idk I feel a temp ban should last up until they are 18. If someone is directly lying about their age to get around the block like that they cannot be trusted, imo. I get it, kids make mistakes and they can be really dumb mistakes. But I wouldn't chance it. Most minors are smart enough not to pull stuff like that. The possability of very real and permanant damage should not be tolerated by the few that decide to be brats.
Edit (1/26): I want to sincerely thank the admins for the updates to the rules they have done. It makes it clear that you all truly are listening to us, and I don't think that it can be overstated enough how much this will improve both minor's and adult's experiences while using TH. Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart;
Thank you!
Hello! This is the first time that I've posted something like this, but because of various recent events on this site, I feel like this isn't something that can't NOT be brought up anymore.
My suggestion is for stricter punishments for minors on this site that lie about their age in order to evade mature content blockers that are set on this website. I have had to report two users within a span of maybe two weeks for evading the mature blockers by lying about their ages, one very openly writing fetish material with other users and with their characters while interacting with adult users and other minors. In each of these situations, the ONLY punishment that these users have faced is their account age being changed to the appropriate age.
After talking with several other users who have faced similar experiences, I felt like it was needed to send a plea to the admins to enforce stricter punishments when dealing with such users.
The Reasons Why This Needs to Be Enforced:
- This behavior is ILLEGAL and puts both the users of the site AND the site itself at legal risk. Obviously the most important reason, but minors posting NSFW works or roleplaying NSFW situations with other people are considered distribution of child pornography and sexting with a minor respectively, at least in the United States. I'm not sure the exact laws concerning others countries, but considering the majority of the site in US-based, this is an EXTREME issue. It doesn't matter in the eyes of the law if the minor lied about their age; it's still illegal, and can end people up on the sexual offenders list, which can limit a person's ability to have custody of their children, where they are able to live, what sort of jobs they are able to have, etc. In short, this can effectively ruin someone's life, simply because a minor wanted to engage in NSFW works before they are legally allowed to.
- This behavior effectively NULLIFIES ANY AND ALL PROTECTIONS WE HAVE ON THE SITE. It nullifies the minor block, both the hard block and the soft block, it nullifies mature character locks, it nullifies mature threads. The Maturity blocks and filters only effect those who follow the rules. It proves pointless to have when minors are bypassing via faking their ages. It's the equivalent of having a rule system at Gamestop to check ID, but then kids flash their sketchy IDs and they get a pass to get GTAV. In short, it practically renders all of these functions USELESS, because the minors who actually are honest about their ages while signing up are the only ones effected in this way by this behavior, while the offending minors get off practically scott-free.
- To continue on the last point, by not further punishing these offending minors, you create a fear of other users and a fear on the site in general that this is not a safe space for adults. This has happened so frequently to the point where I legitimately go out of my way to AVOID many users who state they are minors on this website because of the actions of a few, where I have legitimately thought of removing any and all of my mature content from this site because I feel as though some minor will STILL be able to see it. There's no precedent to show that this won't be tolerated, so it will continue to happen.
- By enforcing stricter punishments, it sends a clear message to minors that this sort of behavior isn't okay in any regard, and that the TOS isn't a joke.
- Also, according to the TOS, this SHOULD already be a suspendable offense, as under the User Accounts section, it states that, and I quote " You agree to provide Toyhouse with accurate and complete information for registration."
Suggestion For Punishment:
Of course, this is also open for suggestions, but after talking with other users, this is the current suggestion for how to deal with this offense:
While punishment should ALWAYS be a case by case basis, the course of action when a minor is caught faking their age to bypass mature content filters should be a temporary ban of two weeks, plus the official changing of their age. Just to make it clear that this situation IS taken seriously, while still giving them the chance to acknowledge WHY what they did is wrong, and be able to grow from there
If the user is caught trying to circumvent the temporary ban OR the mature filters again by creating a new account, then a permanent IP-ban would be put in place.
Of course, this is still open to suggestions as I said, and I would love to hear feedback from other users.
In short, I feel for the safety of ALL users on this site, both adults AND minors alike, the situation of minors lying about their age to circumvent the mature content filters needs to be handled much more seriously than it has been. I love Toyhouse, and I love how broad a range of content creators we have on here, but when there is a legitimate fear to interacting with anyone or posting mature content because it isn't treated with the serious that it needs, it makes it very hard to feel safe on this site as it is.
Thank you all for reading, I hope that I've at least made a little bit of sense (as I said, I'm not very good at doing this sort of thing), and if you have anything to add, please do so!
ignore the IC post TH is being wei rd
So cost the site a ton of money hiring a bunch of staff to go through every adult on this site as is, and any future ones. Also photoshop and fake IDs are a thing. And I guess valid privacy concerns are not worth taking account of.
All you have to do is not have intent to share NSFW content with minors. And that extends to random people. Simply having NSFW content stumbled upon by a minor will not get you imprisoned. Explain how porn sites exist still if it does. Explain how Furaffinity gets by fine. DA has a ton of disgusting fetishes, it isn't shut down and none of those sites go this far to get age confirmation... almost like having to have intent is a thing.
Also I have health issues making travel near impossible and I'm basically bound to my house and property line. Where I am you can't just mail away and get an ID. Nor do I need one, especially not to store characters.
Now don't get me wrong, minors getting punished for lying and getting caught? Hell yeah. There's sensible suggestions around the punishment too. But not that overkill solution. I imagine you meant well with it, but still.
I agree the thread's topic is an epidemic, but with the recent new privacy laws, requiring users to submit proof of their age through an ID breaks nearly every single one of those laws. Sites have to give you a disclaimer about what they'll do with your data and even door to door vendors aren't allowed to ask for your details, so I think that asking for such an intrusive process would quickly kill most interest in the site and cause a mass migration, if it's legal at all to ask for these details. Also, what VincentVanGoat said
The issue is that anyone who wants to see it, will eventually see it. It's like the dozen on methods people use to evade blocks, IP blocks, and even guest + IP blocks. I agree that having a stricter punishment for it would help out our case much better.
i dont know where it was mentioned that wed have to submit an id card for verification bc im just not seeing it but +1 chickie i agree w/ u
+1, and I'm of the opinion that a minor getting caught willfully lying to get access to NSFW stuff should have a forum ban until they reach 18.
As another user already stated, requiring submission of proof of identification breaks several privacy laws that are in place, which is part of the reason I didn't suggest it in the original post.
To everyone here, I want to thank everyone for the support here, and i apologize for not being able to respond to all of you, but know i appreciate the support! I'll probably up the suggested forum ban to a few months as per suggestions from others. Part of the reason I didn't initially want to make it a full on ban/too long of a ban is because I feel as though that would only encourage them to try and make new accounts to try and circumvent the block. But thank you all for the suggestions!