Last (?) draft of FAQ196ng - now with 100% more flagging
This has been discussed with (and among) abuse@. Hopefully, it's the last draft. Previous draft was at http://community.livejournal.com/lj_userdoc/737736.html?thread=4181704. Please nitpick grammar, spelling, wording, etc.
Substantive changes:
- To keep people who've been acting in good faith from being technically in violation without warning (arguably a bad idea, esp. considering how long it's taken us to update the FAQ), I think it's best to allow either method for restricting/controlling membership and viewership (and likewise for marking entries in an otherwise all-publics comm), while steering people toward flagging. (reviewed by abuse@)
- I also reworded the "must display full birthdate" section to take in account people whose birth year marks them as at least 19, and who can choose to display only the year. (reviewed by abuse@)
- Removed the rules for members entirely and changed the question to fit. (requested by abuse@)
Layout and organization changes: I switched from a bullet list at the toplevel to separate sections each with its header. I also tweaked the wording in a few spots for clarity and readability, and I moved the last paragraph of the full answer to the end of the summary. (reviewed by abuse@)
What are my responsibilities as a maintainer of an adult-oriented community?
LiveJournal permits adult-oriented communities. However, the maintainer of an adult-oriented community is expected to take reasonable steps to ensure that minors are not exposed to sexually explicit images. The steps below should cover all common cases. If you have any questions regarding what steps should be taken for your community, or you wish to clarify any of these steps, please feel free to contact the Abuse Prevention Team to help you.
Membership
If you are the maintainer of an adult-oriented community, you must ensure that all present and future members are at least 18 years old. You can either:
Entry security
You must require that all community members posting adult or explicit entries mark them as Adult Concepts or Explicit Adult (as appropriate) or use a security level of Members-only, including for any past entries. You should also set the minimum security level for the community to be Members-only, and delete any public entries containing explicit content if the entry poster fails to mark them appropriately. All remaining public entries in the community must be free of adult content.
If your community only contains occasional sexually explicit or adult material, such as the occasional nude photograph in a photography community, it is generally not necessary to restrict membership. However, these entries should be either marked as Adult Concepts or Explicit Adult (as appropriate) or placed behind an lj-cut tag and clearly contain a warning that they should not be viewed by minors.
Images of minors
Regardless of the purpose of your community, all community maintainers are responsible for verifying that any individual posting images of him- or herself is over the age of 18 if any of the images being posted contain full or partial nudity, or are designed to arouse, provoke, or otherwise sexually stimulate a viewer. Any image of someone under the age of 18 who is nude or semi-nude, or designed to arouse, can qualify as child pornography and is not permitted on LiveJournal's servers. If your community is designed for users to post pictures of themselves, you must make sure that you follow these restrictions.
Substantive changes:
- To keep people who've been acting in good faith from being technically in violation without warning (arguably a bad idea, esp. considering how long it's taken us to update the FAQ), I think it's best to allow either method for restricting/controlling membership and viewership (and likewise for marking entries in an otherwise all-publics comm), while steering people toward flagging. (reviewed by abuse@)
- I also reworded the "must display full birthdate" section to take in account people whose birth year marks them as at least 19, and who can choose to display only the year. (reviewed by abuse@)
- Removed the rules for members entirely and changed the question to fit. (requested by abuse@)
Layout and organization changes: I switched from a bullet list at the toplevel to separate sections each with its header. I also tweaked the wording in a few spots for clarity and readability, and I moved the last paragraph of the full answer to the end of the summary. (reviewed by abuse@)
What are my responsibilities as a maintainer of an adult-oriented community?
LiveJournal permits adult-oriented communities. However, the maintainer of an adult-oriented community is expected to take reasonable steps to ensure that minors are not exposed to sexually explicit images. The steps below should cover all common cases. If you have any questions regarding what steps should be taken for your community, or you wish to clarify any of these steps, please feel free to contact the Abuse Prevention Team to help you.
Membership
If you are the maintainer of an adult-oriented community, you must ensure that all present and future members are at least 18 years old. You can either:
- Mark the community as having Explicit Adult Content.
- Configure your community to have Closed or Moderated Membership and restrict membership to the community only to users whose birthdates on their userinfo page indicate that they are over the age of 18. All future members must display their full birthdate (including year) on their profile, unless the year alone is enough to verify they're over 18, in which case they do not need to display the month and day.
Remove from your community any member who has a birthdate listed which would make them under the age of eighteen, or who has not listed enough of their complete birthdate (including birth year) in their profile to verify that they are over 18.
Entry security
You must require that all community members posting adult or explicit entries mark them as Adult Concepts or Explicit Adult (as appropriate) or use a security level of Members-only, including for any past entries. You should also set the minimum security level for the community to be Members-only, and delete any public entries containing explicit content if the entry poster fails to mark them appropriately. All remaining public entries in the community must be free of adult content.
If your community only contains occasional sexually explicit or adult material, such as the occasional nude photograph in a photography community, it is generally not necessary to restrict membership. However, these entries should be either marked as Adult Concepts or Explicit Adult (as appropriate) or placed behind an lj-cut tag and clearly contain a warning that they should not be viewed by minors.
Images of minors
Regardless of the purpose of your community, all community maintainers are responsible for verifying that any individual posting images of him- or herself is over the age of 18 if any of the images being posted contain full or partial nudity, or are designed to arouse, provoke, or otherwise sexually stimulate a viewer. Any image of someone under the age of 18 who is nude or semi-nude, or designed to arouse, can qualify as child pornography and is not permitted on LiveJournal's servers. If your community is designed for users to post pictures of themselves, you must make sure that you follow these restrictions.