Sexting & Censor Reports at 7 Cups - How does it work! And what you should know!
Hello Amazing Community!
I wanted to take a moment to talk about sexting and censor reports at 7 Cups. I believe there has been some rumors and misinformation flying around. So I wanted to tackle this head on and discuss it with you all!
First, its important to keep in mind that sexual experiences are a normal part of the human experience. We shouldn't be ashamed of our sexuality. We are programmed to be sexual and that can be a wonderful and beautiful thing.
When two people make a bond sharing their stories and supporting one another - sometimes the feelings can evolve to include deeper feelings for one another. This is a normal process and something we should not be ashamed to discuss.
This can happen at 7 Cups too. We are here to support one another, but sometimes peoples feelings for one another evolve to something deeper. At 7 Cups, we ask listeners and members to engage in a professional supportive relationship. Similar to a relationship you'd have with a colleague at work.
Despite this, sometimes feelings become deeper and these users engage in a sexual conversations on 7 Cups. 3 years ago, we added censored phrases to our chats. The goal of these censored phrases was twofold:
1) Alert individuals who are attempting to engage in this behavior that it is not appropriate via the in-chat pop-up
2) Flag these listeners and remove them from the site.
The censor reports are used to remove individuals who are engaged in sexual chats on 7 Cups.
Once a listener is removed from the community for a sexual chat, they can apply to have their acct restored. Because we know that sexual encounters are part of the human experience, there are circumstances where we allow listeners who have engaged in sexual chats to return to the community after their rejection. We have specific protocol on how we determine this. I do not want to share the specifics here because i don't want it to ever be used against us. However, I can say this: we do not let someone back more than once (there are no third or fourth tries here) and a certain amount of trust must be established between us and the listener before we give them this second chance. Additionally, we always err on the side of caution. If we have reason to believe someone has been incredibly hurtful or violated many of our community guidelines, we will not allow them back.
If you have specific concerns about this process, you can voice them to me directly in email or PM. I can also answer questions in this thread. I am open to your feedback. Please keep in mind this system has evolved a great deal over the past 3 years and it will continue to evolve to get better. Our goal is to keep the community safe and professional, while still understanding the natural expression of the human experience. And to be clear, sexting of any kind is prohibited in our community.
One member tried to send me some inappropriate picture but due to the censor i didn't receive it. M really thankfull for that. Thank you :)
Its all nice and good, but i was false flagged or the system picked the words out of contexts and i was banned for sexual content. Ugh and what made it worse that it is supposed to be reviewed in 3-5 work days but it took them 1 month and a week to give my account back. Unfair. After all the scripts who are judging the people and not people, mistakes happen...I guess. Hopefully wont happen again. Have a nice day people
@Laura
This is what 7 cups needs! So glad you posted this.
But some listeners helped me by informing me how to block them and how to handle it. M thankful for that. Thank you my friends :)
I never realised people did that on here tbqf, however thank you for this thread it's really informative and what is needed to clear the air on sensitive topics such as these. ☺
I won't say much as I have explained all my opinions here :- https://bit.ly/2tswb1g
Sorry for that wrong link ,this is correct link :- https://www.7cups.com/forum/ListenerFeedbackSiteUpdates_38/Feedbackideasandsuggestions_70/SexualharassmentTriggerWarning_68343/
@Laura I have flagged tons of listeners and members just because of this, sometimes it's obvious that they are here to sexually harass listener/members here just from from their username, sometimes they go away, sometimes they don't, but from my perspective they are making 7cups and our community really toxic, it's just a matter of time before we become WebMD or 4chan of our domain.
I have got one abusive member too,he took woman for granted,when I wanted to make him understand that you can't force anyone to love u he gave me bad reviews and now my 5 star has become 4.5 stars all thanks to him. I am so sad, I had earned 5 star because of my compassion and understanding and now it's gone😣😣
Hi, I appreciate the censors especially after coming across members who were actively seeking in appropriate chats. I've been censored during a chat that wasn't bad, just was trying to repeat what a member was saying to show that I was listening. I understand a site this large should have censor controls for protection of members and listeners. Thank you for keeping us safe here on the site
Hi alle, seeing these replys I feel I might help give you a different way of looking at things. First off we alle voulenteer our time here to help others as we care and feel we have something to offer people in need. We arent here to judge anyone. I may be realitively new to this site but I have been doing this a very long time. Sexually orientated chats are always tough to deal with. They require a knowledgable and very strategic person to tend to them. Def need a very thick skin. Perhaps I could interject this thought. We are here on a Mental Health support site. Clearly everyone knows this when they log in. Every day I take these chats, it's just one of my strongest points, and I get the same thing as you alle. When someone begins with sexual talk directed at me I stop them rite there. I remind them this is a Mental Health support site, not pornographic chat. I then advise them that if they wish my help I would love to assist them but if they continue I will have to block them. It helps to remember hey, this is a support site and they came here for this? Thats not normal, so take a closer look. Sometimes their condition makes them so nervous that the sexual side of them comes out. Often folks just need to be reeled in a bit. There are many fettishes that may seem disgusting to you but its not to them. There are some with such stigmatized fettishes they feel completely isolated from everyone and really just need someone to listen to them, some need to seek others like them, thats where I recommend them to the fettish community. Most of these folks will never go to a Therapist so we may be the only help they get. The big thing is dont be overbearing authoritative but do be firm and keep control of the conversation. These chats are not for everyone, if you cant handle them and contain them please pass them off to one whom can. The way I see it, everyone has both a sick mind, and a healthy mind. You cant teach a sick mind anything. You cant argue with it, you cant reason with it. Alle we can do with a sick mind is learn from it, then divert it back to the healthy mind and help that one. This is what we do. I advise alle my fellow Listeners to continue the training guides, and when you finish them start again and always retrain. Please do your best to put your own thoughts and emotions aside. If ever any of you have a difficult chat like this and cant handle it, please feel free to post me for advise or pass them off to me and I will do my very best to help. Everyone needs to be heard, and everyone Deserves Compassion. Be well alle. Raven :)
@Raveninthelabrynth , (I respect your opinion but all opinions differ)I disagree it's not that simple.and such chats also become the cause of not taking further chats . Secondly, Think from teen side,they are still aging up, they meet such a person. Initially the person is sweet,and they develop infatuation towards them. And then the person misuses them. Okay a background check for adult teen side but what if adult becomes teen and comes in.
@JovialOne, As you said I respectfully disagree. Whereas you clearly state in your file you dont take sexual chats, if one comes to you, you need only politely say you dont attend these matters and to please seek someone whom does. It IS that simple. Those whom behave in a predatory fashion should be Baned from the site, but perhaps after an attempt to reel them in. I myself probably due to my personal experience and decades of doing this type of work dont find it hard at alle to know when someone is flirting or becomming infatuated, and I address that immediately. I'm not saying never block people, I'm saying dont be so quick to. As far as teens go, I dont take teen chats, and it would be nice to have a system that both identifyes them in the request list as well as perhaps forces them to stick to listeners in their age group. Again, these types of chats are not for everyone, those whom cant handle them shouldnt try.
@Raveninthelabrynth Hello! I agree with everything you've said, but I just want to comment on the things mentioned about teens.
Teens (13-17) do need to stay on the teen side of the site for their own safety. All teen listeners are teens themselves (15-17) or approved adult listeners that listen to both adults and teens. For adults that are approved to listen to teens, they will be marked as teens. Teens do end up on the adult side sometimes, but not that often, and you'll be able to guide them back to the teen side, should you ever encounter a teen on an adult account.
@Juniter Thank You very much for this enlightenment. Wheras I don't attend to Teens I wasn't sure how that worked. I do occasionally get one, but it has been easy to recognize their youth. I then tell them I only handle 18+ chats, and to please seek a Teen Listener. :)
"For adults that are approved to listen to teens, they will be marked as teens."
In what way am I marked as a teen?
In my experience, the reason teens sometimes pretend to be adults is simply that they want to chat with an adult. Pretending to be an adult is the obvious way for them to go about it. The correct way to go about it is very difficult for anyone to discover. It's to use this special search on the Browse Listeners page: https://www.7cups.com/BrowseListeners/?badge=87
If you wanted to find this special search yourself, you'd have to scroll to the bottom of almost any page and click on About 7 Cups. At the side of that page, click on Listener Reputation. Then scroll down to Member Support Badges and click on it to expand the list of badges. Now find Teen in the list of badges and click on the number awarded.
When I tried it just now, none of us were available to chat 
@Juniter
@RarelyCharlie I meant the teen requests will be marked as teens.
Because the adult/teen listeners are usually more experienced and involved in more projects, it seems like they mostly take scheduled chats only, aren't taking chats, or you just message them and try to work something out, but it does seem unnecessarily difficult to find an adult/teen listener, especially for people that are new to the site.
Perhaps there could be a search option on the Browse Listeners page that lets you search specifically for adult/teen listeners? I think that could be beneficial to the teens, and it would (hopefully) mean less end up on the adult side, which is good for their own safety.
I don't think an option for adult/teen listeners on the General Requests would be good, because they would probably have to wait awhile, and the request might not even get picked up. What do you think?
I think a teen's general request specifying a preference for an adult listener would most likely be taken by a teen listener ignoring the preference. So the most effective way for a teen to get to chat with an adult would still be for the teen to pretend to be an adult. Why is this unsafe?
Any baddies hoping to chat to vulnerable teens pretend to be teens themselves when they sign up to be listeners, if they have any sense. So it seems to me that pretending to be an adult so as to get an adult listener may be safer.
There will be statistics showing whether that's true, but I don't imagine we'll get to see them.
@Juniter
@RarelyCharlie Yes, that's why I said not to have an adult choice for the general requests, only as an option on the Browse Listeners page. They probably won't get an adult/teen listener to talk to right then, but they can at least message them and know there's that option.
To sign up as a teen listener, you have to provide two social media handles to prove your age and identity. Though I'm sure someone could get through that, it probably deters most people trying to get to the teens, giving the teens another layer of protection. Adults don't have this, meaning anyone can sign up as an adult, and they might not always have support in mind. You certainly don't want a teen encountering one of those people because they used an adult account, do you?
Could a teen do the same things, even after proving they are who they say they are? Certainly, but it wouldn't happen as often when only certain people can listen to teens. Anyone can be an adult listener, and it's best if teens stay on the safer teen side, in my opinion.
