DeviantArt is an expansive, worldwide community of artists young and old who create works spanning every medium, subject, and level of talent and skill.
As the guiding force of this large and vibrant community, we have two primary and often conflicting goals in the service we provide for you, the members of the community. The first is to ensure that members are free to express themselves within reason with as few restrictions as possible while nurturing an environment of creativity, learning, and talent, while the second is to protect the members of the community - to the best of our abilities - from copyright infringement, discrimination, harassment, and prejudice.
All members of the DeviantArt community are expected to be familiar with these rules of etiquette. By using DeviantArt you agree to these guidelines as well as our terms of service. Failure to follow these guidelines can result in deleted content, a suspended profile, or other restrictions to your account.
It is our policy to welcome artists of all levels, from amateur to professional, and to that end we do not attach any minimum standards of quality to deviations submitted by our members; all manner of submissions and posts are welcome providing they comply with our terms of service, etiquette, and copyright policies. While we do not impose quality standards we do ask that you practice self-moderation in what you choose to post.
Respect other authors
Submit only content which you have created or that you have the right to share. Don't post anything you've copied or collected from the internet or that you don't have the right to post. Learn more about our copyright policy here.
Tag your mature content
When we talk about mature content we are referring to submissions which some viewers may find offensive, distasteful, or otherwise undesirable to view or read. Most commonly this includes, but is not limited to, nudity, sexual themes, scenes of blood and gore, some generally violent themes, and certain ideologically sensitive topics.
You should also consider the audience when personalizing different aspects of your DeviantArt profile, such as your avatar. Personalizing your profile using mature content could result in that material being removed.
Don't post hateful content
Do not submit or otherwise post content which supports or praises terrorism, organized crime, or hate groups. Content which is inherently disrespectful, aggressive, or otherwise abusive will be removed, as will any post which targets people based on a protected characteristic such as race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity or serious disease.
We recognize that people can engage in legitimate commentary and criticism of news worthy events which may concern politics, religion, and other world affairs which may involve the protected characteristics noted above and our policies are designed to accommodate these types of speech, but we require people to clearly indicate their intent. If the intention is left unclear, we may remove your content and your profile may be at risk.
Don't post child sexually exploitative material
We do not allow content that sexually exploits or endangers children, whether those children are real or fictional. We consider material to be exploitative when it depicts a minor in an explicit, lewd, arousing, or sexually suggestive manner.
When we become aware of apparent child exploitation, we report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), in compliance with applicable law.
We do understand that people sometimes share family photographs which may include nude images of their own children. While this sharing may be done with good intentions, we may remove these images because of the potential for abuse by others and to help avoid the possibility of other people reusing or misappropriating the images for the purpose of exploitation.
Promote meaningful interactions
Don't post spam, and don't artificially post repetitive comments or content or repeatedly contact people for commercial purposes without their consent. Engaging in spam or spam-like behavior can result in restrictions being placed on your profile or your account being suspended.
Respect other members
We want to foster a positive and nurturing community. As we remove content that contains hate speech, we may also remove content and other posts which contain credible threats or which may target private individuals (whether members of DeviantArt or not) in order to degrade or shame them or which contain personal information meant to blackmail or harass someone.
We do recognize that not everyone will get along with everyone else and that sometimes arguments and disagreements will happen. Our policies are designed to tolerate those times where members may wish to post about those situations providing that these discussions are free of any unnecessary aggression, accusations, or denigrating statements.
Don't manipulate media with indecent intent
Various types of media, such as images and video, can be edited in a variety of ways using various types of digital editing software or through the use of artificial intelligence or machine learning.
Most of the time these changes are benign, such as adding a filter effect to a photo. In other cases, the manipulation can be used in order to present a person in a state of nudity, depict them engaged in an act of sexual conduct, or otherwise place them into a situation intended to serve as sexually arousing stimuli without either their knowledge or consent. Our staff will remove any content in which a person has had their image manipulated for what is considered to be an indecent purpose.
For more information please visit our Help Center and our Terms of Service.