I'm sure that at some point you've all been quoted the "13+" rule on dA. This is in relation to FAQ #696:How does deviantART comply with COPPA?.

How does deviantART comply with COPPA?

Currently deviantART's compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (effective April 21st 2000) is limited to prohibiting any child under the age of 13 from opening, maintaining, or otherwise using a deviantART account. This restriction stands even when parental permission is granted

As we collect certain pieces of identifiable information and since a deviantART account allows a user to publicly display various types of personal and identifiable information (such as name, location and email information) we cannot allow children under the age of 13 to utilize an account at this point in time.

To summarise COPPA in brief, websites cannot be specifically marketed to children under the age of 13, and users under the age of 13 must have parental consent and supervision to disclose personal information. This legislation has been applied in several lawsuits, including a suit resulting in a website (Xanga) being fined USD $1 million for repeatedly allowing children under the age of 13 to register without parental consent.

This theme of protecting minors is expanded and related to site policy in $lolly's (the Director of Community Development's) article, Special Focus-Internet Safety, commonly referred to as devSAFE. Further info on policy can be found by clicking the "Etiquette" and "Terms of Service" links at the bottom of any dA page, or in the FAQs at Help Desk. I won't waste your time with rehashing on-site techniques to deal with harrassment, and I'll move on to off-site resources.

Let's say you're on Yahoo Chat, MySpace, or LiveJournal, and a person seems to be trying to form an inappropriate rapport with you - whether it be an old man trying desperately to make an off-line personal friendship with a twelve-year-old, or something less extreme, like a young adult of perhaps 23 flirting explicitly with a fifteen-year-old. Bear in mind, this is a situation in which the user may or may not be in violation of local laws, and it may or may not be their first time violating them, and as such, two courses of action should be taken as soon as you see this happen.

Firstly, if it's explicit enough to interest law enforcement, visit CyberTipline and submit a report, including chat logs, screencaps, whatever evidence you can provide - though, be warned: this is an FBI-funded organization, and if you falsify ANY information, you've committed a felony under US law and will be prosecuted; something tells me the FBI will figure you out, they're probably a little better equipped than you. CyberTipline also works with various international and local law enforcement agencies, so don't feel that it's limited to US reports. If it's outside the US, just click the big blue banner for Virtual TaskForce on the CyberTipline frontpage.

Secondly, if it's on MySpace, LJ, or Yahoo IM/Chat, or any system in which the user has a screen name, try doing a search for the user's screen name at Wikisposure, the officially-written wiki of PJFI, the organization behind "To Catch A Predator" and Perverted-Justice.com, among other projects. This wiki is a massive resource of known predators online, and each listed predator's full list of known screennames are provided on his or her page.

If it turns out that the person making you uncomfortable is already on Wikisposure, feel free to drop me an email with any supporting evidence you have, and I'll see to it that the site editors receive the information, with no mention of its source. Any information of this sort that you send to me will be considered an open investigation and full confidentiality will be ensured.

Thirdly, and obviously, if the person making you uncomfortable is on deviantART, notify Help Desk. This can't be stressed enough; the staff of dA's HelpDesk and CEA team will know how to deal with it, and will enforce the policies, plain and simple.

In conclusion, Stay Safe!

/IB out

Disclaimer

I do not in any way condone the use of Wikisposure as a means of finding people to harrass. In fact, this defeats the purpose of the site as a resource for those in need. At this time, no users on dA who've committed serious offenses are known to Wikisposure, so don't use it to find dirt on your fellow deviants. There is none to be found.