There have been rumors going around about some issues staff have had to deal with recently. They are sufficiently serious that we feel that they need to be addressed.
Two users, one of whom was a member of staff and the other a former member of staff, were discovered to have exchanged nsfw messages with a minor. Both have been removed from the site and permanently banned.
There are rumors that Anti-Harassment were aware of this situation and attempted to cover it up. This is entirely false. We received a rumor about the incident near the beginning of this year, but in an initial interview with the case’s victim they claimed at the time that nothing inappropriate had occurred and that they did not desire us to investigate this incident further. We believed the victim’s account and acceded to their wishes.
This is not to say we are without blame. As members of staff were involved, we should have investigated more closely. We understand that victims in cases like this may feel reluctant to provide information to Anti-Harassment Team for various reasons, including a desire not to be involved or a lack of trust in our investigators, so we should have interviewed all parties and more thoroughly sought after any possible evidence.
To that end, we are enacting policy changes in how we are handling Anti-Harassment cases, including special provisions in cases where a staff member is an alleged perpetrator.
In addition, we are looking into other steps to make the site safer for users. We are currently looking into the possibility of raising the site age limit, as well as guidelines prohibiting staff members from participating in any off-site nsfw SCP sub-communities.
It is going to take some work to find the best solutions and enact them. But our site has grown by leaps and bounds, and things that worked in 2015 don't necessarily make sense now. We cannot go back to business as usual after this wake up call without making changes.
I am confident in our team's ability to work through this difficult time, and in our community's ability to adapt to the new changes. We will get through this, and when we do, our site will be a better, safer place than ever.