Unanimous Replies to Previous Question About adultMug Access By Children

Huh?

Dear Louie,
I don't have a really clear answer for you...
However I do recall from the days of Ask.com, where the age requirement was 13 and older; Ask seemed to have quite effective ways of discerning maturity, I remember marveling.

But I would just add, I think your question is important for the Internet overall.
The Internet offers such potential for world-wide human connection...I hope we can develop ways to give children a chance to mature before plunging them into the full spectrum of life as reflected on easy-access Internet.

i dont think children should have access to that either

I had to go hunting to see what you meant. You're asking a whole bunch of different questions and I'll try to give you my opinion and what I know of the law on all of it.

From a regular person standpoint, I say children who are not already sexually aware and mature should not have access to adult content. I don't want to expand too much on this for the sake of the privacy of my own children, but I "raised" a teenage boy. I say "raised," because he's an adult now. In my home, virtually no topic is taboo. I answer questions in an age-appropriate way. So, when a natural curiosity sets in, I don't admonish it or block it. I monitor to make sure nothing is unhealthy and I leave it at that. At the same time, I try to shelter innocent minds as much as possible until that slips away on its own. So, of course, minors are likely going to see adult content, but that doesn't mean we need to make it easy to get to or to shove it in their faces. I think they deserve a clean environment. Sites should make an effort to keep adult content away from minors. I don't suggest a specific age- sexual maturity comes about at different times. If I caught one of my little kids looking at adult stuff, I'd have a heart attack. If I realized an older teenager of mine was doing it on their own... meh. I don't encourage it, but I think it's part of natural exploration.

Now, talking as a site admin, my legal obligation in the US is to make a reasonable effort to keep kids out of the adult stuff. Bear in mind, our content, though labeled as adult content, doesn't meet the legal threshold for adult content in most jurisdictions because there is no nudity or pornography. I think it was the UK that recently explored requiring ID checks or credit cards to see things that were adult in nature, but the wording of the proposed laws was such that the written content in adultMug would not have required the additional checks. The consequence for violating the proposed law was having the site blocked by internet providers in those jurisdictions. In any case, I satisfy all current legislation for content that exceeds ours in most "westernized" countries.

To date, I've only discovered the presence of one minor in the adult sections. The minor was removed right away and received a "mom-type" letter that suggested that they find another outlet or talk to their parents if they had questions. I also told the person that they needed to stay out of those sections or they'd be booted from the site. I further reviewed every piece of content that the minor added and examined their interactions with other members to ensure that there were no inappropriate relationships or unlawful content was exchanged. By law (concerning adult content), all I had to do was boot the minor from the adult section, but the mom in me genuinely feared for the individual's safety, simply because there are a lot of bad people online who will knowingly exploit a vulnerable minor... maybe not here, but you can never be too careful. So, I spent a lot of time discussing online safety with the person. Again, that's not a legal requirement. I genuinely care about keeping kids safe and protecting them from online predators.

We have had adult sections here for years. Our old site was very weak in terms of the technology used to hide content and detect minors, but it still met the legal requirements for adult sites. On the old site, the groups were all visible, though the adult ones had the content hidden behind a wall, so nobody could see it unless they joined. The join button didn't appear unless the person agreed to the legal terms and said they were an adult. Everything was linked in the main menu, just like we have it now.

When we moved, I gained more control over the back end of the site, so we hid everything- it looks like those places don't exist until after a registered adult says they want to see it. Initially, the links in the menu were also invisible until after someone had opted in. That requires a developer's coding, and after a couple weeks on the site, I made a change to the menu and it broke the code that provided the links to the people who had already opted in. I recently spoke with a member who said that they thought not having the links was hurting the activity levels, so I temporarily added them back in using a method that would make the links visible to everyone. Eventually, the developer will have to do some back-end coding for me again and they'll disappear for those who haven't opted in. With all that said, those are just the links. People still have to jump through hoops to opt in and make those links functional. Because our opt-in page is also glitchy, most people get added to the adult network by me. So, there is a very, very, very tiny chance a minor could get in there and, if one was discovered, they'd be out instantly.

For what it's worth, if you're coming from a genuine place of concern, I'm pretty sure we don't have any active minors on the site at all right now and the links are only visible to members. We do have minors with accounts, but we don't appeal to kids. The last time I saw a minor on the site was probably 6+ months ago. I'd rather nobody corrected me publicly for the sake of privacy of any minor Muggers, but if you guys know of any who actually still visit, feel free to PM me. It's not really relevant, though, unless they try to slip into the adult network.

That's a confusing question, I'm not really sure of what it is you're asking.
But this I know, there is no dereliction of responsibility from the administration of this site in terms of minors handling.
I have no reservations about their commitment to keeping kids away from adult areas. 
If they are here at all.
I assure you that you're not going to find that as rigorously watched as it is  here. 

There is no moral obligation to not put adult content on the internet.   the ultimate responsibility for children on the internet is with parents.    If little Johnny is looking at adult content on his phone or computer it's because you gave him a smartphone he shouldn't have and let him have a computer in his room with the door closed.   I think that's a mistake and as for schools requiring  children to use the internet at home I think is irresponsible on their part.

The internet is like a dive bar or cocktail lounge.  Kids don't belong there without an adult guardian.