As of February 9, 2024, we are updating our Terms of Service to prohibit the following content:

Images created through the use of generative AI programs such as Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and Dall-E.

This post explains what that means for you. We know it’s impossible to remove all images created by Generative AI on Pillowfort. The goal of this new policy, however, is to send a clear message that we are against the normalization of commercializing and distributing images created by Generative AI. Pillowfort stands in full support of all creatives who make Pillowfort their home. Disclaimer: The following policy was shaped in collaboration with Pillowfort Staff and international university researchers. We are aware that Artificial Intelligence is a rapidly evolving environment. This policy may require revisions in the future to adapt to the changing landscape of Generative AI. 

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Why is Generative AI Banned on Pillowfort?

Our Terms of Service already prohibits copyright violations, which includes reposting other people’s artwork to Pillowfort without the artist’s permission; and because of how Generative AI draws on a database of images and text that were taken without consent from artists or writers, all Generative AI content can be considered in violation of this rule. We also had an overwhelming response from our user base urging us to take action on prohibiting Generative AI on our platform.  

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How does Pillowfort define Generative AI?

As of February 9, 2024 we define Generative AI as online tools for producing material based on large data collection that is often gathered without consent or notification from the original creators.

Generative AI tools do not require skill on behalf of the user and effectively replace them in the creative process (ie - little direction or decision making taken directly from the user). Tools that assist creativity don't replace the user. This means the user can still improve their skills and refine over time. 

For example: If you ask a Generative AI tool to add a lighthouse to an image, the image of a lighthouse appears in a completed state. Whereas if you used an assistive drawing tool to add a lighthouse to an image, the user decides the tools used to contribute to the creation process and how to apply them. 

Examples of Tools Not Allowed on Pillowfort: Adobe Firefly* Dall-E GPT-4 Jasper Chat Lensa Midjourney Stable Diffusion Synthesia

Example of Tools Still Allowed on Pillowfort: 

AI Assistant Tools (ie: Google Translate, Grammarly) VTuber Tools (ie: Live3D, Restream, VRChat) Digital Audio Editors (ie: Audacity, Garage Band) Poser & Reference Tools (ie: Poser, Blender) Graphic & Image Editors (ie: Canva, Adobe Photoshop*, Procreate, Medibang, automatic filters from phone cameras)

*While Adobe software such as Adobe Photoshop is not considered Generative AI, Adobe Firefly is fully integrated in various Adobe software and falls under our definition of Generative AI. The use of Adobe Photoshop is allowed on Pillowfort. The creation of an image in Adobe Photoshop using Adobe Firefly would be prohibited on Pillowfort. 

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Can I use ethical generators? 

Due to the evolving nature of Generative AI, ethical generators are not an exception.

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Can I still talk about AI? 

Yes! Posts, Comments, and User Communities discussing AI are still allowed on Pillowfort.

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Can I link to or embed websites, articles, or social media posts containing Generative AI? 

Yes. We do ask that you properly tag your post as “AI” and “Artificial Intelligence.”

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Can I advertise the sale of digital or virtual goods containing Generative AI?

No. Offsite Advertising of the sale of goods (digital and physical) containing Generative AI on Pillowfort is prohibited.

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How can I tell if a software I use contains Generative AI?

A general rule of thumb as a first step is you can try testing the software by turning off internet access and seeing if the tool still works. If the software says it needs to be online there’s a chance it’s using Generative AI and needs to be explored further. 

You are also always welcome to contact us at [email protected] if you’re still unsure.

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How will this policy be enforced/detected?

Our Team has decided we are NOT using AI-based automated detection tools due to how often they provide false positives and other issues. We are applying a suite of methods sourced from international universities responding to moderating material potentially sourced from Generative AI instead.

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How do I report content containing Generative AI Material?

If you are concerned about post(s) featuring Generative AI material, please flag the post for our Site Moderation Team to conduct a thorough investigation. As a reminder, Pillowfort’s existing policy regarding callout posts applies here and harassment / brigading / etc will not be tolerated. 

Hello Pillowfolks,

We’re ready to announce our decision regarding AI-Generated content on our platform. After careful consideration, our team at Pillowfort has decided we will be enacting a total content ban on all AI-Generated images and writing on Pillowfort. 

An update to our Terms of Service will be released with our next site update, which we are aiming to have ready to launch in the next couple of weeks. At that time our updated policy regarding AI-Generated content will go into effect. (Note: You do not need to delete previously posted AI-Generated content. This ban will only affect AI-Generated content posted after the next Terms of Service update.)

This decision was not made lightly. We wanted to make sure, without a shadow of a doubt, we were making the best decision for the Pillowfort community that could be enforceable by our Terms of Service.

Part of the delay in deciding on a total ban of AI-Generated content was that we worried that a total ban might contradict our other site policies and general philosophies. It’s important to us that our users have as much control over the kind of content they see for both our users’ own comfort, as well as to enable our users to have the freedom to post what they want.  A total ban on AI-Generated content seemed contradictory to our “post and let post” philosophy. Ultimately, however, we decided it would be in the best interest of our entire community to move forward with a ban for the following reasons: 

Our Terms of Service already prohibits copyright violations, which includes reposting other people’s artwork to Pillowfort without the artist’s permission; and because of how AI Generators draw on a database of images and text that were taken without consent from artists or writers, all AI-Generated content can be considered in violation of this rule.

Our community made it loud and clear: AI-Generated content is not welcome on Pillowfort. We had an overwhelming response over the last several months from our users urging us to take action on AI-Generated content. A significant portion of those users requested a total ban. It only seemed logical to support our artist & writer community by striving to do right by our users. We stand in full support of all creatives who make Pillowfort their home. 

We apologize to the users who may be disappointed in our decision.  If you want a refund on your last subscription payment or registration fee as a result of this upcoming change in our policy we will honor refund requests for any payments made within the last 60 days.

We will do our best to answer any questions you may have regarding our decision. Don’t hesitate to ask. Feel free to leave your question below or send in an e-mail at [email protected].

Hey Pillowfolks!

We know many of you are still waiting on our official stance regarding AI-Generated Images (also referred to as “AI Art”) being posted to Pillowfort.  We are still deliberating internally on the best approach for our community as well as how to properly moderate AI-Generated Images based on the stance we ultimately decide on. We’re also in contact with our Legal Team for guidance regarding additions to the Terms of Service we will need to include regarding AI-Generated Images. This is a highly divisive issue that continues to evolve at a rapid pace, so while we know many of you are anxious to receive a decision, we want to make sure we carefully consider the options before deciding. Thank you for your patience as we work on this. 

As of today, 9/5/2023, we have blocked the ChatGPT bot from scraping Pillowfort. This means any writings you post to Pillowfort cannot be retrieved for use in ChatGPT’s Dataset. 

Our team is still looking for ways to provide the same protection for images uploaded to the site, but keeping scrapers from accessing images seems to be less straightforward than for text content. The biggest AI generators such as StableDiffusion use datasets such as LAION, and as far as our team has been able to discern, it is not known what means those datasets use to scrape images or how to prevent them from doing so. Some sources say that websites can add metadata tags to images to prevent the img2dataset bot (which is apparently used by many generative image tools) from scraping images, but it is unclear which AI image generators use this bot vs. a different bot or technology. The bot can also be configured to simply disregard these directives, so it is unknown which scrapers would obey the restriction if it was added.

For artists looking to protect their art from AI image scrapers you may want to look into Glaze, a tool designed by the University of Chicago, to protect human artworks from being processed by generative AI. 

We are continuing to monitor this topic and encourage our users to let us know if you have any information that can help our team decide the best approach to managing AI-Generated Images and Generative AI going forward. Again, we appreciate your patience, and we are working to have a decision on the issue of moderating AI-Generated Images soon.

❗️HELP - WE ARE AT RISK OF NOT MEETING OUR FUNDING GOAL THIS MONTH❗️

We have 3 days to raise $900 to meet our $5K goal. If we don't make goal we will only have enough funding to keep Pillowfort online & pay our Staff until Jan 2025.

Please share / reblog / signal b00st!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 🎃

Thanks to your generosity we have made goal for October!

Hi Pillowfolks. We hope you are doing well. We have a couple of updates to share with the community as we head into the last quarter of 2024. 2024 Funding Update Here is a look at our revenue in 2024 so far as of 9/27/24. This total is based on all settled transactions. 

January 2024: 4,078.58 February 2024: 5,586.22 March 2024: 5,627.57 April 2024: 5,515.81 May 2024: 5,281.50 June 2024: 5,536.35 July 2024: 5,059.35 August 2024: 5,997.42

Thanks to your support and fundraising, we have met our funding every month in 2024 except January. 

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Monthly Funding Goal Increase Beginning Oct 1, 2024 our monthly funding goal will increase from $5,000USD to $7,000USD.  We’ve added another member to our development team over the summer and so our budget is being increased to reflect that. Having another developer on board will greatly help us get site updates out faster!

Due to the increase in hours and additional staffing, if we hit our $5,000 goal for September we have enough funding to remain online until at least January 2025. This time-frame is different from what we had stated previously (February 2025). We want to account for extra hours worked in August and September as well as the additional hours we are planning to work into the remainder of 2024. We understand that there may be concerns regarding the amount of increase from our previous monthly funding goals. This is the highest goal we have set thus far, but we would not set this goal if we did not believe we could make it. Our community has continued to rally for us and that gives us hope we can meet our goals. We want to remain cautiously optimistic that we will remain online past January 2025, especially as we are still aiming to release the PWA before the end of the year which will hopefully bring in more users.

We are also aiming to have Paid Post Promotions ready after the PWA release which will provide another source of revenue for the site. -

Pillowfort Premium Increase To help us meet our new funding goal we will be (slightly!) increasing our Pillowfort Premium Subscription Fee. We are still shocked that we are being encouraged by our Community to increase them. Earlier in the year we did a survey with the community to get a gauge on Pillowfort Premium Pricing. While the survey results did not provide us with conclusive results on a specific price for each feature, what it did conclude is that 1) our community wants us to remain an a-la-carte service and 2) there is a demand to increase prices. The following prices will go into effect December 1, 2024: Upload Limit Increase: $2.49 to $3.50 Multiple Avatars:  $1.99 to $2.50 Avatar Frames: $1.49 to $1.50

The new price adjustments take into consideration the survey results (while not conclusive, the results did at least show us a range of price increase the community is comfortable with) and the fact that our highest site expenses relate to data. We ultimately decided to keep the price of Avatar Frames the same for now because we feel that the pricing of Avatar Frames will  encourage more users to subscribe to Pillowfort Premium in the future. If 7,000 registered users decided to subscribe to Premium Avatar Frames monthly we would be able to exceed our new monthly goal.  -

Tiered Upload Limit Pricing Interest Check We would like more feedback regarding the suggestion of introducing tiered pricing on upload limits. For those unaware:The idea expressed suggested a Pillowfort Premium feature which gives the ability to select different uploading limits at different prices.

Theoretical examples of options that could be offered would be: 

4MB 6MB 10MB

Before we explore the option further we want to get an interest check from the community regarding tiered upload limits. Is this something you would use? If yes, how high of an upload limit would you subscribe to and what price would encourage you to subscribe if tiered upload limits were available? Let us know in the comment section below. -

On April 17, 2023 our team launched our subscription based model known as Pillowfort Premium. Pillowfort Premium exists as our solution to building a more sustainable form of income that doesn’t solely rely on donations and registration key purchases. 

We take pride in Pillowfort Premium being a collaborative effort with our community. Your feedback has directly impacted the development of Pillowfort Premium. 

Due to on-going inflation and rising costs across the globe as well as our needs as a business to meet our monthly funding goals, we are planning to increase the price of Pillowfort Premium sometime during 2024. Much to our surprise, when we expressed our intentions of raising prices as part of our commitment after our 2023 End of Year Fundraiser, it was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback.

We want to make sure any price increase we do does not isolate our community. Our goal with Pillowfort Premium has always been to provide a subscription model that offers optional enhancements to the user experience. 

If you have a moment, please fill out this survey to help us gauge what our price increase should be. Before any price changes are made we will let the community know beforehand. We will also share the results of the survey with the community sometime near the end of June / beginning of July. 

NEW SURVEY LINK - Survey Closes 11:59pm ET June 21, 2024. 

You are also welcome (and encouraged) to leave additional feedback regarding Pillowfort Premium on our Staff Notice.

All things considered, we're doing as okay as we can be. Our Developer Team is working on a our next site update and squashing bugs. From a social media standpoint we're encouraging people to follow us over on Bluesky.

As we stated in our previous funding update your support has helped us remain online until August. In case you are curious, here are our current statistics:

March Funding Update - 55%

We've had a couple questions regarding what funding means after 2023 End of Year Fundraiser and yes, each month we are able to hit at least 100% of our funding goal extends our site's life by a month. The End of Year Fundraiser gave us enough funding to remain online until at least July 2024 if we did not meet any funding goals. Your support has already extended our life until August 2024 which is incredible given how dire things were at the end of last year.

For example, if we are able to at least meet 100% of our $5,000 goal in March we would have enough funding until September.

We hope this answers any lingering questions on that.

For those of you new here: Hi! We're not a large corporation nor are we backed by any investors. We're a small team of part-time contractors passionate about everything fandom and what Pillowfort is all about. Our funding is still entirely user-funded thanks to the support of donations and subscribing to Pillowfort Premium (which gives pretty neat benefits such higher image uploads, multiple avatars, and premium avatar frames).

Active Users: 174,424

Communities: 10,062

Total Pillowfort Premium Subscriptions: 630