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

DarkElite020

+1, its uncomfortable to know minors may be viewing nsfw content, and with the serious and VERY REAL legal trouble adults can get into, even if a minor was lying, is very unfair and makes it unsafe for adults to participate in these kinds of things despite warnings meant to keep children away.

Tegmelko

1+ I am really hesitant to post NSFW for a bunch of different reasons, and now I can add this one on the list.

But a question... how do you actually know a minor is lying about their age ??

ChickieDee

Vowltures

The ways I've caught minors:

- They post in an NSFW thread, and when you go to their profiles they either have their true age listed right on the profile and/or listed on their social media they link on that profile

- They post in the "guess the users age above you" thread and reveal their real age

- They explicitly state on their profile that they're a minor, and yet still like/have access to mature locked characters

Greyh0und

I'll +1, but the actions these minors are making should not have any damage towards the adults who post here. Toyhouse admin would be stupid to allow violation of the law according to their TOS, and have effectively put it themselves:"

By accessing this website, you are agreeing to be bound by these website Terms and Conditions of Use, all applicable laws and regulations, and agree that you are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws.

Lying about ones age to access adult-rated content is against most US State Laws, and conversing with a proclaimed-adult who really was a minor will not get you or TH in any legal trouble. It still is uncomfortable to know that minors have access to mature content, and there should be guidelines put in place to circumvent these situations.

tayleaf

I don't have any adult content but as a parent, and a irritated adult seeing 10-12 year old kids trying to do NSFW RP on sites where they could legit get people jailed I agree SO strongly.

+1

mothgf

1 month since this topic was opened and 12 days since minsu was pinged...
Really hoping my gut feeling that the admins couldn't care less is wrong. But after everything else they've pulled on the community, I have a feeling it's right.
I'm really starting to think that being hyper-critical of them is the only way to get them to do anything about serious issues. That isn't how I want to see this site. But....lately, it sure as hell feels like it
I know they have jobs outside of this considering TH is completely a volunteer gig for them, but coooomeee oooonnnn. :/

Whats the point of using the sites main feature - character profiles - for your NSFW info if a minor can lie once and see everything you're trying to keep them from??

Kogami

Saw the new announcement post. I'm not sure how far they have taken actions yet but I'm glad they're enforcing the rules oh my god

mothgf

hecking finally

FreeFallingUp13

I'm glad that the silence was due to staff trying to figure out the proper jargon rather than them ignoring the situation! Thumbs up for Toyhouse!

mothgf

FreeFallingUp13 wait, where does it say that?

FreeFallingUp13

nitocris Well, everybody was worried about how the staff was unusually quiet about the situation, right?

The new rule improvements are verbose and worded very carefully. Most likely the silence was because they were focused on how to cover all of the bases that were cause for concern (predators, minors breaking the rules/perhaps even the law), etc, etc. Bringing up an update concerning the rule change during the process would have led to a huge pressure from the community on what to add, what to say, all that kind of stuff. That's why I think the update came so suddenly and why it was so quiet before.