The power DA gives to artists is disgusting

I have a lot of reasons to hate how the block system of Deviantart works. That you cannot communicate with an artist who blocked you at all anymore, and even get accused of harassment and threatened with a ban of all of your accounts if you try, prevents you from settling a dispute with an artist.
That you cannot favourite art of an artist who blocked you anymore, or put it into collections, is an unnecessary punishment and exaggerated course of action, because preventing any kind of contact already makes it impossible to harass or bully an artist.
But the thing up there is finally what oversteps the mark of the blocking system by thousands of miles.

I discovered this when I blocked another artist here today, for being an obnoxious SJW troll. I clicked on a picture on his profile page after applying the ban and found it to be hidden, with the message that I can't see it anymore because I have blocked the artist. It rang my alarm bells and I already figured what this means, so I went to a few artists of which I know that they have blocked me and, indeed, I am unable to see any of their art pieces.
So, essentially, Deviantart now prevents you from seeing art of an artist who blocked you. While still allowing blocks for any reason, regardless if you actually harassed an artist.
This is..... all kinds of fucked up and wrong for many reasons.

First off; EVERY person on this planet has the RIGHT of free access to art. If anyone tells you that you don't have this right, then they are either badly informed and don't know it better or they are deliberately lying and try to deny you your rights because they are selfish, egoistic people who don't care for others and/or love to dictate others. In the latter case, this is something that you will probably have heard by one of the many artists here on Deviantart who have previously blocked you or currently threaten you with a block.
If they tell you that, then they tell you something wrong. And if you read this and happen to not be informed about it enough, this is not something I'm making up because I'm pissed at the aforementioned issue. That everyone has the right to freely access art without limitations is a diehard and foolproof fact:

www.un.org/en/universal-declar…

"(1)Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."

The above line in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written by the United Nations, which 193 nations are a member of. If you don't live in north korea or china, chances are your country is a member, too, and adheres to these standards.
This declaration says you have the right to freely access art and enjoy it. A right that is legally binding in practically every single nation on Earth. And most definitely in the country(ies) Deviantart operates from, too. And this is what Deviantart is violating here without batting an eye.
If Deviantart prevents you from seeing the art of artists who blocked you, then it is violating one of your basic human rights, the right to access art freely, the right to enjoy the art you want to enjoy without anyone interferring with this or limitating this ability of yours. This is a right you have and that you deserve to have. Your personality, the way you act, your interests and beliefs, they all don't matter for this. Heck, even if you are a true jerk and harasser, it still does not cut you off of this right. Chances are that you are one of those kinds of people; who love to pick on others, bully others and to make their lives as miserable as you can. But even if you are such a person, then you still have this right. Even harassers, bullies and jerks have the right to entertainment and culture and the right to choose what art they want to look at. If one denies you this right, then they bully back at you and aren't any better.
Regardless of how you are and how you act, Deviantart cutting you off of free art access is still a violation of one of your basic human rights.
THIS IS NOT OKAY. It means Deviantart denies you to choose the art you want to see and that it effectively limitates and dictates your art choices, because some artists here decided you are not worthy of seeing their creations, for whatever reason (or non-reason) they may have.


Second, and I'm approaching this from a different angle than the law angle here, is that each and every artist on this site can now steal your ability to openly, freely and safely look at and enjoy their art pieces, FOR ANY REASON.
I said above that even jerks, harassers and bullies still have this human right, but if you are such a person or not, does NOT EVEN MATTER. An artist here on Deviantart can block you for any reason, without any moral standards, without a right or wrong reason, heck, without any reason at all!
An artist here can block you because they see your name and a gut feeling tells them they should block you, the staff of Deviantart will not object to this if you report an artist for such a shady block reason. Because the official Deviantart rules and the Deviantart staff give them this power:

"Yes, any deviant can block up to a maximum of 500 people for any reason from interaction."

help.deviantart.com/96/

"Deviants have the option to block any other deviant, or hide a comment from any deviant, for any reason. There is no unfair, wrong, or abusive use of the block or hide comment tool. If you have been blocked, you should respect the wishes of the deviant who blocked you. DeviantArt staff will not deliver messages on your behalf, or force a deviant to unblock you or unhide a comment."

help.deviantart.com/913/

So you should respect the wish of an artist to deny your right of viewing and enjoying their art that you love because they feel you shouldn't see it. Welcome to the Age of Artist Dictators and Artistic Oppression.

But, of course, none of these things will be a problem..... Why would they? Letting aside for a moment what I said about that you still have your right of viewing the art you enjoy even if you are a jerk or harasser; if you are a decent, nice person who doesn't give others crap then you'll never get blocked by an artist anyway. If you behave well, then you will never have to endure that one of your human rights gets violated here on Deviantart, right? So everything's fine. Just act normal and everything will be okay.
Even here on Deviantart there is a moral standard, after all, no one's going to block you if you haven't done anything wrong at all. I'd like to think that, too, but unfortunately, the reality looks different.
From the sixteen blocks I received here on Deviantart in the more than four years that I'm active here now, the "reasons" include:

- Calling out a brony hater who openly insulted and attacked bronies, who accused them of ruining the spirit of MLP: FiM by watching it and who name-called them by using the infamous term "manchildren", for his bad attitude.

- Voicing disagreement towards a pony plush artist over their claim that people who believe in the existence of ghosts just imagine things and have hallucinations, in a discussion about the paranormal.

- Friendservice. Blocked by an artist whom I never even communciated with or had any contact at all, because their friend told them so, after said friend had blocked me before for "admitting" that I like clop.

- No reason given. Woke up, went on Deviantart and found myself blocked by a pony artist who I barely communicated with or who I never had any problems, trouble or fights with.

- Defending a commenter from a pony artist who subliminally accused them of being a child-molesting pedophile, after said commenter interpreted one of their pictures of Tender Taps and Applebloom dancing intimately together as shipping, and cornering that commenter until they felt pressured to defend themselves and to make they aren't a pedophile for interpreting a picture in a romantic way.


If you haven't done anything wrong at all, no one's going to block you, because even artists on Deviantart have a moral standard..... BULLSHIT.
Deviantart artists do not have a moral standard. They don't care if you are a jerk or harass them or if you are a nice, normal person who just thinks differently than them or likes different things than them. Deviantart artists don't even care about KNOWING you. Here on Deviantart, block reasons range from "You numerously come under my art pieces to troll and call me an 'asshole'." to "I don't like the color of your socks!".
This is an exaggerated scenario, but the reality is extremely close to this. Here on Deviantart, there's nothing holding back an artist from blocking you for any reason, no matter how petty, wrong or abusive it is.

This is something VERY concerning, because now that you can't even see the art pieces of an artist anymore if they decide to block you, you are at their mercy and basically have to do (or not do) anything the artist wants as long as you choose to comment on their art, journals or on their profile or to have any conversation with them anywhere.

For disagreeing with an artist on a discussed subject, for being friends with someone an artist doesn't like, for liking something the artist doesn't like or thinks it's bad, for calling out or criticizing an artist for having a bad attitude, for pointing out a flaw in a picture of an artist, for interpreting a picture of an artist in a way they don't approve of, for having a different opinion than an artist..... For all of this, you can now get denied your basic human rights of viewing the artist's art that you enjoy, if the artist decides to block you.

You don't think like the artist, you don't agree with them on something, then you don't get to see their art anymore and get one of your rights denied, the right of free access to art without getting limited, threatened or driven into anonymity.
Basically, that means, if you now want to access and enjoy art by an artist who blocked you, you'll have to use the TOR browser and make an alternate account with that and browse Deviantart anonymously while being on the gallery of an artist who blocked you from seeing their art, if you don't want to risk that all of your accounts get terminated for circumventing an artist's block. All because Deviantart is denying you one of your basic human rights, the right to freely access art and culture without restrictions.
Deviantart has become an authoritarian regime now, ruled by a careless staff and by tyrannic artists who only allow you to look at their art if you please them and if they think you're worthy to see their art, where people who just want to enjoy any art of their choice have to do it anonymously to avoid getting punished.


The amount of power the Deviantart staff gives the artists here disgusts me. I always feared that this will happen one day, that artists here on Deviantart will demand that blocked users can't see their art pieces anymore, to have even more control, and that the Deviantart staff complies and gives them this feature, ever since I discovered that getting blocked nukes your favourited art pieces from the artist who blocked you and prevents you from favouriting any more art of them. Now it has happened.
I take a leap here and predict that, from all the countless of fictional dystopian settings that could become real one day, this will be it.
Not companies who have more power than governments, not Equality, not brainwashing, not abusive governments who dictate every step and decision of your life and who monitor every inch of your private household with cameras.
What happens here is what will be it. I predict that the dystopia we will have to endure in reality one day will be an artistic dystopia, a world where artists decide who can look at art and who can't and who let only those see art who don't oppose them. In other words, the aforementioned Age of Artist Dictators and Artistic Oppression.

Deviantart is already there now and I feel it won't take long until other art sites do the same, because artists pushed them to do so. Brave, New Artist World, here we come.