DeviantArt aims to foster a community that embraces a diverse range of creative works and themes, encouraging constructive and beneficial dialogue among deviants.

While all are encouraged to engage in conversations and share their opinions, the posting of misinformation—such as rumors, conspiracy theories, and impersonation—can be harmful. If our moderation staff identifies misinformation, it may be removed.

Misinformation differs from other types of posts, like hate speech or pornography, where what's not allowed is easily outlined. Misinformation is more ambiguous, making it harder to specify what should not be posted on DeviantArt.

Generally, staff will remove misinformation if it poses a risk of imminent physical harm, damages infrastructure, or leads to other real-world consequences. Similarly, staff will remove posts that denigrate or disparage individuals or groups, even if they don’t strictly qualify as hate speech.

Content likely to interfere with civic processes, such as political elections, censuses, or ballot initiatives may be removed. Additionally, staff will remove content that increases the risk of health issues or discourages good health practices, including misinformation that puts individuals at risk of spreading harmful diseases or refusing associated vaccines.

The staff recognizes not all misinformation is harmful, as people sometimes use it to exaggerate, joke, or share stories with inaccuracies. In many cases, misleading information might not pose a problem.

When assessing misinformation, staff may consult third-party experts or fact-checkers to evaluate the accuracy of statements and their potential risk of harm. Staff will also remove content that repeats information widely debunked by credible authorities.

Moreover, removal of misinformation may include related issues such as fake accounts, impersonation, and fraud, which overlap with staff efforts to combat misinformation.

Character assassination is a deliberate and sustained effort to damage the reputation or credibility of an individual, and which may also target a social group, institution, or body politic. 

Character assassinations may involve such tactics as false accusations, planting and fostering rumors, and manipulating information with the goal of the target being rejected by their professional community or members of their social or cultural environment. Character assassinations are, by definition, intentional: they are launched to damage an individual's reputation in the eyes of others and are always public in nature. Damaging a person's reputation accidentally through a thoughtless remark would not qualify, nor would remarks made in private.

Staff may remove misinformation, rumor, or conspiracy theories that could, in a specific context, contribute to a risk of offline (or real-world) harm or destruction of personal property or infrastructure, including threats of violence that could contribute to a heightened risk of death, serious injury, damage, or other physical harm.

Staff may remove misinformation during public health emergencies when the misinformation discourages good health practices and/or when public health authorities have concluded that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm, including by contributing to the risk of individuals getting or spreading a harmful disease or refusing an associated vaccine. 

Staff may also remove misinformation involving vaccines, including false claims concerning vaccine efficacy or side-effects. Staff will also remove misinformation promoting or advocating for forms of alternative medicine which may be harmful, may be likely to directly contribute to the risk of serious injury or death, or where the suggested treatment has no legitimate health use (ex: ingesting bleach, disinfectant, black salve, caustic soda).

Staff may remove misinformation which is likely to encourage, or contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability, or willingness, to participate in various civic activities. 

This can include misinformation concerning the dates, locations, times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or census participation. Staff may also remove misinformation about who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information or materials must be provided in order to vote.

Misinformation which includes calls for violence, the promotion of illegal participation, or calls for coordinated interference in elections will also be removed, as will misleading information intended to intimidate or dissuade people from participating in an election or other civic process. 

Historical negationism is a falsification or distortion of the historical record. It should not be confused with historical revisionism, a broader term that extends to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned academic reinterpretations of history.

Historical negationism may involve such tactics as presenting known forged documents as genuine, inventing imaginative reasons for distrusting genuine historical records, attributing conclusions to books and sources that report the opposite, manipulating statistics, and deliberately mistranslating texts.

Notable examples of historical negationism include Holocaust denial, Armenian genocide denial, and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

Our staff is aware that alternate history, a legitimate genre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life, can bear some superficial resemblance to historical negationism and will take this context into account.

Disinformation is a subset of propaganda and is false information that is spread deliberately to deceive and which will typically target countries, governments, institutions, and other larger groups.

Staff considers disinformation to be a form of “media warfare” which is typically spread deliberately through social media in the form of "fake news", (false information masked as legitimate news articles or originating from legitimate sources) and which is meant to mislead readers or viewers. 

Disinformation will typically include distribution of forged documents or manuscripts and may feature manipulated or misattributed photographs or involve spreading dangerous rumors and fabricated intelligence.

DeviantArt prohibits the posting or distribution of images or video with either depictions that have been faked, whether through digital photo manipulation, face-swapping AI applications, or any other means or method.