Self-explanatory.

This is not to say that I'm personally opposed to it, as you'll see that I've favorited some on my profile; but seeing the massive response over the past few days to the partial loli/shota ban on e6, I'm wondering how many there are who either simply don't care for cub or are outright opposed to it on a moral basis.

I think that there tend to be far more furs into it than one would expect, but I also kind of wonder if there's some kind of large silent demographic of users here that want nothing to do with it. Am I right or wrong?

The upset is not over what was removed, but why it was and how it was done.

sentogiga said:
Expanding on La Biz of the Spiced Question!

Spicy Question!

All there is to say about it is that interest is a spectrum
and crowds seem bigger when you're in a room with
nothing but peep's who all agree on something, Dood =‿=)

There absolutely are.
Some are quiet and use their blacklist, only complaining when such content isn't tagged correctly and thus showing up in their browsing.
Others complain about it at every opportunity and refuse to blacklist it because they feel their opinion "needs to be heard" or is the objective truth.
You can imagine how I feel about the latter.

I hated seeing it, but that's why I just used my blacklist.

It's funny how almost everyone who is vocal people can find some of the content or another type of problematic content in their favorites, why it's so hard to use a blacklist? Young is also on there by default and not everyone is fast and/or amazing on their tagging, there will be stuff that won't be correctly tagged by mistake or being ambiguous.

TL;DR use your blacklist and if you see something you don't like because it wasn't tagged just shut up, be useful at least a few times in your life and tag what is missing, done...

This website has an absolutely massive userbase. The abrupt ban pissed off a section of that userbase(which is a small percentage, but still a large number due to the massive total number), who then got very vocal about it.
In other words, you're just seeing a "vocal minority", though the vocal part is temporary in this case.

shiitake said:
This website has an absolutely massive userbase. The abrupt ban pissed off a section of that userbase(which is a small percentage, but still a large number due to the massive total number), who then got very vocal about it.
In other words, you're just seeing a "vocal minority", though the vocal part is temporary in this case.

One of the biggest threads on this forum that happened in a day that I have not seen in a decade on this site is a minority? This take is so wrong. Pretending people forget things as well is also a weird take. People don't just magically forget news.

The thing is, don't like something, just black list it. And honestly as far as cub is concerned animals are cutest when they are smol. Same applies to anthro's. Myself, I have Humans bllsted, so I didn't really notice much be effected by this besides things caught in the crossfire that didn't need to be removed that should hopefully be back one day. People can like what they like our brains are all wired differently but its all about separating fantasy from reality.

If this content was a main draw for a significant portion of the userbase you'd expect it to make up at least 1% of the site's content, if not more. If you look at the names of people participating in that thread you'll see that most of the discussion is people who are repeatedly commenting on it.

Most people who object don't necessarily feel that strongly about it, for one reason or another, so they're not going to comment. People who blacklist, or even are just neutral towards that content are unlikely to notice, let alone feel strongly enough to comment. People who agree with the change usually don't have many concerns or suggestions, so they're unlikely to comment.

The people who are going to comment most are those who feel especially negatively towards the change. That thread is absolutely a vocal minority making a lot of noise.

casmin7~ said:
One of the biggest threads on this forum that happened in a day that I have not seen in a decade on this site is a minority? This take is so wrong. Pretending people forget things as well is also a weird take. People don't just magically forget news.

Ehh, you're conflating the ones who genuinely enjoy cub art vs the ones who are not happy seeing stuff getting removed without warning. In terms of the fetish itself, it is absolutely a niche fetish that is not enjoyed by the majority, hence why the sites to view said content is dwindling.

waba said:
Ehh, you're conflating the ones who genuinely enjoy cub art vs the ones who are not happy seeing stuff getting removed without warning.

They would not have been happy with us even if we did give them warning.
Mind you, the most warning we could have given was like a day.

That said, the majority of the thread seems to consist of people calling us cowards for purging content rather than shutting the site down entirely.

cinder said:
They would not have been happy with us even if we did give them warning.
Mind you, the most warning we could have given was like a day.

That said, the majority of the thread seems to consist of people calling us cowards for purging content rather than shutting the site down entirely.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, it seems. Eventually it will pass and the waters will calm.

cinder said:

Mind you, the most warning we could have given was like a day.

Was there a reason that a warning of, let's say, half a day wasn't given? Is it to stop people from removing young or human/oid from the posts that would be affected, or is there more than that?

cinder said:
They would not have been happy with us even if we did give them warning.
Mind you, the most warning we could have given was like a day.

That said, the majority of the thread seems to consist of people calling us cowards for purging content rather than shutting the site down entirely.

don't forget the people who were saying you were all secretly against this kind of art the whole time.

snpthecat said:
Was there a reason that a warning of, let's say, half a day wasn't given? Is it to stop people from removing young or human/oid from the posts that would be affected, or is there more than that?

Yes, of course, that was a major concern. But besides that, giving people that little time would have been seen as mockery or an insult.
"If you weren't there on that specific day, between these specific hours, you are screwed", that type of thing.
All in all, It would not benefit a lot of users while making the subsequent content removal more difficult.

Also, we weren't just sitting around during that time.
We spent the better portion of the day arguing about what exactly we were going to do, spitballing ideas, and workshopping our messaging.
I believe the final version was approved 20 minutes before the content removal began.

dba_afish said:
don't forget the people who were saying you were all secretly against this kind of art the whole time.

It's a little silly.
If we were all against that kind of art, we would not have spent so much time and effort handing out records to people who complained about it instead of blacklisting.

No, having very diverse kind of content benefits the site greatly.
If we could continue to host this specific kind of content, we would have.
But circumstances outside of our control made that impossible.

I had a phase where I liked it quite a bit, now I'm more ambivalent- but that's not relevant. I'm angry that secret pressure from a secret source is forcing what's effectively a museum to censor art(and obviously blaming the museum for that, when it was given no choice in the matter, is absurd.) I'm angry that with all the problems in the world people are invested in attacking lines on a screen, and using sneaky backroom terrorism and conspiracies to accomplish that. I'm angry that we're continuing to regress on something as basic as freedom of expression, and I'm angry that the internet continues to be less disruptive and more susceptible to these kinds of attacks. It's not about 1 niche theme in hentai, it's about civilization

Yes, the immediate anger will pass, and then the same forces will do something else, and then the anger will pass, just like it passed with the last 1000 cuts. That's not a silver lining, that's a ratchet strap around internet freedom's neck.

regsmutt said:
If this content was a main draw for a significant portion of the userbase you'd expect it to make up at least 1% of the site's content, if not more. If you look at the names of people participating in that thread you'll see that most of the discussion is people who are repeatedly commenting on it.
[...]
The people who are going to comment most are those who feel especially negatively towards the change. That thread is absolutely a vocal minority making a lot of noise.

Just looked at the stats, this bulk deletion is 45,789 items(as of yesterday), or about 1.1% of the entire site, 1.6% if you limit to explicit only as in the stated reason...

chatnoir91 said:
Just looked at the stats, this bulk deletion is 45,789 items(as of yesterday), or about 1.1% of the entire site, 1.6% if you limit to explicit only as in the stated reason...

Dunno which stats you "just looked at", but these numbers are outdated.
43399 posts are currently still deleted. That's 0.88% of all posts, or 1.49% of all explicit posts.
The number will likely continue to go down, as janitor continue to review the deleted posts.

cinder said:
Yes, of course, that was a major concern. But besides that, giving people that little time would have been seen as mockery or an insult.
"If you weren't there on that specific day, between these specific hours, you are screwed", that type of thing.
All in all, It would not benefit a lot of users while making the subsequent content removal more difficult.

Also, we weren't just sitting around during that time.
We spent the better portion of the day arguing about what exactly we were going to do, spitballing ideas, and workshopping our messaging.
I believe the final version was approved 20 minutes before the content removal began.

Personally I think the method used to remove the content is one of the biggest issues. It was soo abrupt that people had no time to really understand the reason behind it.

It's a little silly.
If we were all against that kind of art, we would not have spent so much time and effort handing out records to people who complained about it instead of blacklisting.

No, having very diverse kind of content benefits the site greatly.
If we could continue to host this specific kind of content, we would have.
But circumstances outside of our control made that impossible.

This is the part I do not understand and I've noticed alot of people voicing their concerns/anger about this. No one has given any specific circumstance other than something vague as far as I've seen (I may have missed something). I'm sure the anger over this part would subside (even a little bit) if a proper explanation is given.

cinder said:
Dunno which stats you "just looked at", but these numbers are outdated.
43399 posts are currently still deleted. That's 0.88% of all posts, or 1.49% of all explicit posts.
The number will likely continue to go down, as janitor continue to review the deleted posts.

Opps, just looked at .... yesterday, I need to be more careful copy/pasting.

bladeedge said:
Personally I think the method used to remove the content is one of the biggest issues. It was soo abrupt that people had no time to really understand the reason behind it.

I know, and I understand how you feel.
I wish this could have been done differently, but we were out of options.

bladeedge said:
This is the part I do not understand and I've noticed alot of people voicing their concerns/anger about this. No one has given any specific circumstance other than something vague as far as I've seen (I may have missed something). I'm sure the anger over this part would subside (even a little bit) if a proper explanation is given.

That is also true.
And I'm afraid that I cannot provide any further details about the circumstances that led to this situation.
That is simply because assigning blame to anyone specific will certainly lead to harassment directed their way.

NotMeNotYou wrote a very informative post detailing why we can't point fingers here:
https://e621.net/forum_posts/412814

cinder said:
I know, and I understand how you feel.
I wish this could have been done differently, but we were out of options.

That is also true.
And I'm afraid that I cannot provide any further details about the circumstances that led to this situation.
That is simply because assigning blame to anyone specific will certainly lead to harassment directed their way.

NotMeNotYou wrote a very informative post detailing why we can't point fingers here:
https://e621.net/forum_posts/412814

Out of options? Hmmm that does sound bad indeed. Also I WISH I could say no one would harass anyone for this decision/the reason behind it..but...I've been on twitter so I sadly I know people would do it. And I respect you for not wanting that to happen.

godgasi said:
Permanent booru is always available, it's not on the surface net thoughever.

What does that mean? How is it accessible?

dimoretpinel said:
What does that mean? How is it accessible?

It's a booru site on the Tor network. So it's not subject to laws or copyright issues.
Piracy and illegal content abound. Use at your own risk.

So people have yet to acknowledge, or are willingly ignoring or downplaying,(mods/jans/admin,) the main issue about what is happening. The type of content being removed could have been any fetish and it would still have people rallying on the site, just different ones. I know shit and gore are definitely reviled almost as much as the current subject matter on the block.

Censorship always looks great at first, especially if you are a detractor of the content that is currently being removed. It might make you very high in spirits to see content you despise get scrubbed off your beloved platform. But that's the honeymoon phase of worming it's way in. It's meant to be very appealing at first, and it succeeds. It's always enacted under the guise of protecting some class or specific persons. And at first, it's always seen as morally and subjectively a great thing to be had or done. Anyone that isn't familiar with its pracitce, appears quite normally to enjoy its implementation. I myself am guilty of this, like MANY others because at the time, I just saw the complete removal of something I didn't like on a site I enjoy.

But then more things are added to the ever growing list of what, as of yet, is blocked or not allowed on the site. More vocal outrage of that type of content is heard and multiplied, and eventually is added to the collection of the type of content not allowed on the site. And the cycle continues as the community begins the phase of stagnating. Sometimes the opposition steps in immediately and makes their arguments heard about why this move is bad and we are currently seeing the backlash/backpedaling/and panic phases.

Make no mistake, the site's staff are already panicking and trying to downplay the severity of what is happening. They already anticiapted this fallout, and are working doubletime to mitigate their potential losses. Their best tools are: intimidation, insults, and condescension. It begins with insults and talking down to anyone that isn't immediately in agreement with the staff's decisons. They'll have an army of yesmen readily and immediately judge your character for enjoying said content, they'll incite you to say something that might not be outright bannable, but punishable nonetheless. The people in agreement with the staff might even say questionable or flat out not allowed content as well, but they'll either recieve a full pass, or a slap on the wrist by comparison. Or staff themselves will show their double standards on full display and dole out the required actions to get the results they want.

It leads to lots of locked threads, longtime or small time members being temp or perm banned, and eventually the naysayers will be forced out of their own communities. It's interesting for me to see how many members have their names crossed out in these recent threads for saying very vague things that could even be viewed as harmful as reactions to the purging of their content. (also note the common insulting and jeering tone of the ban reasons being listed.)

It's also interesting to see threads almost immediately locked after this issue arose that have very little to do with the content being purged, but one aspect bleeds through both of them. IE:The thread titled, "There Needs to be a Mass Selction Option." It's a several months old thread that someone recently posted requesting help or mentioning having to use this feature again due to the recent decision on the site. It was locked not even 3 days later. The staff can easily site the reasoning for the lock as necroposting as well, so not many people will question it.

You'll also see more threads popping up celebrating the change, arguing the change, declaring their "indifference" to the change,(would not actually be the case since you care enough to make your opinion known,) and that will continue for a while. You'll see other people like me trying to make a point in a civil manner come under fire from said intimidation tactics and similar cajolling. Threads where it's more visible that the staff already lost their arguments will see radio silence for the most part, aside from the active members discussing different options, sites, and debating in a relatively civil manner.

The site has just enacted a bad policy and you'll eventually see the fruits of it. The site is also rightly getting called out about it. It looks really petty at first, but until what you enjoy is added to the list, you won't see it. People talking about feral and shortstacks are doing so from a pov of experience firsthand.

jester89 said:.
-snip-

???

literally no one who's supporting the site staff who knows anything is happy about these changes, and the same can go for the staff themselves. maybe read what either party have been saying since or before this went through.

none of us are pro censorship.

dba_afish said:
???

literally no one who's supporting the site staff who knows anything is happy about these changes, and the same can go for the staff themselves.

You didn't see people launching insults in the thread early on, and being left alone by staff? Odd. Could have sworn we read the same things. Also a noticable pattern of names with lines crossed out in the thread with fresh bans. What's your argument about the thread being locked that had very little to do with the removed topic?

There are still plenty of people happy about this change and fully in support of the site staff. Perhaps I should have posted in the thread the moderation abandoned and continued to circlejerk with the others, instead of trying to reach more people.

I can confirm, we are not exactly celebrating this change here.
And as was said before, we would have preferred not to make it.

jester89 said:
Their best tools are: intimidation, insults, and condescension.

I have no idea what you are talking about.
I don't believe I've seen staff members do any of that.
Could you provide some examples?

there are over 30 pages of an ongoing discussion that has at least over 10 posts in length per page that has a few examples already of what I described.

cinder said:
I can confirm, we are not exactly celebrating this change here.
And as was said before, we would have preferred not to make it.

I have no idea what you are talking about.
I don't believe I've seen staff members do any of that.
Could you provide some examples?

there are over 30 pages of an ongoing discussion that has at least 20 posts per page where you can find a few examples of the things I mentioned scattered throughout.

Feel free to think I'm making something up, but I already poured over the thread a significant amount of time from the first posts to the last page.

"The staff members not doing any of that" The example of the thread I named being locked is part of "any of that."

jester89 said:
"The staff members not doing any of that" The example of the thread I named being locked is part of "any of that."

the thread whose discussion ended neigh on a year ago, was only bumped to post what seems like a bait comment and was locked without anyone receiving a record?

jester89 said:
there are over 30 pages of an ongoing discussion that has at least 20 posts per page where you can find a few examples of the things I mentioned scattered throughout.

Feel free to think I'm making something up, but I already poured over the thread a significant amount of time from the first posts to the last page.

"The staff members not doing any of that" The example of the thread I named being locked is part of "any of that."

Well, as you said – that thread is massive, and it takes time to review it all.
We are doing the best we can – and in fact we did act on a number of posts in that thread. It's just that those posts were hidden to prevent further drama.
There are also a bunch of tickets about it that we still have to finish reviewing: https://e621.net/tickets?search[qtype]=forum&search[status]=pending

As for insults – it's a complicated situation. You conveniently failed to mention the fact that a bunch of people in that thread are insulting us, the staff team.
If we acted every time an insult was voiced, we would immediately get accused of silencing criticism. So we are left handling only the more egregious remarks.

As for that thread – I believe that it was locked to contain the discussion to the pinned thread.
There were a dozen new threads being made about the topic, and we did not want it to take over the entire forum.
No records or bans were issued for any of them.

Let's not forget the insults in the announcement thread. Seriously..if you're against the removal of loli/shota content they call you nasty stuff and insinuate things.

bladeedge said:
Let's not forget the insults in the announcement thread. Seriously..if you're against the removal of loli/shota content they call you nasty stuff and insinuate things.

That's not unique to that thread.
Although I think I already covered that in my previous message.

cinder said:
That's not unique to that thread.
Although I think I already covered that in my previous message.

Oh I think you did. Sorry has been a long day so im a tad tired

bladeedge said:
Oh I think you did. Sorry has been a long day so im a tad tired

Yeah, same here.
It's all good.

cinder said:
They would not have been happy with us even if we did give them warning.
Mind you, the most warning we could have given was like a day.

cinder said:
Yes, of course, that was a major concern. But besides that, giving people that little time would have been seen as mockery or an insult.
"If you weren't there on that specific day, between these specific hours, you are screwed", that type of thing.
All in all, It would not benefit a lot of users while making the subsequent content removal more difficult.

Yeah, it would've sucked to see the content I like go, but the negative reaction would not be remotely this big if there was any warning. This is bad not because I can't access that content here anymore. I like nonfurry content, but I've never been bothered by the fact I can't get my favorite human girls here. It's bad because this site promises to be an archive, and now a lot of that content may be lost media. Only a few hours would've been enough for someone to save and reshare the art on the chopping block elsewhere. I can't speak for everyone, some people are making this out to be a culture war thing which is silly, but this is still serious.

It's difficult to imagine what circumstances would put such a tight time limit on the content's complete removal. I'm hurt by the lack of transparency and the continuing lack of transparency almost as much as the failure to give the removed posts time to be archived elsewhere. Honestly, I still don't believe the story about these unnamed business partners is the whole truth since the story has already changed so many times. If they've done nothing wrong, why hide them? Even if you can't name them, what kind of ultimatum did they give exactly, and why do they have so much control over you?

sentogiga said:
I think that there tend to be far more furs into it than one would expect, but I also kind of wonder if there's some kind of large silent demographic of users here that want nothing to do with it. Am I right or wrong?

registered users -- about 2 million -- are a minority of the probably over 20 million all-time site visitors, and people who choose to reply in a thread about the removal of loli/shota is a minority of those registered users. so yeah it's gonna attract a certain viewpoint

i personally don't find underage-looking characters attractive, let alone human ones. & that's that. but the censorship question is a different issue i suppose

oozeenthusiast said:
If they've done nothing wrong, why hide them?

because they've done nothing wrong.

cinder said:
It's a booru site on the Tor network. So it's not subject to laws or copyright issues.
Piracy and illegal content abound. Use at your own risk.

Ohh, alright, thank you. I never used TOR, it seems scary.

My girlfriend likes inklings, which were heavily hit by the purge. She doesn’t make accounts for 18+ sites, so I’m the one who sent her the art.

Life lesson: download images on the safe site before you gotta check out the unsafe site...

dba_afish said:
because they've done nothing wrong.

If they're responsible for this change, then users here have a reason to care about them. Even if they're small, they're still a business. They shouldn't be protected from their potential customers finding out what they're policies are. If they're part of the site's infrastructure, than even more reason we should know since we are their end users.

arrow189 said:
I'm angry that we're continuing to regress on something as basic as freedom of expression, and I'm angry that the internet continues to be less disruptive and more susceptible to these kinds of attacks.

My personal theory is it's like the "out of sight, out of mind" concept. Basically, when the Internet first got an influx of public users, it was this great thing that allowed people with different views and experiences to communicate.
Of course, because there are people in faction X that hate people in factions A,B,C and there are tons of factions like X for different A,B,C, you'll get people that don't believe their rivals should exist, and that toleration means you're adjacent to said rivals. Connecting said people to the Internet is like connecting a 5-amp cord to a 20-amp outlet and running 15 amps through it. There's going to be fuses blown, or lots of house fires.

IOW: The intolerant people are ruining it for everyone else.

alcofrog said:
registered users -- about 2 million -- are a minority of the probably over 20 million all-time site visitors, and people who choose to reply in a thread about the removal of loli/shota is a minority of those registered users. so yeah it's gonna attract a certain viewpoint

i personally don't find underage-looking characters attractive, let alone human ones. & that's that. but the censorship question is a different issue i suppose

Even better: See how many accounts have NEVER commented and age is over 5 years.

jester89 said:
So people have yet to acknowledge, or are willingly ignoring or downplaying,(mods/jans/admin,) the main issue about what is happening. The type of content being removed could have been any fetish and it would still have people rallying on the site, just different ones. I know shit and gore are definitely reviled almost as much as the current subject matter on the block.

I would have been there for pretty much any tag and have a blank blacklist since I tag pretty much anything. I mean, I tagged almost every fluffy pony post from PtP that missed the cub tag, for example. That's one of the most vile tags on the site. ;)

You'll also see more threads popping up celebrating the change, arguing the change, declaring their "indifference" to the change,(would not actually be the case since you care enough to make your opinion known,) and that will continue for a while.

Or they are indifferent regarding the content, but not about the drama.

dimoretpinel said:
Ohh, alright, thank you. I never used TOR, it seems scary.

My girlfriend likes inklings, which were heavily hit by the purge. She doesn’t make accounts for 18+ sites, so I’m the one who sent her the art.

Life lesson: download images on the safe site before you gotta check out the unsafe site...

Stick to sites that have active moderation or strictly enforced policies (like that Booru). There's lists of safe sites.

sentogiga said:
who either simply don't care for cub or are outright opposed to it on a moral basis

I don't think we should be conflating these two groups.

To me, the difference between people who would answer "yes" and people who would answer "no" to the question:

"do people have the right to make, share, and consume cub and adjacent fictional content without being compared to actual child predators?"

is infinitely more important than the difference between people who merely like and dislike that content; whether anyone in the former group is personally interested in that content or not.

It's a difference between differing personal taste and opposing ideological positions.

cinder said:
Well, as you said – that thread is massive, and it takes time to review it all.
We are doing the best we can – and in fact we did act on a number of posts in that thread. It's just that those posts were hidden to prevent further drama.
There are also a bunch of tickets about it that we still have to finish reviewing: https://e621.net/tickets?search[qtype]=forum&search[status]=pending

As for insults – it's a complicated situation. You conveniently failed to mention the fact that a bunch of people in that thread are insulting us, the staff team.
If we acted every time an insult was voiced, we would immediately get accused of silencing criticism. So we are left handling only the more egregious remarks.

As for that thread – I believe that it was locked to contain the discussion to the pinned thread.
There were a dozen new threads being made about the topic, and we did not want it to take over the entire forum.
No records or bans were issued for any of them.

I will clarify, because you have responded in a pleasant and civil manner. Not EVERY moderator is going to be an asshole, you're a prime example. There still have been some inflammatory ban resoning being left behind on plenty of participants of that thread. Not everything I said has taken place for this site, but is starting to, and there is evidence of that to be found in the thread iself, and the manner of moderators administering punishment to some participants. Not only is it very immature to see mods banning people with what appears glee or a personal grudge, it's telling of who is banned and what actually for. Anyone can be labled a troll, even without valid reason.

And there is PLENTY of insulting going on in that thread. Even some very serious labels being thrown around by some people. They love the removal of the content, and they are trying to bait multiple people into arguments. When I said there are currently, "yesmen" arguing in favor, that doesn't mean they were told to disrupt the thread by mods and staff. they WANT to. They will vehemently defend every action made, even if it's a bad one.

I was simply warning of whats to come when censorship becomes accepted. Didn't lie or omit anything. Those things did happen on sites that opened up to censorship overreach and it will very likely happen to this site as well.

edited for typos.

cinder said:
They would not have been happy with us even if we did give them warning.
Mind you, the most warning we could have given was like a day.

Incorrect. It was at least one month, and possibly as many as three.

dba_afish said:
don't forget the people who were saying you were all secretly against this kind of art the whole time.

Ironic and funny how the people who were predicting these kinds of Secretly Felt Feelings and Shadow Moves (behind the scenes carefully calculated decisions) by the staff -- were told they were essentially "Doom's Daying" and "Being Paranoid." Clearly the most recent "decision anouncement" post is a vindication and validation of the fears of the people who presumed and theorized that the e6 staff most certainly deeply dislike Cub Artwork, perhaps almost as deeply as Sage Nadia at Fchan despised it.

So much for that whole "we're an unbiased artwork archive and we don't want to force our own personal morality onto other people's artwork" philosophy....

wat8548 said:
Incorrect. It was at least one month, and possibly as many as three.

From the way it sounds, those started as individual requests to get rid of/destroy specific posts, there was no intention to remove all explicit young human-like characters then, just deal with the deletion requests as needed. But it ended up not being good enough to appease whoever had a problem, and the call came in to get rid of all of it ASAP.

watsit said:
From the way it sounds, those started as individual requests to get rid of/destroy specific posts, there was no intention to remove all explicit young human-like characters then, just deal with the deletion requests as needed. But it ended up not being good enough to appease whoever had a problem, and the call came in to get rid of all of it ASAP.

This is correct.
There is a difference between "Oh, there's some kerfuffle involving a few dozen posts having to be destroyed" and "Welp, we are going to have to remove 44 thousand posts pretty much immediately."