Safety
The game's rules were posted on the VMK web site as "VMK Values", which were intended to help the game stay "a safe, non-threatening environment" for the many players between the ages of eight and fourteen. The rules prohibited sexual or racist language, harassment, divulging personal information, and attempts to hack the system. Violations could result in a permanent ban, which prevented users from using VMK on the computer the violation occurred on. Despite this, attempted violations were quite common, and people attempted to get around the edited speech by formulating single words out of multiple words (e.g.: saying "I'm Tree Ears Hold").
Every player had a report button on their profile. If one player thought of something that another player did as against the VMK values, that player could report them. The report was immediately sent to the VMK staff for review, and any necessary actions were taken against that player's account. Players could also send "emergency" messages to staff without clicking the report button on another player. The main reason for this was if something was wrong with the game. (e.g.: "I logged in the morning, and all my credits were gone.") Action would be taken against a player's account for sending false or unnecessary reports. (These were usually made in an attempt to bring a VMK staff member to their room, or in an effort for revenge.)
Disney prohibited sharing personal information in the game (and its limited dictionary also added a technical obstacle to this). Disney's stated intent was to protect the safety and privacy of its members, but this also prevented members from having a legitimate way of reaching each other outside the game. Members of some Disney internet discussion forums got around this by indicating in their in-game signature a discussion board through which they could be reached.
Read more about this topic: Virtual Magic Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“[As teenager], the trauma of near-misses and almost- consequences usually brings us to our senses. We finally come down someplace between our parents’ safety advice, which underestimates our ability, and our own unreasonable disregard for safety, which is our childlike wish for invulnerability. Our definition of acceptable risk becomes a product of our own experience.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“To emancipate [the slaves] entirely throughout the Union cannot, I conceive, be thought of, consistently with the safety of the country.”
—Frances Trollope (1780–1863)
“Can we not teach children, even as we protect them from victimization, that for them to become victimizers constitutes the greatest peril of all, specifically the sacrifice—physical or psychological—of the well-being of other people? And that destroying the life or safety of other people, through teasing, bullying, hitting or otherwise, “putting them down,” is as destructive to themselves as to their victims.”
—Lewis P. Lipsitt (20th century)