#and why have you taken it upon yourself to police fandom space; Salem Witch Trial style?

[noonaishere]

If you find a minor in fandom space and they’re writing smut and your reaction is to make a callout post and harass them into deleting their blog, you have bullied a minor. I don’t care about your reasoning, you’ve bullied a minor. And to that, I ask: What good do you think you’re doing?

Edit: I feel like it's been a bit since I made this so I thought I should add a little context:

I made this post after seeing a adult (one who had only been an adult for a year or so) bully a teenager off the platform for writing smut. From what I could see, the teen had never interacted with them before and the adult decided to call them out apropos of nothing and the entire situation was really hostile and toxic. The adult tried to excuse their harassment as "trying to protect" the teen, even though they had started the interaction by making a post with their user name and telling people to bother them. It was fucked up. Like the motivation and the follow through were almost polar opposites; you can say you're trying to protect someone, but if you do that by hurting them, you're not really protecting them. (And at that point, the person they need to be protected from: is YOU.)

Also, as far as I could find - legally - a minor can read and write smut fic, but an adult should never contact them over it (meaning: flirtatious or sexual messages, invitations to talk privately about sexual topics, invitations to meet, etc). That's when it moves into illegality. If you see a minor in the wild (fandom space) and don't talk to them about things like that, or straight up block them and ignore them if they're engaging with smut and it makes you uncomfortable, you'll be okay.

Harassing them (no matter how good you think your intentions are) is not okay.

#if you make a post all 'I saw Goody Proctor at the devil's sacrament' I wonder why you're at the devil's sacrament in the first place #like how did you find them? why are you looking? #and why have you taken it upon yourself to police fandom space; Salem Witch Trial style? #what are you-- a cop? #leave them alone #we all read and wrote smut when we were teens-- leave them alone #you as an adult should just not engage with them #same as the adults who might take advantage of them; it's on the adult to not interact #if your argument is based on them being not of sound mind because they're too young and you being the mature adult #then you have to act like a mature adult; those are just the rules you set up #please act like one #'I don't want them to be taken advantage of' neither do I; but I don't see how bullying them publicly until they leave does that #'but they're not in the space anymore'; they could just make a different blog and not put their age #like you had the opportunity to be a positive influence in their life - you could have imparted about the dangers of adults online - #and you decided on violence #bullying them makes you a dangerous adult - so - congratulations I guess