The Dark Side of online Role-Playing

[Auspice]

So I've been mulling replying here.
My thoughts on this get disregarded pretty often, which is vexing, but w/e.

I grew up in a very fundie Christian household.
My parents were abusive (mostly emotionally, but not just). My father is a developer. He did often log things I was doing. And used it for mockery and also to 'prove' I was allowing demons into the house. It was never a 'protectionary' measure in the sense that one might hope.

In my case, yes, it was a very negative thing.

However.

I spent years working in children's forums and games as an administrator and moderator.
I have witnessed grooming, predators, and the ways that kids, unfortunately, do not know how to protect themselves. I also worked in a community at one time wherein LGBT conversation was not allowed because of a very, very bad incident once and where I got special permission to take a conversation off-site to talk with some of our older users about it (because they were understandably upset).

The incident had been wherein a 9-year-old user had asked what a lesbian was. And a group of older girls began bullying her across the site. To a point her mother sued the site.

Now, when I was able to sit down and explain this to these kids, they understood. And they stopped harassing the moderators (because I explained: look, we aren't homophobic, I hate that we can't let you guys discuss this, but please understand that many users here don't understand sexuality at all yet! and we want them to find a healthy outlet for it) and instead became champions for other kids going to school counselors, pastors, their parents, etc., while sending campaign letters to the site's ownership (vs angry emails to us).

Eventually the ban was lifted and these same kids continued to help us keep an eye out for similar behavior. It was heartwarming to see. But it took a long time....... and it took me having to out a coworker as homophobic, sadly.

ANYWAY.

Working on that site and others is why, when I was married and had a stepson, I was keenly aware of his online activities (he was under 10 while I was married). Why I would be if I have kids again.

We had a guy on that one forum known as 'dan.' 'dan' was as pervasive as our troll here. And he was constantly trying to get these kids to engage in cybersex with him. Share their RL locations with him. And he'd masquerade as a teenager.

On other sites, I saw kids gladly share their phone numbers, discuss meetups, etc., within their very first conversation with someone.

And many of them? When caught? Would create a new account and show up to share sites that were adult in nature to 'continue' things.

No, we don't want to stymie kids from exploring their sexuality, identity, etc., but the problem is that so many aren't doing so safely. There is a balance to be struck. If they're openly sharing very personal details right out of the gate or going to unsafe sites: that's a bad thing. That is not safely exploring sexual/identity. That's putting themselves at risk.

We have people here (@Pandora, @mietze) who understand how to educate their kids on how to be safe, how to construct a safe home environment, to where they can monitor their kid's online activities to the right extent while also making their kid feel safe enough to approach them if worried, concerned, scared, etc.

I 100% think parents need to be aware of what their kids are doing online. Do you want to be keylogging or anything? No. But you don't want to just set them up with a personal laptop behind a locked door and never ask any questions.

My parents were abusive, but it went far, far beyond their stalking my online activities. Their inability to make me feel safe began before we had internet access in the home. They never observed my online behavior out of a care about me. They did it out of a desire of control. The two are wildly different.

[Wizz]

Yyyyeah, I was the kid behind a closed door with a PC and internet access and I still remember in pretty vivid detail some really uncomfortable moments in this hobby as a very young teen, even though it had to be clear OOC that I was not an adult. I had no idea how to handle them because my engagement with the hobby was really secretive, my dad especially being really paranoid and weird about the whole thing but never coping with it in a healthy (or tech savvy and effective) way.

Hats off to the parents in this thread who are very actively involved with their kids' engagement, I really would have killed to have that and will definitely be taking a page or two from your books if/when my son ever gets into it.

[Ghost]

A few points of note:

1. When you're a parent, you know it will eventually be important for your teen to explore their sexuality in whatever hormone-driven state that it takes shape. Due to their youth and inexperience it is still important to try to keep an eye out that this doesn't take the form of being used, involves sexual abuse, or other forms of dangerous behavior.

In short, if you choose to not guide your teen through understanding sexuality, this does not mean that it's wise to let a 45 year old (stranger, pedophile) do it for you. Because they will. Pedophiles actively lie in wait for curious, inexperienced youth seeking a outlet for their hormones. Some might say that it's an inevitability. Leaving your child exposed to this because you want to be "hands off" could also be considered "aiding pedophiles in doing their thing unchecked".

2. Many players have stories about being teens in this hobby, being groomed, and being sexually harassed. These stories persist to as recent to within the last few weeks, and involve both adults and teens. These teen stories often involve wandering onto sex-focused MU. Sex-focused MU attendance is easily 2-3 times the size of even WoD MU. Many players currently in this hobby were also playing 20+ years ago.

Extrapolate from that what you will.

Edit, because fuck ambiguity. I am outright saying that it is highly likely that the same people who groomed you as a teen (in this hobby) are likely still playing and able to groom your children.

[Dropbear]

people on msb you have to accept no privacy when you log onto a mu on the internet

also people on msb a parent who is responsible for a human being in every way has no right to infring on privacy

[tek]

As someone who, at age 14, sneaked off to meet someone who turned out to be a literal child molester I had met on the internet in Manhattan without telling my family where I was going... I get it. I was lucky that this particular criminal didn't have plans for me, but it's still sobering.

I also would have been an uncomfortable situation of my mother had read all of my logs, especially since most of them were just silly and boring and sometimes I complained about my parents.

Earnest communication and interest in what I was doing would have gone a long way, if my mother had been capable of that.

[Auspice]

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

Earnest communication and interest in what I was doing would have gone a long way, if my mother had been capable of that.

And this is literally all that's being advocated for, I do believe. Healthy, earnest communication and appropriate interest. Be involved in your kids' lives. Be active. Be their advocate. Be their partner. Be their champion.

Be someone they feel they can open up to and talk to about the things concerning them.

[Ghost]

@Dropbear said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

people on msb you have to accept no privacy when you log onto a mu on the internet

also people on msb a parent who is responsible for a human being in every way has no right to infring on privacy

The former is true. The latter is exactly what pedophiles want parents to believe.

Also:

[Carex]

@Cobaltasaurus said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Ghost It's honestly only the known troll that is Carex.

I don't know why you guys keep saying I'm trolling. I'm making a serious point. There is nothing wrong with telling your kids not to give out their information online or meet with people from the internet but micro-managing their every action online is still bad parenting.

Telling your kids they should never do or say anything you might disapprove of because you might snoop on them and catch them is just terrible.

What should be a learning experience becomes something they need to be secretive about because what they think is acceptable might not be too you.

Setting clear boundaries about RL information is fine but telling them you are going to be watching them and judging them for what they do online is creepy and stalky.

You might think that your position as a parent is perfectly reasonable because the things you do not approve of are legitimately bad but here's the problem: Children can't read your mind.

You are putting them in a situation where they have to constantly guess "Will this get me in trouble? Am I allowed to talk about this? Will someone find out? Should I take that risk?"

By policing your child's internet activities you make yourself the bad-guy they have to be afraid of instead of the teacher they can come to with questions.
That's my point.

[Meg]

You can say it is abusive to control anything that your children do, and it just isn't. Sorry. Telling them when to go to bed, when to take a shower, when to do chores, etc? That's all part of being a parent.

Telling them not to sexually interact with strangers on the internet is also not abusive. Do you want to be sexually interacting with a child, @Carex? I'd hope not.

[Kestrel]

I commend parents who are worried and invested in their children's safety, but I really don't think snooping on their online behaviour is the right way to go about things in most cases.

Look. It's not my job to tell anyone how to parent. Every child is different and I assume you know yours well enough to make responsible decisions.

All I can say is that if I had suspicions I was being snooped on as a child, it would have:

• decreased my trust in my carer
• made me less likely to talk to them about anything that was going on in my life that I suspected might merit concern, out of fear they would "freak out" / "overreact"
• encouraged me to sneak behind their back
• disincentived me from partaking in any activity I suspected they could monitor

Maybe you guys all have amazing kids who always do what they're told and love and trust you unconditionally. Kudos to you. Personally, I was an absolute little shit and any time my parents/carers gave me any kinds of rules/regulations, I would just be doubly motivated to find ways around them.

My family never treated alcohol as any kind of taboo; so I never treated it as one and never got excited about booze at parties. I drank minimally/responsibly and to this day think I have a much, much healthier relationship with alcohol than the average Brit.

But they did very strictly control what I was/wasn't allowed to eat, taught me that there were good foods and bad foods, and I developed an eating disorder. I don't think my healthy relationship with alcohol compared to my unhealthy relationship with food is coincidental.

When I was a teenager experimenting and talking to strangers online, I briefly made mention of this at one point to my older sister (10 years my senior, who was often responsible for raising me), who immediately freaked out and printed off a bunch of articles about paedophiles snatching children. I thought this was absolute cringe and it just taught me to lie about who I was talking to, so I'd say this is a friend from school, etc.

I wish I actually had someone I could trust growing up, whom I would've felt safe talking to about matters of sexual curiosity etc., because then maybe instead of playing the role of a good little innocent virgin I could've actually communicated my discomfort about my earliest exposures to sex without fear of being judged, blamed or punished.

My 2c.

[Roz]

@Carex said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Cobaltasaurus said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:
Telling your kids they should never do or say anything you might disapprove of because you might snoop on them and catch them is just terrible.

People say you’re trolling because you are making up things that weren’t said to rail about and accuse a poster of child abuse.

[Carex]

@Meg said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

Telling them when to go to bed, when to take a shower, when to do chores, etc? That's all part of being a parent.

I'm not disagreeing with those things because those things are real things. Those are things that happen in the real world with clear, obvious, boundaries and consequences.

Grounding your kid for not taking out the trash is very different from grounding your kid because they committed a thought-crime by pretending to suck a dick on a MUSH.

The former teaching them responsibility, the later is teaching them that you, not them, get to define how they think and who they are.

[tek]

@Carex It's literally not a thought crime if it involves another human, potentially one who is an adult, interacting sexually with your minor child.

That's a crime-crime.

[Carex]

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

That's a crime-crime.

For the adult, yes, but not the child.
We aren't talking about the adult on the other end.
The parent can't influence them.

[Meg]

Honestly I don't know what you are trying to argue now. Let children TS on the internet? O k.

[tek]

@Carex And you don't understand how sexual contact with an adult, even if it's text, can be a problem for a kid psychologically and developmentally, and why a parent might not want them doing that? What the fuck are you even arguing?

[Ghost]

@Roz Right.

It was a post about their special-needs child being exposed to potential online pedophiles that included useful "here's how to find support" advice for parents, turned quickly into a bizarre accusation about being an abusive evangelical-style parent who equates doing as they say with being loved.

Anyone who has ever been a parent knows a few key things...

1. It's best to be honest about where they don't have privacy rather than do it on the sly. If it's about contracting to safety when using the internet then it's not snooping. It's a family decision.
2. If you dont have a teen who doesn't sneak around or get into stuff they shouldn't? Congrats. You won the genetic lottery.
3. It's better to identify problems before things become criminal investigations and years of therapy

What I found neat about @buttercup 's post is that their child came to them about this stuff. God, I would have been so grateful for that because most teens dont have the experience, maturity, or legal knowledge to know how to handle this stuff. They usually get scared, hide it, get devoured by it. There have even been cases of pedophiles collecting sexually explicit content from the minor and using that as blackmail to keep them from going to their parents or the law.

The discussion about whether or not keeping an eye on your teen's online activity could inadvertently "out" them to their parents before they are ready to "out" themselves (and the topic of how parents abuse their children for choosing different sexualities than the parent would prefer) is another topic entirely.

Let THIS ONE be about protecting your kids from pedophiles in the MU/online community. Open up a SEPARATE one for the other topic, please.

[Auspice]

@Meg
I feel like some people need to watch Legal Eagle's COPPA video.

[tek]

@Ghost You know someone is being fucking egregious when I'm agreeing with you.

[Roz]

Honestly the worst part about all of this is how it's a response to someone who literally was talking about how they were groomed and preyed on as a child and working to protect their kids from experiencing the same thing.