Reported a pedophilic comment, wordpress didn’t address properly.

  • Unknown's avatar
    wildbow · Member ·

    I have a creative writing blog that is not explicit, a commenter made a comment about an underage character that was very much explicit. I reported, linking to the comment directly (it hadn’t been approved and I obviously wasn’t), so WordPress could address it appropriately.

    WordPress’s response was to mark my entire story as mature and leave the comment standing.

    This isn’t right, and there really needs to be a section to enter a comment to add more details.

  • Unknown's avatar
    themagicrobot · Member ·

    If the comment is on your own site you have the ability to edit it if you think it is unsuitable.

  • Unknown's avatar
    wildbow · Member ·

    I am aware of that, but this ventured into the territory (detailed, eager description of an explicit act, with adjectives, about an obviously underage character) where I thought authorities would want to keep an eye on this person, and that WordPress might have a process for acting on it. I don’t want to moderate one such comment, let alone have this sort of thing pop up with any regularity in my feed.

  • Unknown's avatar
    staartmees · Member ·

    You are as site owner responsible for the moderation of comments on your site. Punct et intendant.

  • Unknown's avatar
    wildbow · Member ·

    I’m aware. I’ve been using WordPress for 13 years, I’ve been managing my comment sections for all this time. No issue.

    This one comment reached a level I thought people beyond just me might need to know about. I reported it to WordPress, using a page that allowed reporting problematic comments/pages/sites, here: https://wordpress.com/abuse/?category=mature&report_type=regulation

    And wordpress didn’t address the comment linked, and tagged me as mature instead, while not addressing the comment.

  • Unknown's avatar
    staartmees · Member ·

    Again you are as a site owner responsible and it is all up to you.

  • Unknown's avatar
    wildbow · Member ·

    Then why is there a page to report comments to WordPress?

  • Unknown's avatar
    themagicrobot · Member ·

    The “mature” option was really designed to flag the content created by a site owner. WordPress.com don’t have the authority or manpower to police individuals and “keep an eye” on what they do on the Interweb. The commentor may not even have an account/site here. Freedom of speech and social media is a big topic that will only get bigger. Personally, if a comment was posted on my site that I thought may reflect badly on me I would promptly delete it and move on.

  • Unknown's avatar
    wildbow · Member ·

    I would’ve hoped there’d be some underlying process, pass on the IP address to authorities just in case. Deleting it and moving on doesn’t feel like enough.

    Thanks for the reply, magicrobot.

  • Unknown's avatar
    staartmees · Member ·

    Passing on the IP address, filing a charge, … it’s all up to the site owner …

  • Unknown's avatar
    2020testjj · Member ·

    The site owner (Original Poster) says they did report it via the WordPress.com abuse form, where it specifically says “The specific URL of the post, page, image, or comment*” in the report options.

    So why mark the OP’s entire site as Mature for advising them of a comment of a sexually explicit nature that the OP indicated wasn’t even made public?

    I’m sure I don’t know, but why not ping staff on this thread so hopefully at the very least the ToS team would contact the OP by email. I’ve added the MODLOOK tag here for staff attention.

    And yes, I agree with @wildbow, since the change to the reporting form, it’s not possible to “give more information” on the form and there really should be a way to do that.

  • caimin · Staff ·

    @2020testjj When our content moderators encounter any site they feel should be marked as mature (no matter how they became aware of it) they have a duty to mark it as mature.

    @wildbow Thanks for bringing this up. I can imagine finding a comment like you described on your blog would’ve been distressing.

    The main intention of the abuse form is to allow users to report content on sites they don’t own. If a comment you don’t want appears on a site you own, you have the ability to delete it.

    I appreciate you wanted to alert our content moderators about someone who might add similar comments elsewhere, and therefore help us keep WordPress.com safe for all, but I think in this case deleting the content would’ve been the best option.

    As @themagicrobot mentioned, we’re not able to follow up on the behaviour of individuals beyond our community and platform, especially if the person is a public commenter. That said, if you ever find you’re getting a lot of these types of comments from someone with a WordPress.com account, feel free to reach out to us so we can investigate.

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