The Kiwi Farms, as a place of inherent criticism, straddles a difficult position between maximalist freedom of expression, harm reduction towards bystanders, and our legal obligations to the United States which affords us this freedom. This document attempts to help users understand how to best participate in discussion.
This document is not legal advice and is not a substitute for our Terms & Conditions.
This website is in the jurisdiction of the United States of America. Our business is legally located in South Charleston, West Virginia.
All West Virginian laws must be adhered to. To the best of my knowledge, West Virginia imposes no special limitations on speech.
All Federal laws must be adhered to. The following is a noncomprehensive list of laws particularly important to citizens participating in any Internet discussion.
Federal law affords relief to the victims of revenge pornography against the people who post those images, but not the platforms they post on.
Although we are under no obligation to censor any particular image, the Kiwi Farms is not a pornography website. Posts randomly dumping pornographic content are not welcome unless they are directly related to the discussion and serve some purpose, such as "a matter of public concern or public interest."
The prudent poster will practice harm reduction, not propagate nonconsensual pornographic content of bystanders, not propagate pornographic content at all unless it is relevant, and also consider Fair Use when posting (as this content is copyrighted and is more likely to cause copyright complaints).
The Kiwi Farms is an inherently critical forum and therefore in most cases republication of copyrighted works is Fair Use. However, there are things you can do to make Fair Use claims easier to defend. Failing to do so may require me to censor your post if I receive a DMCA complaint.
The prudent poster's 5 minutes of time today will make a Fair Use claim tomorrow easier. What you post may, and historically has, ended up in court!
In general, the less of the work you use (clips), the fairer. If you intend to review an entire video or audio, dividing it up into segments and writing criticism between the parts is fairer than just posting an entire video. Parodies (edits, memes) are a fair use.
Do not ever say or imply that you are uploading something specifically to harm the author by depriving them of their IP rights.
Our community has a proud tradition of identifying animal abusers, which has led to multiple arrests stretching across the United States into foreign countries including Cuba and Indonesia.
When posting about animal abusers, it is important to follow a harm reduction principle. Do not be responsible for spreading animal abuse material. The prudent poster will censor animal abuse, physical or sexual, so that the forum does not become complicit in the spread of such material.
Federal law bans explicit drawings of children (often called "lolicon" and "shotacon"). However, Federal law exempts use where there is "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". It is also debatable if this law, in practice, can be used due to the great protections offered by the First Amendment.
However, the prudent poster will still censor cartoons depicting what appears to be children, and only post such materials in areas of the forum where they are directly relevant to discussion. For instance, in the thread of the artist who drew them.
Posters should take special care when handling drawings of real persons. There are legal and ethical considerations when an pedophile artist has drawn or generated pornography in the likeness of a real child. In the spirit of harm reduction, the likeness of the child must also be censored, if the image needs to be posted at all.
Do not post any image or video which is even close to being the sexualization of a child. Pedophiles actively preying on children is outside the scope of a gossip forum. Censoring or otherwise digitally altering CSAM can be considered production of CSAM. Consult an attorney and/or contact law enforcement immediately.
The Kiwi Farms has no hard rules. It has a collection of guidelines. They are enforced as-needed and on a per-case basis. Don't bother trying to litigate forum rules. They are whatever they need to be.
That said, the prudent poster avoids problems by following the guidelines.
Each board on the Kiwi Farms has its own special guidelines which may be found at various places on the board. They're worth paying attention to.