TEGAKI, a new Japanese social media platform aimed at artists, officially launched on January 13. The creative platform works similarly to Pixiv – letting users upload and view illustrations and manga – but what’s different about it is that it seeks to host hand-drawn art exclusively, with a complete prohibition of AI-generated or AI-assisted images. This policy has earned the platform a lot of attention in Japan, attracting over 5,000 registered users on launch day.
Developed by independent engineer and artist Tochi, Tegaki is meant to be a safe haven for creators and fans who want to appreciate human-made art (whether traditional or digital). For the most part, it works the same as any standard creative platform – with a home screen that showcases new and popular posts, a keyword and tagging system, likes, and bookmarks. It also comes with an integrated commission system that uses Stripe for payments, so users can buy artwork directly on the platform.
Given its strict no AI-art policy, Tegaki comes with an authentication system which lets creators submit timelapse videos and working files to certify their work as genuinely hand-drawn. Additionally, the platform says it has taken some measures to protect its users from unauthorized AI learning. For example, Tegaki denies access from major AI crawlers like GPTBot, CCBot, and Google-Extended, sets meta tags to deny AI learning on all pages, blocks any suspicious bulk access, and prevents downloading of images by prohibiting right-clicking and dragging. While aware that these measures aren’t foolproof, Tegaki’s providers promise to keep working on ensuring users’ work is protected.
Since the platform has generated far more interest than initially anticipated, the providers (who expected to welcome about 50 users at launch, not 5,000) say they’re struggling to stay on top of inquiries and experiencing some technical issues, but ask users to stay tuned as they work on updates and improvements.
TEGAKI is now online, with an official Japanese and English version available. Note that at the time of writing, I’m not able to access the site on PC (likely due to the previously mentioned technical troubles), but it seems to be working on mobile.
