Years of work gone without warning
After years on DeviantArt, hundreds of dollars spent on memberships/subscriptions, and over two years of building galleries, original fantasy artwork, and custom characters, seeing an account permanently banned without any prior warning has completely changed my opinion of this platform. I understand websites need policies and moderation, but there should be better communication and opportunities for creators to correct mistakes before losing everything they built. Many artists genuinely did not understand how aggressively the newer AI/manipulated media policies would be enforced. What makes this even harder is seeing other accounts posting far more explicit celebrity content while smaller creators lose years of work instantly with no chance to recover their own files or artwork. Because of this experience, I will no longer be financially supporting DeviantArt moving forward. Artists deserve clearer communication, consistency, and at minimum a way to recover their own creative work after a ban.