Stricter Punishments for Minors Lying About Age

Posted 5 years, 5 months ago (Edited 5 years, 3 months ago) by ChickieDee

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:

  1.  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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

hedgemaze

I can't remember if I've replied to this yet, but something definitely needs to be done about this : \

Tendo64

As a minor myself, I absolutely agree with this. Long ago, I lied about my age and got into sexual role play at EIGHT YEARS OLD, causing ME to be in danger, because I was asking questions that made it clear I was under eighteen and got myself involved with a child predator. Thank god my parents found out and banned me from Facebook before the problem could escalate further. So, doing this endangers both minors AND adults.

 I know we're teenagers, but getting to roleplay your characters banging a few years early isn't worth potentially ruining an adult's life. I respect that, which is why I don't distribute any NSFW content online, nor have I lied about my age. In fact, I keep my age fairly well known.

Although my problems are minute compared to the issues OP pointed out, it also saddens me that because of actions out of my control, many people have to actively avoid me or block me due to my age. I don't blame them, but they shouldn't have to. It's not fair that they have to go that far just to feel safe, nor should they have to be afraid of posting 18+ content on the internet at all. Just be patient and wait until you're eighteen like the rest of us. You are ruining everything for everyone. It's not going to kill you to wait.

Myz-Wykkyd

+1. This really needs to be more heavily enforced to protect everyone involved.

BitterSweetWisdom

I actually agree with this, as a minor I can say that kids my age especially really want to get into this type of stuff and be "Mature" which, lying about your age isn't mature. When I first joined toyhouse I actually put my age at 18, since i didn't like saying my REAL age at the point in time(I didn't lie about it and say 18 or whatever), but I do make it clear what age I am now, as i feel a bit more comfortable with that, it's literally on my profile page. I don't (and didn't) participate in NSFW or anything remotely "sexual" at all, like zero, zilch, nada. No thank you. And users my age, even though yeah at that point in your life "bodily responses" and "desires" are heightened, I still think they shouldn't be able to participate in those types of rps and view characters with mature content. For their own good and for the good of others. Great proposition

Edit: I didn't know that the age you enter when making an account wasn't visible to public.

+1

GLITCH-DXCTOR

+1, definitely. 

I understand it's just so darn difficult to enforce these things, but when someone is caught doing this something more has to be done, since it 100% is a legal issue.

dogstarlite

Honestly getting really tired of nothing being done about the issue except for dob being modified on profiles. I already post scarcely enough as is in games and stuff and if this continues I'm just going to abandon the forums entirely.

SoraDeathEater

+1 from me... I love interacting in forum games but now I’m becoming iffy on joining NSFW games and already abandoned the “draw nsfw above” due to this issue.. I know it’s not just me but I’ve become a bit paranoid about this now.. I never lied about my age even when I was a young user on other sites due to this reason. My friend, on the otherhand, LOVED to lie about her age and would interact with adults for NSFW despite being underage.. It would majorly disgust me (that and she had the nerve to use images of me for that kind of stuff “it’s just a faceclaim” she would say...) to this day I don’t feel too comfortable interacting in NSFW content unless I know it’s an adult because it’s labelled on their profile... I do hope something is done about this...

mothgf

Ahh, what the heck, I'm sorry that happened to you, SoraDeathEater ;;


It's getting frustrating seeing no response to this from admins....

SoraDeathEater

(Not going to ping you because I think you’ve mentioned somewhere that you don’t want to be pinged :o ) But yeah it is... It’s a serious offense... especially since it is considered distribution of child pornography/sexting... (oof words I never thought I’d say on here x.x sorry! Plus lack of better wording for it) I, myself, have children and would hate to lose custody just because of someone’s “need” to explore their sexual desires at a young age (lack of better wording..).. like I get it, but you are putting innocent adults who just want to have a bit of interaction in danger... I shouldn’t be getting in trouble for drawing you nsfw when you’re the one that lied about your age (I don’t mean you like you nitocris I mean the underaged users not following the rules x.x).. I’m on here to have legal fun... not have the fear that at any moment I might be interacting with a minor trying to play off as an adult... it’s very scary to me.. (sadly I think I’m going to start blocking the users who lie about their age to participate in those threads... not something I really want to do... but I mean.. better safe than sorry?)..

SoraDeathEater

(Yeah x.x tbh I figured.. though I do hope they do something about this.. ;u;)

Taebasco

God yes +1. I just had an issue with a minor favoriting all my nsfw characters. I contacted the admins even and found out their TH was gifted to them by someone 18+. The admins also mentioned they fixed their profile but, the same person was able to favorite nsfw characters from someone in a server I'm in. It makes me honestly afraid to even post threads seeking RP partners since some minors tend to lie about their age or avoid putting it up entirely . I don't think they understand how serious it is because there aren't really any harsh or stricter rules in place for minors.