DeviantArt (2020-present)

DeviantArt is a social networking/digital art museum website. It was originally launched on August 7, 2000 by Angelo Sotira, Scott Jarkoff, and Matt Stephens as part of a larger network of music-related websites called the Dmusic Network. It was later bought by Wix in 2017 for $36 million.

While the site is considered a mixed bag in the mid-to-late 2010s, the site since late 2010s it started went downhill very quickly with Eclipse in 2020.

Why They're Devious Now

1. WIX: Many of the problems are attributed to them. Ever since Deviantart was bought by said company, the site became worse and worse after 2020. Because of this, its company is hated by many users alike.
2. The Eclipse layout, the "new" DeviantArt, is a blatant copy of the layout that ArtStation is using, which nobody asked for. The Eclipse layout became permanent on May 20th, 2020, which means they forced it on everyone. It is unintuitive and unnecessarily complicated; it contains lots of glitches, and users can no longer do stuff that the old layout could do like coding or varied filtering search results. Also, the UI is not entirely a complete layout since you may see a mixed-up old layout and Eclipse on any Group page. Thanks to this, there is a lot of backlash against it, including petitions and a "#soundofsilence" movement in which many users have vowed not to post any new content from May 1-May 3, 2020.
3. Editing a comment at the bottom of a thread is a nightmare. When you try to press the edit button, it takes you back up and you’ll have to scroll down just to press the edit button again. Old DA did not behave this way. Sometimes it takes about four hits for it to finally respond. But this is one of the MANY things wrong with the layout that they would take up this whole page to include.
4. Due to said new layout, there is a lot of backlash against it, including this change.org petition and a "#soundofsilence" movement in which thousands of users have vowed not to post any new content from May 1-May 3, 2020.[1]
5. Even after all the backlash, the Eclipse layout became permanent while not willing to allow users to have the option to switch to the old site like Reddit does.
6. At the end of 2021, 10 deviantations by page, while okay, it's a step-down from the old design until that has more than 10 works that were
7. The search on the site is now broken. If you find anything that's obscure or the situations in the site, the results will be 90% non-related things
8. As mentioned in the pointers above, DeviantArt is notorious for ignoring its user base. Asking for opinions but ignoring them. Tickets are ignored
9. Nowadays a Core membership is required to use DA points, which is just unlike the old DA where all users can use points.
10. Spammers are everywhere on the site, and the staff doesn’t do anything at all
11. The list of who is online and who is not, which used to be in the top right corner of the screen next to your username was removed, and never gave us a reason why they did. It was useful because you could see who was active and who was inactive.
12. They deleted the search bar on favorites and also the sort by in search bar on the site because it "costs too much" and the only way to get back is having a third-party extension. Luckily, the search bar on favorites got back in 2023
13. In the mid-2022 before the automatic mature content label, when you search anything like videogames, shows or anything else, it will display mainly non-safe for work that is not filtered as mature content including fetishes
14. In November 2022, they marked automatically as mature content in safe artwork and pictures due to an update to have ads which doesn't make sense since formerly the user's deviants don't label it
15. Since December 2022, when safe works were back normally, and other than the bots marked it as "Mature content" changed it as "may contain sensitive content" which forces you to log in to see even in safe-for-work deviantations.
16. Most of their guidelines such as negative imagery on why it is marked as sensitive content when logged out are a form of censorship much like YouTube does. Thankfully since mid-2023, DeviantArt has not done with the deviantations, and said safe deviantations are visible again
17. Previously when you see 3 works per page an annoying pop-up join appears
18. Even worse since 2022 When you explore art in some tags going in sort by recent, popular in 24 hours, week, month, or year it forces you to Log in to see what tried to compete with other sites like Instagram. Thankfully it doesn't do nowadays as of mid-2023
19. Starting in 2023, users cannot use a VPN while logged in, if the site detects a user using a VPN while logged in, the user will automatically be logged out without warning, and there's slightly no chance to log in back in unless the VPN is turned off or uses split tunneling to allow the site to bypass their VPN. Worse is that DA does not even listen to users that they must have their VPN off to log into their site, so legitimate users who use a VPN might not even be aware that they have to disable an important piece of their online security just to log into an art site.
20. During early 2024, the site planned to force Eclipse layout completely for the groups and also forums, which made many users backlash the change again. The change with Eclipse layout end goes permanently, plus Deviantart doesn't listen to said users against the update
21. There is an issue with the tags when you see the related thing and explore for its obscure media or not, it appears anything non-related to said deviantation from an obscure videogame, TV show, movie, etc. It seems that Deviantart only cares for big artists, popular things, or other reason
22. Recently there has been a problem with users that had many favorite folders when you go to the near end of favorite folders, it appears an error 404 "Llama not found" which is so annoying when said favorite folder is available.

Undevious qualities

1. There are plenty of good artists, and plenty of amazing art aside from the bad art. Unfortunately, many good artists are leaving DeviantArt one by one, moving to other social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter or better art sites such as ArtStation.
2. Before Eclipse, functions being removed, and censorship, it was visually appealing and easier to use

References

1. https://www.deviantart.com/team/journal/Discover-the-New-DeviantArt-842523738