Falsifying Ages and Repercussions

Hey all,

As many of you likely already know we've been having a lot of incidents recently involving those attempting to access the site by lying about their ages. Up until now we've tried to take a forgiving approach to the problem by giving them the chance to own their mistakes and publicly apologize on the forum. I have spoken with some of those who did this, and I understand they wanted community and were encouraged by friends to lie to try to get in.

This issue however is quite serious for a number of reasons:

1. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires that we do not admit those under 13 onto the site. TG could be sued and/or shut down for violating it, destroying this home that we have tried so hard to give you (See: Here).

2. To prevent minors from masquerading as adults and accessing adult spaces, which could lead to innapropriate interactions or accusations and put our adult members at risk.

3. To prevent adults from masquerading as minors and putting the actual minors under our care in danger.

So these are safety issues, and it's our job to keep this place safe for all of us.

I have attempted to make it clear in the past that these attempts to bypass this aspect of our activation screening would eventually lead to others being banned over it "in the future".. Well, the future has come, and now we are banning someone over it.

If you have questions or concerns you may contact me or one of the other staff, or use the Write to Staff forum.

Regards,
-Cyg