Sub-Announcement: Section 18 Reports

[Novaer]

Sub-Announcement

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We've noticed an explosion of reports for Terms of Service violating content; specifically around Section 18, involving quote: "Depicts (or appears to depict) a cartoon/drawn/sketch/pseudo-photograph of a minor (under 18) in sexual situations or nude, as this counts as Child Pornography (by Law)." And in quite a lot of cases, these are valid reports and we deal with them as appropriate. This is by no means limited to just new Dreamers, but older and veteran Dreamers seem to falling foul of this as well, despite knowing that it's against the rules.

So I wanted to remind everyone; again, of the flowchart. It's really easy to follow:

Some of the commonly asked questions we get asked on this subject are:

Can I post up an aged up variant of X?

This largely depends but the answer is almost always: No. If they're a well established character (eg. Ash Ketchum from Pokémon), who is canonically 10 years old, and hasn't been aged up canonically, then the answer is a firm, "No." However if they're aged up canonically, (I can't think of an example off of the top of my head, but it has happened before) then it's going to have to be clear that it's that variant of that character, if that makes sense. We can't possibly know every single cartoon/anime/hentai in existence, so of course we rely on other sites (Such as fan wiki's and such) to fall back on as a source. 

Can I post this lolicon up? She's a minor, but she's fully dressed.

Yes. This is SFW and therefore if you look at the flowchart, that is the first thing to check, it is allowed and can be uploaded. We have had a few reports over the last week or so where people have mistakenly believed that we don't allow these types of pictures, even if they're clothed and there is no genitals or sexual activity on show. 

This is a real life minor who is a meme, or is in a movie. It's not sexual at all, but can I post it?

Absolutely not. We believe that there is no valid reason to post images of (real) children at all on this site. Think about it. Would you want a picture of your child (As innocent as that picture may be) being posted on an adult site, or being used in roleplays for people to 'have their way' with them? Of course not. It is actually a section 18 violation under:

Depicts (or appears to depict) a real life minor, and certainly a real life child in any way, shape, or form (pornographic or not). A roleplay character is not a valid exception.

I have an Ecchi picture of a drawn minor. Is this okay?

This is where things get murky. Please feel free to check with any staff member first, we'll happily be able to say "Yay" or "Nay". Usually if it's not apparently obvious that there is genitals showing (Or certain bulges, camel toe, male genitalia, for example) and there is nothing inherently sexual going on; then yes, this is fine... But please check with us if you're not sure, we actually want to keep all Dreamers out of trouble. We don't want to be dishing out warnings like it's going out of style, you know?

I have a NSFW picture of someone who is 1,000 years old but looks 10, is this okay?

Absolutely not. This "Appears to Depict" a minor. If you're using this as a roleplay character, you need to find a SFW variant of that picture/character, or go back to the drawing board, because this will unfortunately fall under "Depicting". 

I have a NSFW picture of someone who is 3 years old, but looks over 18, is this okay?

Again, no. If you're using this as a roleplay character, you need to find a SFW variant of that picture/character, or go back to the drawing board, because this will unfortunately fall under "Depicting". 

I reported this image, but it's still up. Have you even looked at the report? Are you playing favourites? 

We check every single report we get, manually. There are no robots using AI or machine learning and all that jazz. It's all human reviewed and verified. If we haven't gotten to it yet, we most certainly will eventually. Whilst we don't want to be dishing out warnings, we will when violations take place, and it doesn't matter if any of the staff are friends with that person or not. It will happen, and it has happened. 

We can't play favourites; I don't think there is a single Dreamer here who is friends with the entire staff, but even if there was, it wouldn't change anything. The entire staff have a say in all reports. If one of us decided to start playing favourites (Not that I believe we ever would) they'd be called out for it very, very quickly. Obviously we do not talk about actions taken on other people's accounts; for more than obvious reasons. At this time we also don't send reports back like, "Thank you for reporting this and being vigilant on EcchiDreams to keep our community free from violating content. Unfortunately the content that you reported "X" is not in violation of our Terms of Service. The reason why is: "Y"." Although I think I'd like to, so that we are open and transparent about these kinds of things. As a suitable compromise, you can message us if you'd like more information on why something you've reported hasn't been taken down, but that is not an open invitation to argue the toss with us over it. 

We believe that the Terms of Service must be upheld, firmly, but more importantly: Fairly. Factors such as race, sex, gender, age, political inclinations, whether you're a new dreamer or veteran platinum dreamer, or even a staff member, and so on aren't even close to being a consideration. Everyone is held to the same standards, the same Terms of Service - myself included. 

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We don't usually fire off warnings instantly. We usually raise awareness in an EcchiText, thanks to refinement and suggestions from fellow dreamers. For example; the first couple of times content like this is posted, we'll probably message you and inform you that the content you posted is deleted. We'll say what content was deleted (Usually), why, and how to prevent yourself from being caught out by it in future. As I said; we don't want to start shooting warnings at everyone like it's going out of fashion. That's not exactly a conducive way, in my opinion, treating adults in an adult community. I'd rather treat you like adults.

If you're not sure about something, please feel free to ask.