Had to report a model...for illegal solicitation

[emptiedglass]

I highly doubt that MFC is going to report this to any kind of authorities... I mean, isn't there a pretty good chance that they could be held partly responsible in this as well??? And I'm sure this kind of scandal is something that MFC doesn't want to have associated with their company. I'm willing to bet that MFC handles shit like this in the same way that Catholic Church does... by sweeping it under the rug.

(No offense to Catholics btw)

I don't see how MFC would be held partly responsible, if they've done everything within their ability to prevent these kinds of abuses. No one expects them to be able to monitor thousands of live streams, 24/7.
There will always be people who try to circumvent the rules and find creative ways to bypass any filters that are in place. I think that strictly enforcing their zero-tolerance policy with immediate bans as soon as this kind of stuff is reported, as well as contacting law enforcement when necessary, is really all that MFC can do. If they didn't deal with such things swiftly, or there were extended periods of time without any administrators on duty... then yeah, they might be liable. Hopefully they're smarter than that, though.

 

[JickyJuly]

Regardless if you believe OP or not I think it is harmless to report the incident to authorities. They will not automatically take that information as truth, they will investigate. You can report suspicion. There is nothing wrong with that. I would much rather someone report this individual for possibly putting her children in harms way so that it could be investigated rather than not reporting it because you might not believe OP's story. The children deserve that much.

My question is, with all of this discussion, has anyone actually reported this to other authorities?

You're pretty! When did you get here?

 

[Hermione_]

Regardless if you believe OP or not I think it is harmless to report the incident to authorities. They will not automatically take that information as truth, they will investigate. You can report suspicion. There is nothing wrong with that. I would much rather someone report this individual for possibly putting her children in harms way so that it could be investigated rather than not reporting it because you might not believe OP's story. The children deserve that much.

My question is, with all of this discussion, has anyone actually reported this to other authorities?

You're pretty! When did you get here?

thank you. I have been quietly tip toeing around the forum since Nov.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

I highly doubt that MFC is going to report this to any kind of authorities... I mean, isn't there a pretty good chance that they could be held partly responsible in this as well??? And I'm sure this kind of scandal is something that MFC doesn't want to have associated with their company. I'm willing to bet that MFC handles shit like this in the same way that Catholic Church does... by sweeping it under the rug.

(No offense to Catholics btw)

I don't see how MFC would be held partly responsible, if they've done everything within their ability to prevent these kinds of abuses. No one expects them to be able to monitor thousands of live streams, 24/7.
There will always be people who try to circumvent the rules and find creative ways to bypass any filters that are in place. I think that strictly enforcing their zero-tolerance policy with immediate bans as soon as this kind of stuff is reported, as well as contacting law enforcement when necessary, is really all that MFC can do. If they didn't deal with such things swiftly, or there were extended periods of time without any administrators on duty... then yeah, they might be liable. Hopefully they're smarter than that, though.

What I would fear MFC simply does is ban the account. What MFC should do is thoroughly investigate it. This is surprisingly easy but time consuming. First MFC reviews all of the privates the model did, then they review all her chat log. If evidence of anything involving children is uncovered then they report her to authorities.

My fear as member is MFC takes the easy route. Someday a father of a 16-year old or 17-year old girl is going to find his little princess has been camming on MFC. Before you say oh wait MFC checks id, ask yourself how many of you got served booze or bought cigarette before the legal age and/or had a fake id. If this father is a lawyer, and/or rich or powerful he is going to sue MFC. He is also going to get subpoena for the names and address who has ever been to her room. Given the zero-tolerance in this country for child porn, if I ever was in her room, I fully expect to see FBI agents to appear
search warrant in hand. Now if I have the misfortune and having purchased one of her videos, I am going to be a registered sex offender. Even if I haven't bought her video I have an extensive porn collection, while I've never knowingly watched child porn, who knows what I actually have stored on my PC.

IMO the ability of MFC to fight the subpoena is largely dependent on how proactive they have been in policing underage camming.
This is why I hope the OP continues to keep us up to date, despite the accusatory tone of many of the posts.

 

[emptiedglass]

I doubt they'll get back to the member about what happened. They deal with things quietly, which makes sense. Why would they want to put themselves in a bad light? The media would jump all over them for having one model who was immediately banned for doing something illegal, while the other 49,999 were keeping it legal.
I think in the case of them unwittingly hosting anything illegal in their archives of private shows, once they found out, they'd just quietly delete them and maybe blame it on an unrecoverable hard drive failure if anyone asked.
I actually contacted them about one of mine that was unplayable some time ago and their response was that it was just such an issue. If I hadn't seen the model online dozens of times since, I suppose I might have cause for concern now. :lol:
As for anyone who might have purchased videos from performers who weren't of age, I don't know what the legality of that would be. If the site has a 2257 statement, it means that THEY have verified the legality of the models. If the error was theirs and not the buyer's... it's a tricky question.
I also don't know if MFC would be willing to or obligated to disclose that information in such a case, either.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

I doubt they'll get back to the member about what happened. They deal with things quietly, which makes sense. Why would they want to put themselves in a bad light? The media would jump all over them for having one model who was immediately banned for doing something illegal, while the other 49,999 were keeping it legal.
I think in the case of them unwittingly hosting anything illegal in their archives of private shows, once they found out, they'd just quietly delete them and maybe blame it on an unrecoverable hard drive failure if anyone asked.
I actually contacted them about one of mine that was unplayable some time ago and their response was that it was just such an issue. If I hadn't seen the model online dozens of times since, I suppose I might have cause for concern now. :lol:
As for anyone who might have purchased videos from performers who weren't of age, I don't know what the legality of that would be. If the site has a 2257 statement, it means that THEY have verified the legality of the models. If the error was theirs and not the buyer's... it's a tricky question.
I also don't know if MFC would be willing to or obligated to disclose that information in such a case, either.

I agree that it is MFC has every incentive to keep it quiet. What there legal obligation is I don't know, but lots of folks have a legal obligation to report suspected child abuse, if that applies to MFC, IANAL so I don't know. The forum seems evenly split on is reporting it to MFC sufficient or should it also be reported to authorities. Which could be hard if you don't know the nationality of the model. To me a big factor, in deciding the next step, is how does MFC respond in these cases. This is an issue where consumer pressure can be instrumental, like it has in many other issues, where companies are reluctant to do the right thing. If MFC does the right thing thoroughly investigates and reports it to the authorities if a law has been broken (despite the potential bad PR) than I see no reason to do anything beside tell MFC in the future. If on the other hand, MFC doesn't get back to OP with a thorough explanation, than I would call the authorities and let them get to bottom of it.

If the OP reports that MFC is uncooperative, I'll personally send MFC an email, and tweet about it. Both for moral and practical reason I don't want to be associated with a website which doesn't treat this very seriously.

 

[emptiedglass]

I can think of a number of reasons for them NOT to ever acknowledge that "model xxx has been charged with/is being investigated for yyy crime."

1. Bad publicity for them
2. Potentially exposing the model's real-life identity (it's not hard to do a news search if you know the true nationality or general whereabouts of a model).
3. Compromising any investigation (especially if members are also being investigated).
4. Defamation. If a model ended up being cleared of all charges, she could potentially go after MFC for ruining her name.

I think it'd be incredibly irresponsible of them to NOT get law enforcement involved when necessary. But, I suppose the only way to be sure that it does get properly investigated is to report it yourself.

 

[SerenaMoon]

I can think of a number of reasons for them NOT to ever acknowledge that "model xxx has been charged with/is being investigated for yyy crime."

1. Bad publicity for them
2. Potentially exposing the model's real-life identity (it's not hard to do a news search if you know the true nationality or general whereabouts of a model).
3. Compromising any investigation (especially if members are also being investigated).
4. Defamation. If a model ended up being cleared of all charges, she could potentially go after MFC for ruining her name.

I think it'd be incredibly irresponsible of them to NOT get law enforcement involved when necessary. But, I suppose the only way to be sure that it does get properly investigated is to report it yourself.

The last thing any company probably wants is the FBI or some other law enforcement agency getting into every nook and cranny of their business

 

[emptiedglass]

The last thing any company probably wants is the FBI or some other law enforcement agency getting into every nook and cranny of their business

True, but I think it'd be unavoidable either way in a situation like this.
I think they'd much rather 'invite' the FBI, instead of allowing someone else to report it and then suddenly having 100 federal agents show up at their door, asking why the hell they never reported it if they suspected it was going on.

 

[SerenaMoon]

You would think, but not necessarily how it works all the time. Would be nice if all businesses were responsible and forthright.

 

[RogueWarrior]

This is just a tad off-topic and doesn't have anything to do with the OP, but is important and this seems to be a good place to post it.

I'm sure other states have similar laws, but I can only speak about my state, Texas. The reason I'm putting this here, is because it is not widely known.

Anyone, not just child care workers or social workers or teachers or other such professionals, but anyone in the state of Texas is legally, not morally but legally, obligated to report any suspected cases of child abuse/neglect to either Child Protective Services or law enforcement. Failure to do so can result in prosecution. It can be done anonymously. It is not up to the person to prove anything, that is left up to the professionals.

Just a little PSA. Might want to check your state's/country's laws on the matter.

 

[SerenaMoon]

This is just a tad off-topic and doesn't have anything to do with the OP, but is important and this seems to be a good place to post it.

I'm sure other states have similar laws, but I can only speak about my state, Texas. The reason I'm putting this here, is because it is not widely known.

Anyone, not just child care workers or social workers or teachers or other such professionals, but anyone in the state of Texas is legally, not morally but legally, obligated to report any suspected cases of child abuse/neglect to either Child Protective Services or law enforcement. Failure to do so can result in prosecution. It can be done anonymously. It is not up to the person to prove anything, that is left up to the professionals.

Just a little PSA. Might want to check your state's/country's laws on the matter.

That's cool, here in Cali I think it's basically just professionals that deal with children, teachers, doctors, counselors, social workers etc. Don't know where the OP is from. But wouldn't you reading this thread mandate you have to report it now?

 

[RogueWarrior]

This is just a tad off-topic and doesn't have anything to do with the OP, but is important and this seems to be a good place to post it.

I'm sure other states have similar laws, but I can only speak about my state, Texas. The reason I'm putting this here, is because it is not widely known.

Anyone, not just child care workers or social workers or teachers or other such professionals, but anyone in the state of Texas is legally, not morally but legally, obligated to report any suspected cases of child abuse/neglect to either Child Protective Services or law enforcement. Failure to do so can result in prosecution. It can be done anonymously. It is not up to the person to prove anything, that is left up to the professionals.

Just a little PSA. Might want to check your state's/country's laws on the matter.

That's cool, here in Cali I think it's basically just professionals that deal with children, teachers, doctors, counselors, social workers etc. Don't know where the OP is from. But wouldn't you reading this thread mandate you have to report it now?

Nope. Should have specified. First hand knowledge. That's why everyone is obligated to report. Can't pass it off to someone else and expect them to take care of it.

 

[SerenaMoon]

This is just a tad off-topic and doesn't have anything to do with the OP, but is important and this seems to be a good place to post it.

I'm sure other states have similar laws, but I can only speak about my state, Texas. The reason I'm putting this here, is because it is not widely known.

Anyone, not just child care workers or social workers or teachers or other such professionals, but anyone in the state of Texas is legally, not morally but legally, obligated to report any suspected cases of child abuse/neglect to either Child Protective Services or law enforcement. Failure to do so can result in prosecution. It can be done anonymously. It is not up to the person to prove anything, that is left up to the professionals.

Just a little PSA. Might want to check your state's/country's laws on the matter.

That's cool, here in Cali I think it's basically just professionals that deal with children, teachers, doctors, counselors, social workers etc. Don't know where the OP is from. But wouldn't you reading this thread mandate you have to report it now?

Nope. Should have specified. First hand knowledge. That's why everyone is obligated to report. Can't pass it off to someone else and expect them to take care of it.

Was wondering. I know I worked with a guy at the Apple store who was a mandated reporter because he had a teaching credential.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

With the ID thing... I have to say when I started Mfc I used my inbuilt webcam to take an extremely blurry photo of my ID. You can only just see the age and name. I had to retake the picture a dozen times just to see that. I am pretty surprised that Mfc even accepted it. Although it's not been edited and I'm pretty clearly above 18, I really do think that some decent photoshop skills could have edited it easily. In fact as it's all online it'd be pretty dam easy to edit the dates on your ID. I don't really think Mfc is that fussy with them as long as they have an ID on file stating your age. Obviously if you got found out to be lying you'd be banned, but not sure how they'd find that out. So yes I think chances are most internet dwellers have watched a fair amount of underage porn. Especially with guys who love the teen/barely legal look. Unfortunately it's not like you can even tell. I changed very little physically between the ages of 16 and 18. I never really had that teen/barely legal look either at those ages. Whilst there are a lot of girls in their early to mid 20's who still have that look. It is very difficult to judge the age of a complete stranger. In life usually things like bone structure is usually a give away, but on myfreecams there is definitely a fetish for girls who have very slight builds. Not girls who look like they're under 16, but girls who could be anywhere from 16 to 25.