This post is going to be largely centered on the Space Station 13 game.
Recently another case of child abuse (using that term in place of the other more popular one) was found in a server admin team [ss13, Citadel station server].
This is coming about 6 months after a similar larger child abuse case was posted about last fall, also on ss13.
I've had conversations with staff from servers who break ToS (byond requires 12+ for age, these 18+servers require 18+ for age) and was told by said staff that they had an understanding with Byond staff, where they the 18+ server is allowed to persist if they ensure that players entering are aware of the 18+ requirement.
This understanding seems to be padded by one 18+ server community's secondary requirement of a whitelist that is granted after a small Discord chat. However, only one or two of the servers stating they are 18+ require a whitelist; the rest leave out this padding.
I'm going to explain why this understanding is not satisfactory.
The Byond client is not equipped to deal with these situations, and the server communities have continued to prove they are also not equipped to do so. Evading a server ban on the Byond client is as simple as changing [[two very easily changed digital identities]], and then a banned individual can return the same day they are banned under a new account.
For the server communities, the sometimes-present whitelist is easily talked past. A more comprehensive whitelist would be to do video interviews and require identification {and this is just a solution that's been given 5 minutes of thought}, but in the interest in having a larger playerbase this has not been done by the server community.
This leaves the door open for negative legal attention for the Byond hub. Every occurrence of this ToS breaking pattern of child abuse increasingly paints the byond community as negligent. And month by month the userbase has grown, and the community has been showcased in multiple popular youtube videos. Not attending to this issue creates a shorter and shorter fuse for this time bomb.
Solution: De-List servers that break Byond Terms of Service. Servers advertising 18+ activities should be, at the very least, dealt with the same way that a certain Russian SS13-clone-server with medieval roleplay was dealt with. These servers should not be advertised in a client that is open to 12+ ages, and is free and open to the public.
ID:2590597
 Jul 17 2020, 8:04 pm
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Jul 18 2020, 12:50 am (Edited on Jul 18 2020, 1:02 am)
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NSBR
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lmfao. Stop trying to close an rp game just because they allow mature rp.
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A more comprehensive whitelist would be to do video interviews and require identification ...wat? | |
Nadrew resolved issue (Not Feasible)
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Next best thing is book burning
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not trying to close them. I don't care if they exist or not, but de-listing should be required so underaged players don't come in and see servers that advertise free cyber 18+ content next to servers that don't
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like I said I gave that like 5 minutes of thought. Which seems to be more effort than the current servers do
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Yeah cause equating Nazis burning books with removing 18+ server advertisements from a game with ToS for kids 12+ makes sense
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The server in question, Citadel, has pornographic content in the form of boner sprites. I was grossed out when I remembered it's on the hub. Not to mention the paragraphs of autistic ERP. I think someone should make the reporting process clearer because I wanted to report them back when I first saw it and didn't know the best way.
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You gonna defend Vore Station too? You either don't know what I'm talking about or are a greasy furry writing those paragraphs as well.
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And I'm criticising you mocking Keptyouwaitinghuh for reporting a clear violation of the TOS conduct section, which, while at the discretion of BYOND staff to enforce, clearly states that pornographic content is not allowed on the hub (it even lists things you're not allowed to host on the hub when you start up Dream Daemon if I remember correctly). All that I'm advocating for is to get that off the hub. A good number of off-hub living servers exists already, it's not like it's gonna break a dedicated community forcefully.
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It wouldn't go away, they'd have a link to their server on their website. Also would it also be a nonfeasible issue if Colonial Marines got a copyright notice when they clearly had everything ripped out of Aliens (not the exact case anymore though)? Can I host literally anything now under the SS13 part of the hub?
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I think you all are misunderstanding what the hub is.
The hub is not someone's server. The hub is literally the hub page for a game. BYOND is only concerned about the behavior on its own domain and on its pager service. It cannot and does not enforce conduct within games, as all of the content is hosted on private internet connections. Further, BYOND does not have any restrictions on what is done with the engine as part of its ToS except reverse engineering, which even then, largely isn't enforced. BYOND in no way limits what you can make with the engine, nor what players can do within the games that other people have created. Creating a pornographic game does not violate the ToS. The website code of conduct specifically covers content uploaded to BYOND's hub service, and behavior on the forums and pager. The engine ToS covers what is done with the engine, and does not restrict any of this. These 18+ servers do not upload any objectionable content to the hub, nor do any of them have control of the game hub in question, as SS13's game hub is essentially owned by everyone and no one at the same time. The de-listing that was mentioned earlier was due to a licensing violation, which is a very different animal. BYOND only shut down the hub page for that game due to a valid takedown request by a legitimate rights holder. It did not prevent them from hosting the project. Yes, it's shitty that there are minors engaging in risky behavior on games made with BYOND, and some server owners could stand to do better, but that's their problem to solve. Not BYOND's. Again, the exact section of the website's ToS that the OP is referencing states: User content uploaded to or displayed on the website can be filtered or removed at the discretion of the BYOND staff. A link to the server is not what is happening in the server. In terms of a server listing, the only communication that's happening to BYOND's network is just the server name possibly including some HTML images, an IP address, and a list of connected players. If any of those violate the website's ToS, the individual hosting the server may have their access to the hub taken away, as has happened before when someone decided to throw an epic tantrum and serve a bunch of porn images with their server listing as revenge for something stupid. | |
Yeah. OP understands the difference between shutting servers down vs delisting servers. They're not even talking about delisting hubs, which happens to fangames.
Shutting servers down is impossible. Obviously. Delisting servers from a hub is something that hub's editors (not the staff/moderators of BYOND itself) could do if the hub had a secret hub_password. SS13 is (uniquely?) unable to do that because as Ter said, its hub is "owned by everyone and no one". The hub_password system is a whitelist for server listings. It could definitely be improved to handle cases like these. | |
Moved to On Topic. This is not a feature request, but a suggestion about how to admin the site and hub.
Whitelists are not the least bit feasible to maintain, especially for a sub-community as fluid as SS13. There's nothing about your proposed solution that you've thought through. | |
Yeah. OP understands the difference between shutting servers down vs delisting servers. They're not even talking about delisting hubs, which happens to fangames. I was pointing out what the hub was for the sake of pointing out that their assertion that what they are alleging is happening is a ToS violation and BYOND is ignoring it. They are using language meant to apply to a game's hub to justify the de-listing of a server from a hub based on activity/content that isn't on the hub, hence the explanation. The hub_password system is a whitelist for server listings. It could definitely be improved to handle cases like these. I could definitely agree with this, but with SS13, handing an individual user the keys to control this new whitelisting system would upset the balance of "everyone and no one" owning SS13's hub. We'd essentially be passing a user increased control of something that no one has the authority to control, and that would create massive headaches for BYOND the moment the person with control of the whitelist uses that authority to piss someone else off. Now all the sudden BYOND's actually in the discussion as culpable, and has to sort out the community drama of a community that's too big, too widespread, and too various for any of the BYOND staff to fully grasp. | |
Keptyouwaitinghuh wrote:
not trying to close them. I don't care if they exist or not, but de-listing should be required so underaged players don't come in and see servers that advertise free cyber 18+ content next to servers that don't Kaiochao wrote: Yeah. OP understands the difference between shutting servers down vs delisting servers. They're not even talking about delisting hubs, which happens to fangames. From the first response what he wants is for the server to not be shown in the listing, be it on the client or in the hub, so accessible only via IP address. Which, for a server that doesn't have a standalone launcher, it's essentially shutting them down. | |
Exadv1 still has all the power over SS13's hub. I'm sure they have their own reasons for not touching it. Imagine the drama.
Anyone can list any game they want on the SS13 hub page. It doesn't even have to be SS13, or use any SS13 code. If someone were to list their non-SS13 game on the SS13 hub, I'd expect a lot of "reasons" (harassment, probably) to pop up, forcing them to stop. It wouldn't suddenly become BYOND's responsibility, if the hub editor gained new functionality, when someone with access to SS13's hub editor abuses it. Basically, even if functionality improved, it would be up to the SS13 community to collectively agree to make use of it, and it's very likely that they wouldn't. Which, for a server that doesn't have a standalone launcher, it's essentially shutting them down.You don't need a standalone launcher, publicly listed server, or a hub page. All you need in order to join a game is the byond:// link that Dream Daemon gives you. That link can be advertised anywhere. | |
How would delisting a particular server even work?
OP even admits that blocking someone by IP/machine ID is incredibly easy to bypass, so blocking their machine ID to prevent them from hosting would not be doable by their own admission: Keptyouwaitinghuh wrote: Evading a server ban on the Byond client is as simple as changing [[two very easily changed digital identities]], and then a banned individual can return the same day they are banned under a new account. So... I mean, even if BYOND were to follow through on this, and the current methods of blocking people don't work, how would they even possibly follow through with this? Short of unlisting SS13's entire hub, there's just no actionable solution, and unlisting SS13's hub is basically the equivalent of putting your dick into a fire ant mound while you jam your head into a wasp's nest. The vast majority of SS13's community is not responsible for these servers, and neither is BYOND until whatever you claim they are doing spills onto the website proper. Icepalpasif wrote: Also would it also be a nonfeasible issue if Colonial Marines got a copyright notice when they clearly had everything ripped out of Aliens (not the exact case anymore though)? The entire argument labors on this half-truth. BYOND didn't delist Colonial Marines. BYOND got a badly mistargeted C&D from a rights holder for the Alien franchise, and complied with it to the limit of their responsibility: Pointing out that BYOND wasn't hosting any of their copyrighted content and is not responsible to remove any of it (they literally couldn't, because none of the infringing content exists on networks BYOND had control over), because BYOND acts only as a neutral portal. Safe harbor provision clearly applies, so Lummox's only responsibility is to respond to the rights holder and tell them how their request has been levied against a party not responsible for the alleged infringement, and legally unable to comply with the actions requested. The legal team then got in contact with the server owners themselves, likely via their ISP. What happened from there, I don't know, but BYOND didn't take down CM. CM was targeted by the rights holders after they found out BYOND was not responsible for the alleged infringement of their trademark. So once we knock down this spurious claim, you'll find that the only action BYOND has ever taken has revolved solely around individuals using byond's network itself to host infringing content, which excludes any content served by the actual game server, because that's how private ownership of networks works. The only arrow BYOND has in its quiver is the deletion of a hub, and it has never been done for actions that take place within a game or content included in the game, and again, doing so would be an action in essence targeting the entire SS13 community for the actions of a tiny, tiny minority with which the wider SS13 community has no legal affiliation. | |
I know CM wasn't taken down by BYOND themselves because your defence is that you can't take down things from the SS13 Hub without killing it. I advocate the creation of such tools in the case of malicious attacks (like the million player servers one) and to deny these fetish servers the publicity of the hub.
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