VINDICATED (which is just the beginning ... As some of us say in South Africa, “A luta continua!”)

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AI community ‘art’ platform enthusiasts; is your service provider encouraging women objectification?

My TrustPilot review has been reinstated and published, having been rejected when first submitted. It's copied below [although 1) a great deal of work still needs to be done at country-specific national government level regarding the broader issue of women objectification across all AI image generating community ‘art’ platforms; and 2) NightCafé has the right to reply (to date, they've responded to only 15% of negative reviews)]:

A YEAR ON, MY NIGHTCAFÉ ENTHUSIASM HAS WANED

It has been a year since I joined NightCafé and, sadly, my initial enthusiasm for the community platform has waned. Which is largely because of the policy on adult/NSFW (not safe/suitable for work) content.

Being sensitive to such things for various deeply personal reasons, I opted for the ‘safe browsing’ account setting, and all was well until I began entering challenges – all of which expressly prohibit NSFW entries. When inappropriate material is missed by the auto-moderator, it’s up to challenge participants to alert human moderators.

The problem is that there’s no uniform system for doing that. And it’s left to individual NightCafé members to find out which measures to use. There’s a guide for challenge hosts and moderators on dealing with alerts – but nothing for ordinary community members. The community standards are completely silent on the issue.

There’s a tiny grey flag in the top right-hand corner of a mini screen that appears during the voting phase of an official daily challenge, when emojis are used to rank each entry. I only discovered the flag a few days ago, by which time I had annoyed at least one staff member and several moderators by repeatedly reporting NSFW entries using what were apparently the wrong channels. Had I noticed and known about the purpose of that tiny grey flag, I would have clicked it each time I encountered an NSFW entry in an official daily challenge.

During the voting phase of community challenges hosted by individual NightCafé members, two different methods are used. One is voting using emojis. The other is shortlisting. Neither method includes the tiny grey flag alert option. To draw the attention of a human moderator to an NSFW entry in a community challenge, voters are expected to post a message in the challenge chat room.

So, as far as challenges are concerned, there’s no consistency in NightCafé’s NSFW reporting measures. It’s assumed that new members will discover the little flag for themselves. It’s also assumed that they’re familiar with the chat room system. Apparently, there’s a chat room for each community-hosted challenge. However, there’s no chat room for the official daily challenge – another inconsistency.

I have correspondence with a NightCafé staff member earlier this year in which she mentioned the official daily challenge voting process flag system but never explained where the flag’s located. My request for more information was either ignored or spun off into cyber space.

Turning to the classification of NSFW images, it was only in October 2025 that I was told by a NightCafé staff member that artistically portrayed, scantily clad ‘pin-up girls’ are considered safe viewing. So, by reporting them repeatedly as NSFW (which they’re apparently not) I simply annoyed and possibly even antagonised staff and moderators.

The community standards are misleading on this issue. They expressly state that exaggerated body parts and suggestive poses are NSFW. No mention is made of a different standard for ‘pin-up girls’.

The frustration I have experienced trying to understand and navigate my way around the NightCafé NSFW system and reporting measures eventually came to a head last week (on 5 November 2025), when I decided that the only way forward would be to create caricatures with speech balloons making a fuss on my behalf. By then, I had been told by one staff member, in writing, to stop monitoring and reporting the galleries and images of NightCafé members focusing on ‘pin-up girls’.

During a text exchange about this with moderators running the general community support chat room (and an ordinary member passing through), I made my dismay and frustration abundantly clear. My caricatures were created and published soon afterwards.

I have since been temporarily suspended from using NightCafé for harassing the moderators and ordinary community member during that exchange and targeting them in my caricatures.

Frankly, this came as a relief. The joy and sense of achievement I mentioned in my first review has evaporated. I stopped entering community challenges months ago because of the number of NSFW images encountered during the voting phase.

On Tuesday 4 November 2025, I found a racist entry during the official daily challenge voting process. That was the final straw. It also portrayed women in a fat-shaming manner. The ensuing text exchange about this with a moderator in the general support chat room is when I was made aware of the tiny grey flag I should have used to report that image and many others in earlier daily changes.

I was suspended the following day. The caricatures have since been removed from my gallery.

With credits in reserve, I’ll keep my NightCafé account open until my subscription expires in February 2026. But I shan’t use it, on principle.