DeviantART is a great website for artists to share our art and people who enjoy art can communicate with artists and view art. It has so much wonderful features, enjoyment, and fun to it.

But, unfortunately, due to DevinatART not taking action to reports of cyberbullying, stalking, harassment, polemics, etc. it has become engulfed with bullies, trolls, and stalkers. And these bullies will often times work in groups to harass, spread lies, threaten, and stalk random users. Many of their victims chosen simply because of beliefs, religion, race, or the art they draw.

The bullying can become so hostile at times that hacking accounts, chasing people permanently off the site, or even forcing people to get new accounts to escape their bullies has become all too common. Awful polemics spreading lies, vitriol, and encouraging attacking other users is all too common.

Despite cyberbullies being reported constantly nothing is done. Blocking isn't enough for many bullies continue to harass by writing polemics, sharing screenshots, and block evading by making new accounts. Some users will make up to 50 new accounts to block evade. And if a report is answered by admins the reply is to only block and ignore. Ignoring doesn't stop bullies who are obsessed.

Even though the bullying, the polemics, and making up lies goes against deviantART's Terms of Service, users are still ignored when they make reports. Often times reports are never even viewed.

Facebook and other social media sites have improved their monitoring and reporting system to better handle cyberbullies and respond to situations of bullying, stalking, and harassment. DeviantART has not done that.

What we are asking for is as follows:

• DeviantART hires more staff and/or better trains staff to help go through reports of cyberbullying, stalking, and harassment.
• That polemics (hate journals), deviations, and statuses created to target, spread rumors, and encouraging mistreatment of other users be removed and not allowed on the site at all.
• That screenshots are not to be allowed as deviations if they share private info or private conversations unless both parties consent.
• That people who repeatedly break these rules are suspended or removed from the site. A 3 strike rule or something like it put in place to keep repeated offenders from continuing their bullying.
• That no one is allowed to make more than a certain number of accounts, to keep people from being able to block evade.
• That hate groups not be allowed on the site, nor forum posts to harass and bully others.
• To fix the reporting system. Make it easy to find and to share where bullying and/or harassment is happening.
• For DeviantART to please take cyberbullying and stalking seriously and to make a huge effort in stopping it on their site so everyone can go back to enjoying art and not being bothered by people trying to harm us.
• And that deviantART also uses the 2-step verification that Facebook, Google, and other sites now employ to make it harder for other people to access accounts. This will help keep cyberbullies from being able to get into someone's account if they do not have that person's phone, even if they guess the correct password.

We, the deviantART community, just ask for deviantART to remove these bullies and better monitor them when they are reported. Too many of us (myself included) have been forced to go to police and even take bullies to court all because deviantART wouldn't help us with our bullies. And too many users have been chased off the site or harmed themselves from the intense bullying.

Angelo Sotira, and everyone else who helped create and run deviantART, please hear us and help us make your site even better.

Please, listen to your users. We love your site and want to continue using it for years to come. But we can't continue if we are constantly attacked, stalked, harassed, and mistreated by bullies we want nothing to do with.

As your community of devoted deviants, we all sign this petition to show you we need this done and want to help you achieve this goal of a bully-free deviantART.

We also ask that Wix, the new owners of DeviantART, also look at this petition and act if Angelo Sotira doesn't, and/or work with him to make these changes take effect.

Thank you

 (Note: Real name not used by petition maker to protect from cyberbullies.)