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DeviantArt turned 25 this past year and celebrated over 100 million registered users. To be precise we’re approaching 110 million users! That is no small feat for an online art community founded in 2000, born on the early web, predating Facebook, Reddit, and other social networks, and stubbornly remaining the devious nexus of the internet for artists and art lovers from all walks of life and places. It hasn’t always been a smooth ride, and we’ve faced our fair share of challenges along the way. But as we celebrate our quarter century and step into the next phase of our journey, I can proudly say that DeviantArt is more alive and vibrant than ever before. I joined the company nine years ago following the Wix acquisition - first as COO, and for the last four years as CEO. I want to share a bit about where we started and how we’re doing today, especially for those who might’ve seen commentary about DeviantArt from people reacting from a distance, rather than from experience. “But

DeviantArt is proud to introduce innovative new technology in our continued effort to help protect our registered artists. DeviantArt Protect, our new state-of-the-art image recognition software, was developed to help safeguard your art in ways that were not possible without recent advances in machine learning. As many artists are aware, copyright infringement is a serious problem. This technology is trained to identify new images that appear nearly visually identical to other images on DeviantArt and allows us to notify you when someone uploads potentially infringing art. The effort that goes into your piece of art is more than simply the time spent creating. The practice, gaining of knowledge, and skill are all evident in the finished product. When DeviantArt sought to utilize machine learning with added human oversight, the goal was to help protect more than just one’s finished work. It's about helping to provide protection around the totality of effort put forth. Helping Protect

DeviantArt is announcing a more proactive approach to moderation. For more information, read below. Fostering a community where artists are able to share their work, express themselves, and grow and learn has always been a cornerstone of DeviantArt. Our Terms of Service and Etiquette Policy were crafted with protecting artists first and foremost, and that remains the case. That said, we want to improve the way we enact and take action with regard to these policies, which is why we’re announcing a change to how we intend to handle deviation moderation. Proactive Moderation DeviantArt has historically used a reactive moderation system for deviations. This means that on many occasions, action against a deviation in violation of our policies would only take place after receiving a report from the community. For many years, this process served the community’s needs, but as the Internet has evolved and as our community has grown, we’ve come to realize this process isn’t enough. Internally

We’re excited to relaunch an initiative that increases community spirit and engagement by welcoming new deviants to the site! A few years back, we piloted a program identifying deviants who excelled at reaching out to others and matched them with new deviants who’d benefit from a warm welcome. We all know how intimidating it can be to join a new community, which is why it was important for us to reimplement this project to ensure deviants feel supported as soon as they sign up! The stats from the initial launch of this program were astounding. Here's a glimpse of how much of a difference you made: New deviants were five times more likely to receive a Profile comment New deviants were twice as likely to make a comment New deviants were twice as likely to receive a llama New deviants were about 80% more likely to receive a deviation comment New deviants were about 75% more likely to receive a favourite New deviants were about 50% more likely to get watched New deviants were about 15%