Furry artist Mitch Beiro has been sentenced to ten years in prison and lifetime probation, after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor under fifteen. The charges relate to his arrest in October 2012, following a police investigation into the sharing of child sexual abuse images via peer-to-peer Internet networks.

The latest roundup of results from the Anthropomorphic Research Project uses 1065 surveys taken at Anthrocon 2012, 802 online non-furry participants, and data from six prior studies.

Many findings revolved around the involvement of bronies in furry fandom:

• The 23.5% of furries also identifying as bronies did not significantly differ from other furries in most respects; they reported greater experience of bullying, slightly worse physical health, and appeared to have a slightly less-formed sense of identity
• Bronies in furry fandom had been part of the fandom for longer than the average fur
• Furries who thought bronies were also furries had a higher opinion of them; some furs dismissed them as obnoxious, a fad, or immature, or had problems with specific bronies

In addition, the larger non-furry sample made it possible to make several general findings:

• Furries tend to be more liberal and 'global citizens' than non-furs; most are not religious
• Furries know more about animals ... but could occasionally be over-confident about it
• Furries were three times less likely to consider themselves exclusively heterosexual than non-furries, four to five times more likely to say they were exclusively homosexual, and far more likely to report bisexuality or orientations such as pansexuality or asexuality
• Furries reported a greater history of physical and verbal bullying than non-furries
• Furries did not differ significantly to American non-furs with regard to psychological or relationship health, or self-esteem, but had a more-developed sense of self and identity

The analysis also refined earlier findings about therians, identified popular furry websites and artists, and introduced a scale to distinguish between "healthy fantasy engagement" (which furs had significantly more of than non-furs) and "unhealthy fantasy" (which they did not).

Similar to Craiglist's decision to shut down its personal ads section, Dallas-Fort Worth-hosted furry dating service Pounced.org is down, pending interpretation of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which passed the U.S. Senate Wednesday.

FOSTA is intended to assist victims of sex trafficking, by allowing them to sue websites that facilitated their abuse. This gives previously undue liability to the platform for actions and content of third-party users; so Pounced.org is shutting down as a preventive measure while Kelar, the site's founder, seeks legal counsel.

The website, launched 15 years ago this month, hosted more than 13,000 ads from furries seeking friends, dates, or casual encounters within the fandom. Visitors are now directed to criticism of the bill from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization.

Update 03/26/18: The message on Pounced.org has been updated. Users can now read a much more in-depth explanation of the motivation for the shut-down, and concerns over the meaning of the bill:

Furry art community Inkbunny has announced several upgrades, including increased max. submission size (30Mb; 6000x6000), greater control over notices, improved keyword suggestion, and the ability to search by content rating, time range or user.

The update is the first since September 2011 – though some changes had been made earlier, but not announced.

User feedback has been generally positive so far, although the new "suggested submissions" feature (which highlights work favourited by watched users) received a mixed response.

Inkbunny hosts over 180,000 submissions and has 96,000 members; ~10,000 are active in any one day. It was recently nominated as Best Website for the 2011 Ursa Major Awards.