additional comment from the anon: this mostly applies to things like smut or nsfw art. I see a lot of blogs that are 18+ and I’ve always wondered if people actually listen to “minors dni (do not interact)” or if they just ignore them.
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It’s important that we continue to mark our adult content as “18+ ONLY MINORS DNI” because otherwise where would the next generation learn to lie on the internet
ALT
the tags are good tags
We all lied. I have no idea what the kind of person who goes around posting “I’m a minor, make your blog safer for me” does these days, but back then? We all lied.
We knew we might see something that shocked us–this was the Internet, and the Internet has always been Very Weird.
We lied anyway.
We *wanted* to take risks and see what happened.
I don’t know what is going on with the young people who say they want to be protected, so I won’t speculate. But us?
That was a part of becoming adults. Making our own decisions, and living with them.
Learning how to cope within ourselves when it wasn’t wise to tell the adults around us “So I just did what you told me not to do, and now I need brain bleach,” because it would mean confessing “I just did what you told me not to do.”
This is why I just cannot wrap my head around things like ‘Oh! but what if a minor lies about their age and joins the NSFW chat on this server?! Then we’re enabling minors!“
Like. They will. You know this. I know this.
It’s part of growing up! Your teenaged years are made for learning about stuff! You have to bounce off of it a few times as your emotional and sexual maturity grows and it goes from "oh GROSS” to “*blush emoji*”.
That is what the “by pressing this button, you agree that you are over the age of 18” means. It is a LEGAL ASS COVERING– if a minor clicks on that button, they LIED, legally you’re off the hook.
And like! There’s etiquette involved here!
Adults:
Mark 18+ spaces as such with the tools available
If you do discover someone is a minor, remove them from the space
If you know someone is a minor, do not solicit them with 18+ materials. Don’t RP smut, don’t send them porn drawings– even if you HAD done these things previously when you didn’t know, stop. This is a legal thing. Acting in ignorance of their age is understandable. Acting in willful defiance isn’t.
Minors:
Keep your damn mouth shut. You’ve snuck into the Adults section, don’t flaunt it.
Don’t make yourself the victim if you get caught– accept your ban with grace, get better at lying.
Do not ask someone who is over 18 to RP smut with you, or try to commission porn from an over 18 artist. Again, this is a legal thing– they could get into serious actual legal trouble. Especially don’t do this if they don’t know you’re a minor and you’re lying because you know they otherwise wouldn’t interact with you.
If someone finds out you’re a minor and compliments you on how mature you are for your age and wants to keep engaging in 18+ stuff with you, fucking run. No matter how flattered you are, a normal adult is NOT going to encourage this.
Adults and minors can interact just fine together in online spaces! You just have to be respectful of one another.
I actually never lied about my age on the internet but this was because I did not even HAVE my own internet connection until I was just barely over 18.
I highly approve of the “verify if you are over 18” options on sites… and I do NOT want them to start requiring goddamn official state IDs… and I REALLY HOPE that this button click can continue being a legal way to cover the site-owner’s ass…
because I am seeing this trend of so very many sites just deciding it’s safer to ban NSFW posts entirely… and I am scared to death that it’s gonna become the legal norm to hold site-owners responsible if minors lie about their age and see something they shouldn’t (“they’re minors, how can you hold THEM responsible? you hold shop owners responsible for selling them booze and cigarettes without official ID so you NEED to require the same from websites!”)
but if this happens, no one will be safe on the internet ever again, because everyone will have to put their fucking ID into every website just to use it, and website security sucks, so your identity WILL get stolen in like a week, and idk what to even do about this but I’m mad as hell.
ALT