. Imgbrd-Grabber is also useful if you want to simply download files onto your filesystem. Some users have managed to create self-hosted mirrors of the site as well (see topic #60826).

Any law that is significant enough to impact this site will impact many other similar sites as well.
I'd suggest checking https://stopcensorship.net/ for all the current threats to digital freedom and what you can do to fight against them.

For age verification bills:

• See https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/age-verification-bills/ for all pending bills in the US and how to take action.
• See also https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/age-verification-resources/global-age-verification-policies/ for current policies outside of the US.