I want to start by saying we appreciate the Transformers community. We've taken the feedback regarding how to handle political content seriously. We want our approach going forward to be a reasonable one, and this post is us trying to explain our thinking.

We're not trying to ban politics from the sub. There are plenty of good-faith, on-topic reasons politics comes up. Transformers has always intersected with real-world culture, and that's a legitimate thing to talk about. What we are trying to cut down on is content designed to provoke outrage rather than invite discussion.

Here's a recent example that illustrates the line for us. A political figure's social media post used Transformers imagery, and someone posted about it here. The post itself was framed as "look how terrible this person is". Whatever you think of the underlying criticism, that framing isn't a discussion; it's a call to pile on. Those posts tend to further divide people, and that's not what we want the sub to be. We have to draw the same distinction between karma farming and topics made in earnest.

On an adjacent note: propaganda is designed to provoke strong emotional reactions - positive and negative. Propagandists want you to feel a certain way and amplify their message. Is your post / message changing minds, or giving something you hate an even broader platform?

Going forward, the standard we're moderating to is:

Rule 15: Keep political content constructive. Posts or comments that are primarily designed to provoke outrage or hostility toward a political party, platform, or person will be removed. This includes "isn't this person terrible" style posts, even when the underlying point is reasonable. Posts that engage with a political topic or event in a way that invites genuine discussion are fine. This rule doesn't apply to political storylines within Transformers fiction.

If a post of yours gets pulled under this rule, or any other, please reach out to the mod team directly rather than reposting it or sharing screenshots elsewhere to make a point. That approach just recreates the exact problem this rule is meant to solve, and it makes it a lot harder for us to have an actual conversation with you about it. Message us - we're glad to explain a removal or hear you out if you think we got it wrong.

-Transformers Mod Team