Okay thanks.
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
+1! I’m actually a minor myself, and honestly it frustrates me a lot to see ill-behaved children or even teenagers on a site who don’t understand what they’re doing is wrong, especially if they have parents who don’t watch over them. And this doesn’t mean I love helicopter parenting, but please, at least know what sites they have access to, and know what restrictions to put in place. It shouldn’t be toyhouse staff’s responsibility to fix the mess that the parent’s child has made.
I can see being fine with gore filters, but nsfw? Nope, nah. You can wait a few years kiddies. Don’t scar yourself like I did :,U
+1 on this! You mentioned that these kinds of interactions and ability to reach such content is illegal in the US, but the thing is, since TH is a world-wide website, it must follow international laws! This means even if you live in the UK, where the legal age is 16, these rules cannot be circumvented in any legal capacity, because websites MUST follow the older age of consent of 18.
I had no idea that the punishment was so lenient, when it should be more like what you have suggested. If a minor is caught doing these things, ALL ADULTS AROUND THEM CAN BE CONSIDERED GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION, and that needs to be understood!
Honestly, I have mixed feeling about this. It can go in both ways. Yes, I’m that stupid kid so witch-hunt me all you want.
I completely understand why you adults want this, I do. But not all kids who lie about their age want to endanger adults. Some lie about their age due to the paranoia of an adult grooming them, sure, it might not work, but kids are kids. Heck, thats why my bio has an 1X, so that pedos would think I’m either 18 or 19
There is one problem though.
If there are kids trying to go talk about sex, are there any adults trying to groom in children? Specifically in the website? Like, what if the minor didn’t know this pedo is a pedo?
More specifically what if adults lie about their age to groom in kids on this sits?
The ID card thing can be easily photoshopped to make them younger ( or at least 18 ) and get a pass, so there is really no point. The temporary ban can be lied saying “I got grounded for two weeks”, so there no point in that either. And if the minor didn’t know they are in danger, how would you know? Do you either see 2 minors having imaginary roleplay sex in a forum page, or a pedo grooming a child. Which one would you report?
I do not intend to cause drama, just solutions so that absolutely no sides gets hurt in this kind of situation.
Memesogic That's...not the issue here. The issue is minors lying about their age on sign-up (aka data that only admins will have access to) in order to gain access to 18+ features of the site, such as 18+ threads, 18+ imagery, and users who have mature blocks on their account.
Also, no one is witch-hunted for lying about their age. They are avoided & blocked because this is a extremely serious issue. It could land an adult in JAIL and put on a list for LIFE if a minor decided to be selfish and lie about their age in order to gain access to adult content .
Hello! While I understand your concern, I feel as if there is a misunderstanding here on what we're talking about when we say "lying about age".
What we mean is lying about your age while entering information for signup; in other words, the birthday information you give TH while signing up that no one else can see and is exclusively used to determine if you can access mature content yet or not.
This isn't about children being vague about their ages on their profiles to protect themselves from possible harm! I completely ubderstand that method and that caution, and honestly thats very wise to do! STILL, if you are truly doing this to just protect yourself, entering your birthday in correctly while signing up and creating your account is still important, because it keeps minors out of those sexual situations in the first place (and I'll reiterate the point that your birthday that you put at signup is seen by no one but you and the admin) Thissituation is exclusively about restricting their access to NSFW materials
As for the last section, where you ask which of the two you would report, I'd report both. Both are endangering to people on this site, both minors and adults. This situation isn't an either/or thing, both are bad and have separate solutions that don't cross over with one another.
+1(000000) I think a more lengthy ban would be very reasonable - something even upwards of 2-6 months but after an initial 2 weeks temporary warning ban. Most kids lie about their age and are really dumb about this type of thing (I know I was). They don't understand why you you lie about your age and will do this type of thing. But once it's explained to them they should understand the problem - after this point they're liable and I care a bit more.
This means making new accounts to try circumvent filters to view, create and use NSFW threads. As well as buying any NSFW commissions. If this is done then I think the longer ban would make a lot more sense to me. And then a further, permanent ban. This would be less a warning and more of a punishment.
Something I would greatly appreciate, is age being stated pretty directly on the profile whether someone is or isn't a minor (not age specifically). Potentially just in the "Stats" tab. I really really hate having to sift through and GUESS whether someone is or not and it makes me very uncomfortable not being able to tell. Especially given that this is a community where people trade characters which can sometimes come with explicit material & artwork and often commission art which can also be NSFW in nature. I also personally don't really commission people who are under 18 for a number of past reasons atm - including minors not being able to souley own a paypal account. On DA isn't your age stated up ontop next to gender/location (if chosen to be up there that is)?
Memesogic If you're alright with me giving an opinion, putting 1x gave me an impression you were quite a bit younger than 18/19. I would suggest maybe putting 'teen' if you're trying to give that impression. I'm am sorry if you've had some bad experiences in the past. I do want want to bring up that the issue being discussed here is largely the complete opposite of this, though. But I completely understand if you are concerned. I know that anyone who was thought to be engaging in any behavoiur like that would be immediately banned very fast and never let back so if you ever see anyone who looks like they are 'sketchy' please bring it up to a mod immediately! But as Jasdevi said, I think both of these things would be pretty immediately reportable. That said, though, two minors doing nsfw rp is perfectly fine when done in private. I think people exploring their sexuality is perfectly normal but not in a public space where adults are.
As someone who relies on mature filters to weed out kids preemptively AND someone who was dumb and lied about their age as a teen, +1 to this. It's really stressful to deal with the risk of kids seeing my NSFW stuff...
I would've been against this as a minor, I was the kinda minor that never once told the truth about his age. As an adult, I realize just how much danger I was putting others and myself in because of my own selfishness, considering that now as an adult this is one of my biggest concerns. I was absolutely foolish and inconsiderate, and if I had really realized just how awful my actions were, I would've stopped. So yeah, this has my full support +1
I think my only suggestion is when minors are sanctioned for this behavior, that they are let know not just what they were sanctioned for, but also how lying about their age affects others. I'm an honest believer that most minors that lie about their age, much like my younger self, are not doing so out of malice, and are only doing so because they don't see the danger in doing so.
+1 absolutely...
I mean of course I was one of those kids that lied about their age online for years, and was it smart? of course not. should i have been banned/reprimanded whenever i was caught? lmao absolutely, even if i couldn't fully understand why. some kids will never understand why even after they aren't minors anymore. there's literally no reason not to ban people who try to go around this though.