There’s been an interesting thread developing over on the Yuku Help [sic] Forums over the last few days about what to do when adult content is found on Yuku.

Needless to say, there’s been no comment by the Yuku staff as they’re hardly ever around in there anyway. So the discussion mentioned both message boards and individual’s profiles (as I hinted at previously, where people have ‘adult’ avatars).

Now, the Yuku Terms of Use currently say this about adult content on message boards:

“You agree to use the Service only to send and receive messages and material that are legal, proper and related to the particular domain on which you are participating. While Yuku.com prohibits specific conduct and Content in connection with the Service, you understand and agree that you nonetheless may be exposed to such conduct and⁄or Content and that you use the Service at your own risk.”

and

“Specifically, you agree not to publish Content that: …

  • Exploits people under the age of 18 in a sexual or violent manner…”

That’s it. Of course the reason behind this is that Yuku doesn’t want to discourage people from posting adult content – after all, ezboards have been doing this in breach of the ezboards ToU for years – and of course ezboard themselves are always happy to serve adult advertising on their non-Gold boards.

So anyway, the discussion was going fine in the usual manner of Internet forum discussions … and then the Survivor Sucks members arrived. Now, you’ll remember that Survivor Sucks is a particularly cossetted subset of the ezboard (and now Yuku) customer base. It appears that despite being one of the busiest boards on ezboard, they pay nothing for their Gold status post the May 2005 data loss. Furthermore, two days after promoting the move from ezboard to Yuku, $7,943 was withdrawn from their community chest by “-Anonymous-” – you draw your own conclusions from that.

The Sucks members have now taken over the thread somewhat, leading one Yuku customer to write:

“I, for one, am appalled at the mockery this has become. This should be a serious discussion about protecting the children of the internets who innocently participate at Yuku, and not an open forum for rebellious hoodlums to post distasteful commentary and pictures.

“You disgust me.”

Another writes:

“Is this the new direction of Yuku? If so then I for one will have no part of this atrocious and immature behaviour and will be moving my board elsewhere.”

Finally, the customers begin to wake up and smell the coffee!

No, it’s not the new direction Yuku’s going in. It’s the direction Yuku was intended to go in the first place…

[edit: awww! Someone at Yuku finally woke up to the way the thread was crawling along - rather than running away - and they've hidden it away in the Vault, the section of the Help [sic] Forums that only the staff and moderators can see]

[edit 2: ...aaand it's back. I didn't realise I held so much sway with them! One reason why the Sucksters have gone in there is that one of them apparently received a message from Yuku asking them to remove a supposedly indecent avatar: it shows a woman's body in a T-shirt with the boobs expanding... Ye Gods!]

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