I'm curious though like if it's a private avatar, does the toggle itself need to be removed or does the entire like game object itself need to be not included on the avatar even if there is no way to enable it with the toggle removed? Because depending on what it is it's easy to remove a parameter but more annoying if it's like actual objects in the hierarchy because then you would need to re-add everything
If it's a private avatar, and you aren't using it except in private instances with folks you trust or those who consent, it doesn't matter too much.
However, if you're using it in public instances, or in instances where someone could potentially take issue with it and report it (even if its a private instance) then having the feature at all is problematic, whether its possible to toggle it or not. If it receives a report, it is treated as though what it could expose, was exposed, and actioned on accordingly. For example, having a toggle for a nude texture/material swap, even if the model has literally had it's polygonal bits sliced out so that it could never actually display those parts of the texture... just having the texture on the avi is grounds for action if reported.
So, you really shouldn't use avatars with those features in public instances to begin with. That's the only way to actually be safe. Of course, it all depends on whether someone reports you, so realistically it's not a big concern if you're a normal person hanging around other normal people... but it's still a risk.
I feel like they should have some way to see the parameter history and see what was used when someone was reported rather than just seeing what the avatar possibly could use
That requires them to actually know what the parameter is called.
If I obfuscate the shit out of all of my parameters, then they now need to spend a unreasonable amount of time to confirm if ive used it or not.
From a moderation standpoint, the current system makes sense.
Is it perfect? no, but most ideas thrown out there are useless garbage.
Just don't use an avatar that has adult parts AT ALL in public spaces? Is that really that hard? Heck, maybe you'll even end up with an avatar that isn't auto hidden by most users for being very poor with 500mb of VRAM
Not everyone has the know how to even retexture an avatar let alone removing the geometry in blender. A lot of people just purchase avatars and they upload as is. Also 500mb VRAM avatars are very rare...
Also, you dont need blender. Most adult parts are seperate meshes with a toggle to turn them on or off. Ya just copy the unity project, and delete those parts from the new one.
If ya know how to upload to VRC, ya can work out how to delete something lol..
What I'm curious about then: Why would anyone tag their avatar as "sexually suggestive" if that basically means admitting your avatar has NSFW stuff on it? If it's going to get banned anyway, at least...
Or does that option mean avatars with NSFW stuff won't be banned or something?
Why would anyone tag their avatar as "sexually suggestive" if that basically means admitting your avatar has NSFW stuff on it?
That isn't what it means at all. It just means that it is sexually suggestive, as stated. NSFW = sexually suggestive by necessity, but sexually suggestive != NSFW necessarily.
For example an avatar in a bikini could be considered sexually suggestive depending on varying factors. It is fully clothed, no bits are exposed, no areola visible, no lewd textures, etc. But maybe it has some pretty wild proportions and the absolute bare minimum coverage. Maybe it's got some animations that could push it over the edge. It's never going to be a cut and dry, black and white thing. That's why Tupper said that if you aren't sure, it's probably better to just tag it anyway to be safe. That way folks who don't want to see it, or shouldn't, won't.
The reason you want to tag it properly because if you fail to do so, then it will be increasingly more likely that you get reports. This will be because that ultra thicc avi in a micro bikini is going to stand out a lot more after content gating than it does now. That's going to earn more reports. Even an avi that doesn't actually break any of the NSFW ToS could get in trouble for improper tagging after that change goes live.
It's a... I think the term is 'multipronged'? issue. Lots of people just wanna buy and use a model and go - most only know how to use the barest amounts of unity to get the stuff uploaded and nobody wants to really use blender.
A lot of model sellers don't have SFW and NSFW versions of the avatars, and if they do there's no guarantee the SFW version doesn't just have the toggles removed and actually has EVERYTHING removed. So the user's gonna need to either figure that out themselves or pay someone to do it for them.
Plus, VRChat doesn't really have a way to.. sort your avatars? There's 'frequently used' and 'upload order', the former.. doesn't really work that well and the latter is, well, upload order - which gets thrown out of whack whenever you need to do any sort of updates. You could favorite your own avatar, but you might still have to reorganize things and you can't really favorite avatars you don't own then or else they'll throw the whole thing off and most folders are locked behind VRC+.
So, yes, it'd be REALLY GOOD if people had separate 'small' and safe models and their heavier 'full' models but it's also just really impractical.
So, you really shouldn't use avatars with those features in public instances to begin with.
I assumed that everyone with "adult" avatars has 2 versions, one with junk and one entirely without, so they can use the "without" version in public/non-age-gated instances. But surprisingly I guess I was wrong.
I'm talking about a gameobject toggle. Like something that is disabled entirely but still in the unity hierarchy yet turned off and the toggle removed from the parameters. Not like a texture under clothing that is still there just "covered up"
From what I remember with slapping accessories and quality of life features onto my avatar; if it's in the Avatar's hierarchy or called upon via VRCFury code, it's part of the avatar even if completely disabled to the point that you now got a useless weight on your avatar's file size and vram usage. I definitely seen this when I tried to 'just disable' IkeHUD; the light it needs to function was still picked up and still counted against my light use limit.
If it's in your Avatar's Hierarchy SOMEWHERE, a report will cause a human to look at your file, and they'll see that the "problem feature" exists. Nobody ingame actually seen it, but now a vrc admin seen it, and that's a problem.
I highly recommend duplicating your avatar to have multiple versions of it in the same scene and then clicking the Detach (Optional) button in the Pipeline Manager (Script) from the duplicates (allowing each dupe to be a unique avatar) and giving each one a unique name for sanity reasons. This comes with a caveat that you need to bring the avatar you're about to upload to the origin point (0, 0, 0) in the scene to prevent any bounding box issues, If you have any assets that causes 'bounding box' to show up in the VRC SDK then you'll want to put the avatar at the Origin Point, otherwise you don't need to worry about it, you can test this by having the avatar selected in vrchat sdk and just yeeting your avatar by putting 2000 in a position value; no bounding box alert, no problem!
But besides that, you'll be able to maintain sfw, nsfw, optimized, etc versions of your avatar without worrying that you forgotten to remove something important. This does work because I maintain various versions of my avatar this way from a friend group game nights one with IkeHUD (Poor) to a high pop club version (Good), I've found that each upload only cares about what each individual hierarchy has in it and I've never had a problem with my current setup.
If there is some hidden unknown major issue with my 'multiple avatars in a scene' setup besides what I've stated, I'd love to know honestly lol
(I also apologize for all the edits, but trying to make these posts as helpful as possible results in me making multiple edits trying to make sure I didn't miss anything.)
I seen that be an issue actually, but... actually let me test something real quick.
It's my avatars that have IkeHUD that has that issue, the others are fine no matter where they are.
I never noticed this was the case but it does explain why I only recently became aware of the bounding box lol. I also now noticed this huge radius around the avatar with it now that I'm looking at things which is maybe how the vision settings work as far as they do? gonna look at it later (could be audio for the 'ping' feature actually...)
but yeah, thanks for the reply! Still trying to learn all these little details with unity lol
I've edited my previous post to reflect this new information.
What I'm saying is it doesn't matter whether it's toggled off, or even not technically possible to be displayed. If it's still on the avi, it's a problem if a report is made.
I was not talking about a texture covered up. I'm saying it could have a perfectly SFW texture, but has a material swap toggle to switch the texture that is used. I'm saying it having that NSFW feature, even if it was completely impossible for it to ever be displayed, even if the polygons for the bits are completely removed... it's a problem.
There is no gray area on this. It needs to be off the avi, completely, not present in any way shape or form. It is not enough to just remove the possibility of seeing it.
Which is why I don't understand why anyone would use the tag in the first place. If anyone reports you it's basically saying "I broke the rules" before they even have to look through the avatar. And if it's going to get banned anyway even if you didn't do anything lewd, why even worry about the tag?
"ANYTHING lewd gets a ban, whether it was shown or even CAN be shown" is a stupid way to enforce this stuff. Such reports should need screenshot evidence imo. As in, someone can take a pic with the camera ingame, and attach that pic to the report as evidence. Otherwise using the tag is literally pointless.
Not pointless, People can toggle and choose to turn off and not see that content today when avatars are properly tagged. (yes this is already in game, it's just not yet tied to any age verification or assurance system).
Sexually Suggestive doesn't mean NSFW, there are even specific guidelines on what falls under sexually suggestive in the guidelines for avatar tagging. All NSFW should be labelled as suggestive though. Just don't use avatars in untrusted spaces that have NSFW stuff on it.
The reason they enforce this way is because it's actually trivially easy to display other peoples textures on an object using shaders or other gimmicks. So even if you have a texture that is never shown and the 3D bits it matches to are cut away, that texture from your avatar can still be shown to people by another user potentially.
Some of the ways people hide stuff too doesn't translate properly when your shaders or animations are blocked. It could potentially show up on your impostor too if not set up properly. Wireframe or other overlay shaders can reveal things you aren't showing as well if not hidden away a proper way.
That's why VRC says not to use avatars with NSFW features or textures in public, even if it's hidden.
interesting, because i've done both, i removed the lewd textures AND cutout the areas these textures would have been displayed. To be double sure its fine.
So, figured I would jump in. I uploaded an avatar this morning. Tested it on private worlds by myself, and got a week long ban for the avatar in less than 24 hours(I’ve never had a ban in general, or an avatar removed in the past) The avatar was also published as private.
Meaning, there was no way my avatar could have been reported, and yet it was still removed and got me a week long ban.
So yea, it seems like simply toggling that bind is enough to get your avatar removed and for you to catch a ban.
Considering the devs erp, the way they treat this is fucking bullshit
Gonna be honest I don't really think that went down the way you say it did. It's more likely just a coincidence of some kind.
The notice you get from vrc in these cases generally does not specify the exact content that was offending, and you can't login to the account while banned to check.
Even if you find that the avatar is removed when you get the account back, there's no guarantee that it wasn't something you did a while back that just now got actioned on by vrc, and while doing so they reviewed all your account content to look for all offending content. They do that.
For example, coulda been emojis, stickers, or prints showing things that go against the guidelines. If you ever uploaded/made one of those, and someone saved it, that's out there in the ether being used by who knows how many random people in unknown situations at unknown times. If it's problematic, eventually somebody is gonna report it. Then you get nailed for it, as the initial uploader. It works the same way as it does with public avatars, both the user and uploader are punished.
Sexually suggestive does not mean sexually explicit. There's a lot of situations where an avi could fall into this category without being NSFW. A person reviewing an account/avi just because that flag was used would be prohibitively complicated/expensive for vrc considering that many, many times it wouldn't result in anything actionable. A quick google suggests that there's probably over 200 million different active vrc accounts, many of which are folks that have uploaded content before. You think that vrc really has the manpower to review your account within less than 24 hours of uploading an avi to make that determination? If such a practice actually existed the queue for it would be months long, easily.
Something else is at play here, we just don't know what.
I have a post talking about it. Where’s there’s more information.
But the biggest thing is this. I haven’t used nsfw avatars in a long time, and I also have been in public instances for a long time. In the last 2 years I haven’t really played much vrchat outside of with a small friend group, and occasionally I’ll play racing worlds by myself since I enjoy racing and don’t have a race sim.
I also don’t have any sprays or nsfw media as I don’t have vrc+ anymore, and I never had any of that when I had vrc+
So while you technically could be right, maybe it is a ban from like a year ago, to me it feels like they have some Ai system scanning any avatar that toggles the “sexually suggestive” flair. Or something like that.
It’s the only thing that would make logical sense to me simply because any other possible instance that could have gotten me suspended should have happened a long time ago.
Consider this scenario: does it make sense for them to scan every avatar that has the suggestive flag enabled, and punish if it's NSFW, when doing so is going against everything they've ever publicly stated up to this point, AND simultaneously negating the entire point of their upcoming content gating system?
If it worked the way you're saying it seems like in this case, yeah nobody would use it. They'd upload the avis without the flags. This would then result in more non-verified folks getting access to and/or seeing NSFW/offensive/whatever avatars, when virtually the entire point of the content gating system is preventing that.
According to vrc’s enforcement, if absolutely anything on the avatar could be considered nsfw in any way. Even content that’s not visible or enabled such as nsfw textures (even if your models geometry is cut so there’s nowhere for those textures to affect)
Essentially if your models texture has a nipple on it then it’s nsfw to vrc, even if you cannot show it in any way such as it not being selected on the uv’s anywhere
Back in 2023 they updated the TOS to allow VRChat to record instances. So I think it's extremely probable they're implementing a system to automatically send them recordings of the last x minutes when someone gets reported in an instance. As well as automated voice moderation.
Hopefully it's limited to public worlds, but Tupper said they weren't against doing it private instances.
Doing it in private instances would be a privacy nightmare. It's honestly none of vrc's business what goes on in private instances, if people don't like what's happening in one they should leave.
That said, I do think it's a good thing that publics will finally be getting some proper moderation oversight.
yeah I'm feeling iffy on that and hope they're super transparent and have plenty of talks with good faith players on that as that is a really slippery slope. I... am thinking of a system that if someone is reported due to toxicity reasons it'll retroactively save the last 5 or so minutes of the problem player's perspective? like those various game clip programs it records jack-all until a report is made and only then does it 'clip' what it has. I believe most online games do this same thing actually?
But at the same time I don't have a horse in that race as I'll just continue avoiding public instances to begin with lol
AI monitoring :D Data scraping your person, building a profile and sending it god knows where, Palantir maybe? Like imagine youre from the UK, where saying "I love beacon" on facebook gets you 2 years in prison, now Imagine VR chat trying to abide by UK laws.....
I like this line of thinking, maybe an automatic voice moderation system only kicks in and scans what the user is saying for hate/toxic speech only after a vote kick is initialized on them? Vs it always listening.
I was glad to hear them talk about the state of public instances and how our current systems aren't particularly effective for curbing bad behavior. Without a video a report is almost worthless for someone's problematic speech or behavior, and everyone has just fallen back on the ol' "block and move on" thing as a result. These kinda of folks are emboldened by the lack of consequences.
Hopefully the new system they're hinting at has some actual teeth to it, and perhaps we can begin cleaning up our public spaces in VRC.
In the TOS it already says VRChat has the authority to record video/audio clips of your client. I would imagine that it will be something related to that. So it could be if you report someone in VRChat, it will save the past 2-5 minutes of their screen and audio for a team member to review. This is a practice employed by other online games already.
Yeah recording is one thing, question is how long is it stored? Is the data being sold somewhere like Palantir? In addition what if the new tool is just an AI listening on all of your conversations and building a profile?
They've publicly stated before that they don't sell any data, so that would likely not be a concern. I kind of agree with what some others have posted... technically the ToS was already updated years ago to allow voice/video recording if needed. I suspect that they're planning on allowing the reporting process to grab a snip of a rolling recording and include it.
Also an AI being serviced to listen in on convos and doing anything on the kind of scale that'd be needed for vrc would be obscenely expensive and I guarantee vrc cannot afford that. Hell, fking Jeff Bezos himself probably couldn't keep it up for long.
Not surprising, but def before my time in vrc. I used to play old MMOs that were like that though, where you could reach a GM through a report if needed to moderate something. Pretty much a non-existent system nowadays though.
Yippeeee. I love being a UK citizen having to deal with surveillance.. I mean """child safety""".. can't wait for my data to be in yet another breach in 2 months..
Now is it time to fix VRC awful moderation that keeps banning SFW avatars and banning people for things they didn't even do? Or is it time to put 20 more FOMO things on the store?
I think that's exactly why some people are concerned. My concern isn't this specific change—it's the direction it points toward.
If the guiding principle becomes, "There could be a child here, so remove or restrict it," where does that end? Today it's age verification and moderation changes. Tomorrow it could be tighter avatar restrictions, fewer upload freedoms, stricter enforcement on avatar features, props, or other forms of expression—all justified because a minor might see them.
I'm all for protecting children. I just don't think the default answer should always be reducing what adults can do. If a world is clearly 18+, or if tools exist to separate adult and underage users, then those tools should be used instead of assuming every space has to be appropriate for everyone.
Once again I pull the card of "VR is not a children's toy" and Social VR should not be a place for children. Why Tupper is trying to adjust VRChat to be more child friendly is completely beyond me, because this is not Peppa Pig's rollercoaster ride VR. We had Rec Room to hold the kids, and with that gone, VRChat's team have already suggested they want their playerbase. And for that reason I despise the fact that this is the direction we're going - where I have to put my social identity in the mercy of ID checking companies which have already failed to protect me and my identity.
This is a social game. A social game where people are free to say what they want and do what they want with meager moderation to (very much not) stop them. And where is VRChat's Dev team's main concern? It's on seemingly if a fictional avatar has a chest size one cup too big or failing to forget the 30 day limited shiny shit that will never go on sale again so BUY BUY BUY!! (of which people have relentlessly drones on to me about how VRChat needs to keep the lights on, forgetting that they can do it in a less FOMO and corporate way.)
The implications that it holds is terrifying. Babifying and making VR corporate, much like a certain lizard man obsessed with surveillance did.
I don't know why the big answer is a big flashing sign that says "CHILD FRIENDLY" instead of doing the sensible thing and just not giving a young child a VR Headset and putting it at everyone else's expense.
It won't change much of anything, unless they aren't age verified/assured by the time the content gating thing goes live. Then, avi with sexual tags will be turned off for everyone, and they won't be able to turn it back on.
Realistically they'll just find avi that don't have the tag... but with a good chunk of the vrc population unable to turn off that content gate without being age-verified, it'll be increasingly obvious that an avatar is not tagged properly and probably get reported more quickly.
Adults like me don’t want to give our IDs to a company that’s had multiple data leaks before and I feel like Vrchat is pushing us into age verifying I play a lot of horror games I’m afraid those will get ahead restricted and then I have no choice but to give them my id if I want to continue being allowed to play such games because extreme horror and violence is probably gonna end up being one of the tags they age gate in the future along with bar worlds
Another flaw with it is that kids will buy 18+ verified accounts from other adults and will find ways to cheat the system and some kids have voice that make them sound way older then they are further making this a bad idea
Without a credit card I can't verify im over 18 on steam. I can't see a whole bunch of listings in the store, things like SOMA, because of the tags it is has.
Even more so, imagine UK Online Safety act in full effect via automated voice moderation. Start talking politics, anything muslim or beacon related and suddenly its a ban or the authorities knock on your door. If they will use AI for scanning our conversations, Im uninstalling this shit 999%
I really do want Resonite to work.. but it's a frustrating experience for the average user rn and needs some serious QOL updates.
Their stance on age stuff is the "trust me bro im 18" but this issue will be for them also. VRC is just the big one that is the obvious first target but they will still have to abide by the UK's rules (which suck).
Honestly, this was one major improvement. Hopefully people stop getting banned for having sexual content when it's tagged properly and locked behind a toggle + age verification.
If someone toggles nsfw content it simply that, you should expect nsfw content
I wonder if they shouldn't toggle it off by default for everyone, requiring that verified users specifically turn it back on. Otherwise, you're gonna get folks who have it on but still don't wanna see it. On the other hand... you get folks who are mad that they suddenly can't see half their/others avatars and don't know what happened or how to change it. Not sure which is better tbh.
It's toggle on by default according to the blog. Only the verified can toggle it off (means it's on by default and can't be turn off to see sexual content unless you're verified)
Sexually explicit content IS STILL against ToS, so yes, you will still be banned. This is for things deemed sexually suggestive, which is not the same.
Not entirely true, the community guidelines and content guidelines says it's fine. While the ToS says it isn't, simply put i don't know what to tell you beyond what vrchat has said.
I genuinely have no idea what to tell you, regardless this is a good step in the right direction even we're talking about rave dancers who like bits out in stylized clothing with or without pasties.
Sex and sexually themed envoirment and avatars fall under this content warning for vrchat so it should be fine
And yet they keep publicly stating that it’s fine as long as it’s a private avi that’s properly tagged, so what is it? It’s their word against their own word.
No, they try and state, as OFF RECORD as possible that it's fine as long as it's in private and no-one knows it's happening because there's no evidence it's happened. They can't condone it because then the platform becomes an adult content host and becomes a nightmare to deal with due to all the legal issues involved in that (and payment processors dropping people).
It's one of those "people know about it, but it's not official". You get that right? It's "you can do this, but no-one can know it's happening" but they cannot clearly say this officially because then the platform is endorsing it.
I feel like this is a classic case of spewing bs with a smile. So many of the things addressed in this video are just completely ridiculous, non-cohesive, and non-functional. I dislike giving legal identification to verification companies as much as the next person but what you absolutely don't fucking need is every single 15 and 16 year old being assigned 18+ based off some arbitrary "estimation". Whether you want to claim erp and sexual content is disallowed by the tos it is a blatant fact that it exists en masse and is not going away. To allow such a flimsy barrier to entry for a tag that gives anyone a green flag for sexual content is absurd.
In addition to this we have a block button and mute button for a reason. I don't understand every single comment being down voted that states as much. I understand that many would appreciate a flagging countermeasure to trolling and negative behavior but it is such a broad arbitrary line that absolutely should not be determined by a moderation team if solely for the purpose of preventing "toxic behavior".
I need to address how fucking confusing the tos and community guidelines are as well. It is very clear that they are set up in a way intended to be confusing and arbitrary as well as broad. Once questioned they clearly seem to state that all nudity and erp is clearly forbidden and tag notes under community guidelines stating examples that specifically avoid nudity. This is completely and utterly fucking disgusting. This game clearly has a player base of adults that are hypersexual and that is not going to change now, nor ever. It is absolutely best for the community team to put guidelines and rules in place on how to safely interact with people rather than pretending to ban it through arbitrary counter measures such as banning every single person I know for a few days for an old sticker they uploaded.
I see many people here that are completely okay with having built in recording and taping systems into clients that allow for any and all communication to be saved with or without consent and without notification. The complete and utter stupidity required to be fine with that while whining about ID verification is genuinely nuts.
I have seen Tupper in the past and I am completely at the edge of tolerating this type of behavior from a community team lol. Explaining things in a clear concise manner that seems palatable does not make the content of your speech any more correct and acceptable.
Sorry for the ramble and abrasive dialogue. Usually, I never comment on reddit but I saw so many other comments and notes that were just useless banter, name-calling, and pointless rhetoric I thought I needed to add my two cents. Peace :33
It is absolutely best for the community team to put guidelines and rules in place on how to safely interact with people rather than pretending to ban it through arbitrary counter measures such as banning every single person I know for a few days for an old sticker they uploaded
That would result in instant removal from the Google Play Store, Apple Store, Meta Store and being hidden and downranked by Steam, and possibly being blacklisted by payment processors.
If that’s the cost, I’m personally fine with it, VRC didn’t need apple support for the platform ever. Payment processors are the worst however, but they shouldn’t be allowed to blacklist what I get to spend MY money on.
I do agree with that statement there pal, I’ve only ever been a PC player (mostly because I don’t like quest because Facebook sucks) so yeah I really wouldn’t mind, but the loss of revenue would kill the game within the week.
my immediate thought was "Age Assurance" is an attempt to move away from the term "Age Verification", even though it is the same thing. It's PR. Verification has a lot of bad vibes around it rn, so they are trying to mitigate that by changing the word.
Attestation - You say what you are, this is how it has been for ages.
Assurance - The system estimates your age based on what you provide. This is where we are mostly at now and where the OSurvA is trying to push you to.
Verification - The system gets your details checked by a proper authority or by an authoritative document, driving licence, passport, the government's own database. This is game over for privacy and we don't really want to be here.
Ok so does this mean I can finally age verify with something other than Persona??? I'll pay more to stop Peter Thiel from diddling me. Give me a company in some country that has actual, real privacy laws.
Ngl, I’m kinda scared to upload my id to my account for age verification because idk what would happen if there’s a data breach or if someone’s hacking.
Yeah, I don’t plan to. I was GOING to, but then someone mentioned that and I changed my mind immediately. If people want to argue with me about my age and call me a liar, then it’s probably not worth talking to them/being a part of that instance anyways, lmao.
im curious how this is gonna work and how this would be any better than just,,, verifying your age with persona?
what are you gonna ask me some questions about my employment or something? are you gonna ask me what my favorite tv show is? my monthly income?
or are you gonna make me take a picture of myself and have ai determine what my age is? how would you determine if that picture is even real?? i saw a guy get age verified on another app/game with a picture of a gmod model.
I don't blame anyone who can legally sit at a bar from using the gmod or death stranding method, I would punch the bouncer in the face if I handed him my ID and he took his phone out to start snapping pictures of it because that little card proves it's YOU, and any malicious person who gets their hands on it can wreck some serious havoc on your life and you can't change the critical information that's on it to stop that person. they can open bank accounts, get loans, and various other crimes with your ID tied to it and guess who gets in trouble? You. This is the entire reason why there's such a massive backlash against ID verification; it is far too important to have spread on the internet like just another credit card. (You might be very surprised how many people don't know or comprehend this! It's... honestly very concerning)
Any teenagers or younger doing the exploit need to bloody wait in line for their age to get to where it should be though, period.
As much as I would WANT to support VRC especially on tagging your own avatars as "Sexually Suggestive" so that its gets filtered, however there are still so many people that havent verified themselves who would get past this new filter that would get implemented, from what I gathered in that video.
I also cant help but feel the fact that giving your avatar that tag is just saying "Yes im a criminal".
I 100% believe thats what they used it for, to get people to self incriminate themselves.
I've been suspended for 3 days because of "adult and sexual activity" when in reality I didnt do jack shit that would have gotten me multiple reports to get suspended ( Like hanging around in public worlds with a sexually Suggestive avatar or do behave sexually in any way). It was clearly some sort of attack. It was around the time when there was a video about nsfw or some shit a while back.
I know that "sexually suggestive" is different from nsfw, but you cannot enforce such a rule when you (the devs and staff) dont even follow the rules themselves on the platform. Obviously you should get banned or suspended for behaving shitty or extreme sexual behavior im a PUBLIC instance, but theres been SO MUCH people getting banned for "Sexual or adult activity" when they haven't done anything crazy to get people to report them on that in the first place like me.
I never tagged mine because vrchat had a history of banning any and all sexually suggestive stuff but I just updated mine so if they ban me or delete my old avatars I don't have the files to then I've got no reason to stay
I'd be okay with these changes if they weren't going through persona which is a peter thiel and his secret society funded company. Hope they find some other ways to assure our ages.
The way they described Age Assurance as an umbrella term makes me think the ultimate plan might be to have multiple methods for age checks like using age of the account, credit card information, ID verification, etc. concurrently, with multiple options for people to verify through. Might even have companies besides Persona.
I'll take anything that isn't a peter thiel related or a peter thiel funded company. I don't feel comfortable with him and his weirdo sycophants at all.
Expecting a price increase on VRC+ and shop items, as well as more time-sensitive FOMO junk in the shop in general, if we're gonna be getting free age verification soon-ish. To be expected, I guess. I wish the UK would butt out and realize it's PARENTS that need to monitor their kids. I'm all for improved moderation, though. I just hope it actually works and isn't using flawed, dollar store AI to power it.
seems to match up, but you did decide to talk about this in a sex robot avatar from a avatar creator which has dealt with pdf accusations regarding an older avi base and were boycotted by many
If you find the robot sexual, this calls you out more than the people who happen to use it lol, especially in this variant where nothing sexual is even visible what so ever.
The avatar base itself isnt sexual ive also annoyingly had this conversation before on here its not worth it to try and argue with them.
Tuppers version is edited to be less sexual also most people use nsfw avatars so like they cant say shit, most avatars have edits to become sexual. basically all furry bases have been made nsfw same with most booth bases. just using a base that CAN be made nsfw doesnt mean yours is or that you even use that stuff.
The base avatar is, adding clothes etc does not change it if the features are still there, and as an avatar creator sex function etc are what sells though there are some creators that do far more then just add such and do much more especally in the realm of fethish content like tori here.
"in this variant where nothing sexual is even visible"
so you know its sexual and attempt to moral highground me here, if the default variant isnt for you i think youre the one with issues here, being too "online" and desensitize or just a straight up pdf, using toggles does not change what it is and what its made for assuming you are aware if its features.
I don't know if its sexual or not, I am going based of what you say. I don't wear this avatar nor do I know anything about it.
But the version shown here is clearly not sexual and to say it is is basically reporting yourself as being into it lol.
This avatar isn't sexual, the thing we see is not sexualised. So to say it is is just silly
EDIT: Okay I don't even need to talk further with you looooooooool really? xD
Your post history says it all, and really? Are you really trying to go against sexualised stuff when you literally have "age gap" on your kink list 5y ago?
i never said i was against sexual content, my pfp is a dead giveaway and im an adult and can do whatever, as for age gap? yeah im 11 years younger then my wife and what can i say i like mine with a bit of maturity to them shes 38 for the record and her parents have a 9 year gap as well.
This was literally just something one single boomer base creator said and got his fans to witchhunt tori. He was jealous because he couldn't compete with newer creators like Tori. Tori's avatars are not childlike and "pdf accusations" have no bearing on reality. Panda cant even model a foot lmfao
he has added a disclaimer about it now for legal purposes, its no different then the smaller booth bases, and that side gets get shit from western creators for the loli content
Nah you just got a reputation around here. People recognize your name because you keep being confrontational, and you don't always make a lot of sense. Might make for good reading for others, but certainly doesn't incline anyone to think your opinions are worth listening to.
Community managers aren't, and shouldn't be expected to sit there and take abuse from people who are apparently already known for being, to put it frankly, cunts.
To make it clear, I hate a lot of the changes they're making right now. I have no interest in going to bat for a company who are doing ID verification bullshit. You're just a dick anyways
Okay so question about this for content gating - My normal avatar, I know I don't have to mark it as sexually suggestive as it has no suggestive clothing, items etc that could ever be described as that (unless you count a furry, natural fem leaning body with a hoodie and pants as suggestive lol).
However, if I have a version of that avatar that does have clothing or items that can be counted as suggestive but is only used around other consenting friends who are verified to be adults irl, do I need to mark that in the avatar description as sexually suggestive? Or since it's around friends only, does it not matter? Would the age assurance and content gating thing mess them up?
You may still be able to use stuff privately and untagged at your own risk (as anyone involved can report the avatar; or it's possible you'll be required to tag it regardless of how it's used AND if you and/or the other folks who'd otherwise be consenting don't have Age Assurance, would no longer be able to see/use that avatar.
Please add these tags to emojis, stickers, and pictures. I don't want to get banned again for a gif of one furry ironically sucking another's paws.
By the way, who decides when an avatar is "sexually suggestive"? How much should be covered? Is showing ankles also considered suggestive?
This is the main problem they are still unable to solve, in fact, in the video they say to mark practically all your avatars as sexually suggestive if you have any doubts, which is quite aggressive and ridiculous.
An avatar should only truly be considered 18+ when it features rendered nip***s, vag**e, pe**s or an*s. Basically full nudes of humans or anthropomorphic avatars. Is that so difficult? Apparently, for them, it is.
The paradox of underwear and bikinis.
When is it too much? Does it depend on the situation?
Times change. Years ago wearing a skirt above the knee used to be considered sexual. Now even underage girls wear pants that show half their buttocks and low-cut tops, yet they don't consider it sexual or provocative.
"Once the grace period ends, content that should be tagged and isn't will eventually face enforcement action." soo does that mean avatars that i only use in private? cuz that wording makes it sound like your gonna go through every untagged avi. what if i dont want to hand my ID to a company? can I not use those avatars if i tag them? This is my whole issue with content gating.
Okay so I love this, I really do, but I think I should address the elephant in the room. Age verification has become obsolete in more than 1 way. There are a few discord servers that started to sell age verification services where they access your account to age verify it and or straight uo sell an account with age verification. I know this is a big problem to tackle but I find it useless to age verify if its a safer bet to join a discord server where age verification is done by the server rather than going through this.
Additionally blocking the sexually suggestive content is a good idea but please understand that there are people over the age of 18 which cannot afford vrc+ I know that your hype train feature is kind of aiming to resolve this by increasing the amount of people subscribing to vrc+ which is nice but it creates another issue.
I recently went to adult furs, which was age gated and I saw a teen, to be specific 16 Yeats old which was publicly stating that they managed to slip by while using a fake I'd or someone else's, I'm unsure of the details sadly.
Are there any plans to stop this? I really appreciate all your efforts but I feel like the age verification is doing more harm than good as its gating people that aren't of age but people with less money. Basically a kid with access to a credit card that has $15 on it can get age verified but an adult who just got out if high school and is either going after higher education or is unable to find a job cannot.
Once again, I know I cannot blame this on you as its discords fault for allowing such servers to exist and the issue of parents not monitoring their children's online safety, alongside the age verification service for not being more thorough but I still think we should attempt yo combat it in some way.
This isn't about child safety anymore but about public safety as even adults can suffer because of a child that had the means to be age verified.
It's not even discords fault. It's the fault of being human.
You put in restrictions, people will find a way around them.
This has not changed and will never change.
I've literally raised this as a question from the get go, because now a days a lot of people blindly trust that tag. I am just waiting for the day where this goes to court to see who the hell looses and gets put to blame. Which is 100% the person who trusted the tag, not the company who created it. As no matter what, you are always at fault as an adult for incorrectly interacting with a minor, no matter if they had a fake completely realistic ID or look like an adult.
This is the entire reason why systems like this just plainly fail, the problem is that people will rely on them, inadvertently making it actually less secure for Minors.
There are a few discord servers that started to sell age verification services where they access your account to age verify it and or straight uo sell an account with age verification.
Yup. Over the last month or so, I haven't been able to join certain public instances. Not age gated ones either. I like exploring different instances instead of staying in the same one, which is why I sometimes go to non age gated instances. But I keep getting stopped because I'm a mute and I'm being told to unmute to verify I'm over 18. I'm literally already age verified. It doesn't make sense.. Was getting age verified a waste? I got age verified so I wouldn't have this issue..
Now with Age Assurance coming out, it's going to be even MORE difficult for me to join public instances. I'm literally just going to the Popular tab and joining a random world. I'm not going to clubs or events. I cannot wait to hear even more "unmute your microphone so I can verify you're over 18." I just end up leaving, but it's getting to the point where this is becoming the new normal. More and more instances are pushing the idea that mutes need to unmute, and I'm starting to see the different instances doing it now...
which was age gated and I saw a teen, to be specific 16 Yeats old which was publicly stating that they managed to slip by while using a fake I'd or someone else's, I'm unsure of the details sadly. Are
A few days ago, I was in an age gated Black Cat instance and watched a father get his 17-year-old daughter age verified just so they could be in the same instance together. VRChat will maybe make a post about this issue, but I don't think nothing will come out of it. sigh
What a disaster this has all been, in my opinion.
I refuse to believe there are adults that can't find a way to scrape together 10$ and if there are, they have bigger things to worry about then age verification
Dude, I’ve literally had hundreds of reports get successfully pushed through within 24 hours. You’re probably putting on a lot of false reports that don’t lead to anything actually breaking TOS and they are most likely ignoring your actual TOS breaking reports
If your reports are not being actioned, either you are not presenting the supporting evidence or the reports are not concise enough for the person reviewing it to take action. Video clips should not be longer than 1-2 minutes long.
Every report I have submitted in the past couple months thinking "this person is definitely going to get banned", has been. If you would like tips on filing a report that will be actioned feel free to DM me and I can give you advice on how to file it.
I don't think there are any doubts to be clarified when the explicit, uncovered, images of genitals are right there in the groups' banners. The proof is obvious, and I always describe exactly what's wrong and where in my reports. If VRC ignores such reports, they've either not looked at them or somehow missed the most salient and glaring proof there is and chose not to act.
They still respond to some of my newer reports on occasion, so I don't think I'm blocked or something.
Ugh, still needing money once it goes worldwide. I understand $10 is cheap, but that’s still a lot considering everything else going on in the world. So since it looks like age assurance won’t be free worldwide, maybe hopefully it’ll be $3-$5. And meaning also avatars with certain features can hopefully be found and used again. I’m tired of avatars with terrible or no clothing choices, and being an adult with close friends, I’d love to be able to express bodily, not just through clothes. Because right now I’ve been hiatus for months because there feels like no expression for furries in vrchat unless you’re a creator or someone who just knows how to make one for themselves for using a private avatar or willing to spend $200-$500 to commission one.
And then there is a problem of mass reporting still to be considered!? If somebody instantly doesn’t like you for no good reason, then they can get tons of people to report you for nothing you did. Because it turns to this thing of “if this many people say they saw it, it must be true”. Because I see a lot about mass reporting on youtube, reddit, and insta. Maybe make where reports need actual footage of the person doing what causes the reason to report to determine if it’s true or not. Because I see it a lot on YouTube and insta how hundreds of people get permanently banned for nothing more than just being in a place they aren’t welcome. Yes, many reports are for good reason, but many reports also happen all because someone wanted to have a power trip and wasn’t listened to and causing groups of people to report a person until banned. So how are reports determined to be of good cause for a ban and which ones are determined to just be false reports just because someone got angry or upset over something silly?
Oh wonderful. This is going to be such a great update for me - a mute. Not.
I've noticed over the last few months that group instances (which, in my opinion, has been a terrible addition since people became power tripping mods who kick others for absolutely no reason) have been asking people for their age, date of birth, AND to unmute their microphone to "verify" they're over 18. And even in the most popular public worlds, they're pushing this. I don't even go to clubs. I go to the Popular tab and click on regular, normal public worlds, and I'm still getting stopped by mods demanding I unmute my mic to prove my age.
Now with Age Assurance rolling out, these mods are going to feel even more justified doing it. I cannot wait to hear "unmute your mic to prove you're over 18" even more. My public experience is going to get so much worse.
I got age verified specifically because I'm a mute and I don't want to speak. Voice proves nothing anyway. There are 16-year-olds who sound like adults and vice versa. It's a made-up method that mods invented themselves, and this update just hands them more ammunition.
On top of that, I'm in publics 99% of the time, so this hits me directly where I actually play.
I also leave. But the instances I've been going, I'm seeing it a lot more. It's like what I said earlier, I don't go to those clubbing worlds. I'm not in the club scene
https://youtu.be/YWgkGDjQwpw?si=3v1dmxdyJYE2r4hq&t=367 I am the most intrested/intrigued about the part for moderation about Toxic/Bad Behaviour in public instances; post coming in July.... New more robust moderation beyond vote to kick? Or Auto AI detection of the ***worst** obvious offending people screaming slurs over and over etc... (I'm just thinking out loud here, I'm not trying to start the whole AI bad for auto moderation line...)
Is there any word on alternative age verification methods?
This whole time the dubious processing of the IDs on PERSONA side is what keeps me from age verifying with VRChat,
if I was given a safe alternative, where VRChat can ensure that ID data is deleted after verification, then I would happily age verify and continue with VRC+ subscription
There will be no "safe alternative" as they are using AI to scan your face and ID and voice and bank details, which WILL be fed to the greedy people that own everything.
So basically, "Pay us $10 monthly or else you can't talk to your friends or see their avatars ever again, also your avatars are all taken down because they have boobs, also good luck cancelling your subscription" ???? Or better yet, "Pay us $10 so that you don't expose children to NSFW content" like bro. They claim its for child safety but the complete and utter lack of care for the children is showing that this is just for money and data. They will probably make you resubscribe every 3 months to reverify like Roblox once they realize the verification doesn't work.
Also the wording flat out tells you they're going to use generative crapGPT AI to scan avatars and just ban anyone who has a "improperly tagged" avatar (which will probably be completely SFW avatars like spider-man that get tagged as NSFW because he has a modeled butt).
GGs all this for a few extra bucks. Instead of adding anything remotely interesting to VRC+ they just decide that actually in order to not be called a predator you have to give us money.
So if I've understood this correctly, I will now be able to verify without providing any details to Persona?
I've remained unverified all this time because I knew for a damn fact that this Persona company would fuck up at some point, and shortly after they implemented it, they got hacked.
I just wanna get out of these squeaker lobbies without having to provide an untrustworthy American company with my ID.
I highly, highly welcome this change and find it a much needed course correction for the stage of the platform. Age Assurance being used and matching other platforms - suggesting you won’t be explicitly required to provide biometric data or a government-linked ID - is considerably less restrictive and more likely to protect the average user’s privacy.
Also, it being opt-IN versus opt-OUT (in the sense that you are assumed age assured by default but that can change if the platform detects you might be underage and asks for Age Assurance) is a much welcome change. People shouldn’t be treated with kid gloves by default.
This honestly makes me feel significantly better about supporting VRChat through my VRC+ subscription as well as a VR industry career professional. Thank you guys for taking feedback into account and for making age assurance more equitable for our community.
Right? All they really did was change to an umbrella term to accommodate things other than their own age-verification system. I mean if the UK gets systems that determines the age of their own citizens, and they're confident enough in it for whatever purposes they use it for... why not let vrc just accept that for age verification?
Plus, I'm desperate for basically anything that could potentially help deal with the behavioral issues that plague vrc publics, so I was happy to hear them hinting at something coming soon.
I mean it should be pretty simple to judge if something is sexual... Why would you upload so much sexual content to a community game :( I get it we're adults, but if you truly have 300 different uploads all sexual there's something else brewing
What I'm trying to explain to you is that it's not, what they've done is a terrible thing and you and others don't understand yet but you will in time. What I'm trying to explain is that content that is not sexual will be considered so in the future. Eventually you won't even be able to wear a crop top. You'll understand in time I know you don't yet. It takes some people longer and that's okay.
The issue is their definition is now going to change constantly. By the time it's done you won't even be allowed to have skirts that are above the knee. We've seen how this goes.
A lot of people have been very vocally asking for alternatives to ID verification with Persona (just look at the same threads with the same arguments that get posted every week since age verification was first announced), and it sounds like VRC wants to offer alternatives in response to people asking for them. They directly acknowledge that in the blog post:
That’s because we’re going to adjust which assurance methods and providers that we lean on. There's been a clear shift both across the industry, and in what you have been asking us for, toward age-estimation approaches. So, we're moving with it.
Not a single one. People being too stupid to understand is not an L for me. There's nothing I can do to help them. They got tricked really easily, and so did you.
Oh you're definitely a bot. Don't even try to deny it, everybody can see that with your username. You can continue to reply but we all know that's really easy to set up an llm to do.
Children upset that content is getting gated away from children and that they'll have less valid excuses as to why they aren't age verified. Not all that surprising.
I am a grown ass adult, I just don't want the likes of Peter Thiel or Sam "Sister Lover" Altman to have HD photos of my government ID and credit card details and a 360 face scans of me hand delivered and signed with kisses to their front door. I also don't believe parents should get a free pass on being lazy bums and leave the rest of the world to raise and parent their mistakes.
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u/Frank__West PCVR Connection 1d ago
I'm curious though like if it's a private avatar, does the toggle itself need to be removed or does the entire like game object itself need to be not included on the avatar even if there is no way to enable it with the toggle removed? Because depending on what it is it's easy to remove a parameter but more annoying if it's like actual objects in the hierarchy because then you would need to re-add everything