THIS IS IMPORTANT. HIGHLY Recommend reading!

There's a platform called datacat.run, and the thing that frustrates me the most about this is that it copies and pastes your creations without permission from what I'm seeing.

With or without PROXY enabled, your characters and their definitions presumably still get transferred over somehow, and this is based on observation. I don't know how they do this...

To see if the characters were accurate and to see if they - the platform - legitimately copied and pasted the definitions, so I chatted and investigated a bit.

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To my unfortunate surprise, I'm on here, not genuinely, though.

I only use this platform, so this is mostly some sort of page dedicated to my creations instead of my ACTUAL page where I communicate with my (lovely) followers and such.

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Summary.

I discovered this sketchy platform through the user Ashley_K, aka Xia, I believe... And I sadly don't know their pronouns, so they'll be referred to as they/them (I apologize if that might be confusing in a sentence.)

I noticed a character they posted via notifications, which wasn't a character, more like an announcement, and out of curiosity, I clicked.

I read it, and at first, I was confused, so I read it again. According to Ashley, the site copies and pastes all of your characters, and you can't even delete them. If you delete on here, let's say, the character transferred onto the datacat.run platform will still be up. Which is unfortunate. Because some creators might've regretted making a character, or want to clean up their page, and it'll linger on the other website.

What sucks more, is that people can also repost creations without credit.

Like yes, this is on "my page," but I didn't genuinely upload it there, which feels pretty misleading. I've never used this site, yet they set me up on there as if I were an active participant, which isn't very honest. They seem to be pushing hard to grow their platform, but the actual user and creator base is barely there.

The website is rather clustered, too, with buttons everywhere, which feels pretty sketchy, and it requires you to pick a model AND an API. If you're going to host AI characters, it would make a lot more sense to build your own model instead of just borrowing others. It's a frustratingly lazy and dishonest platform.

I'm genuinely upset, understandably so. I really dislike that this exists. It's such a misleading platform.

Crazier still is that when you update a creation on the main platform—like, for example, the character's design—it doesn't update over there at all. So if you add something like "only active here," it won't pop up on that site. The character remains completely unchanged. So even when you try to update or credit yourself, there's not much you can do.

Recommendation: Your "profile" on their website can get updated, though—it seems. If you want people to use your legitimate profile, put "ONLY ACTIVE HERE" in your bio right at the top. But if you're an aesthetic person like me, you might want to put it below. Though considering the website's formatting... I definitely recommend putting it on top.

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In short...

I found out through another user (Ashley_K/Xia) that a sketchy site called datacat.run is automatically scraping and reposting our characters without permission or credit. Deleting your character on the original platform does not remove it from their site, updates do not sync over, and they are creating fake profiles using creators' names without consent to look active. To protect your work, update your bio on that site immediately to state you are only active on your official profile.

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- Using all the tags I can so this spreads.. Feel free to ignore.

Tags: Hetalia, important, vampire, popular, girl, nerd, FXF, MXM, furry, kawaii, anime, cat boy, Hellsing, smut, writer, janitor, Alucard, Monster, monster girl, woman, man, DILF, MILK, CRK, cookie run, shadow milk cookie, Jack, angel, college, roommate, invincible, yandere, the freak circus, SCP foundation, gamer, weeb, flirty

Ok, rant, why is the process, the tutorial, KIND OF AGONIZING??? Especially for those who have TONS of bots. What do you mean I have to private all of these individually? And when I make a new one... I have to go on the platform and private it on there so it's JUST on here. .....Seriously???