Comments on: The Dual Nature of Tokyopop

By: SHD

SHD — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:18:00 +0000

So mostly what I’m seeing here is “Baaww, porn on the interblag!” and the demand that someone do something. I find what they have in place to be quite reasonable; I imagine that having moderaters clear /every image/ that’s uploaded would not only be tedious, but very, VERY expensive and make the bandwidth load that much more. If kids are lying about their age, then they’re going to have pretty damn easy access to just about any pornography on the internet. Locking the birthdate won’t help, kids will either lie about it when they sign up or ditch their censored accounts for a noncensored one when they figure it out. Unless they force age verification through credit cards, SSNs or some other similar means, kids will always be getting around such things. To enact such a strict rule would mean that they would probably never get people to look at their mature content (from Ultraviolence to Surprise Buttsex), because rarely do people care to go that far to look at advertising.
The second half, however, I cannot really speak to.

By: Lori Henderson

Lori Henderson — Sat, 31 May 2008 08:10:21 +0000

And it’s just the social networking. Do they really think when they send out their Newsblasts. Right after posting this, I got one for a contest for publishing your “sexy mishaps” for their Mature book Manga Sutra. I don’t think 13 year olds should be getting this in their mailbox, but you know TP isn’t going to send these based on age.

By: Katherine Dacey

Katherine Dacey — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:30:31 +0000

If memory serves, Stu Levy is a lawyer, which makes the dudespeak language of the contract even more puzzling–it’s as if Tokyopop hired Ashton Kutcher to write it. The terms aren’t terrible, but the language is really condescending. And yes, I think it’s time for them to pull the plug on the social networking site. It really needs more oversight than they can give it.