Information regarding the member TENNYSON

Dear members,

You may have noticed that the user TENNYSON was banned from the website during the month of July. It is staff policy to only discuss bans with the member in question, but rare exceptions to this are made when staff consider that the collective right of the community outweighs the privacy rights of a banned member. This is one of those occasions.

The staff team received a report at the beginning of July, informing us that the user TENNYSON was using pictures of somebody else. By exploring this information, we identified that the pictures did not belong to a 15 year old male from Connecticut, but belonged to a 15 year old who resides in Marseille, France. Upon location of the individual's social media profiles, the staff team was able to locate the pictures being used by the TENNYSON account, and identified a variety of information which fundamentally undermined the information presented to the community under the TENNYSON persona.

Furthermore, this was not the first occasion that the staff team had received identity concerns with this member. In February 2015, we became aware that he had created a duplicate account going by the name of PhatBeat. These two accounts respectively created identity concerns for the staff team, as one claimed to be a gay male residing in Chicago, whilst another claimed to be an asexual male living in Connecticut. When the staff team enquired about this, we received a security-related reason for this discrepancy. The reason was considered plausible at the time, and was only called into question once again following the further discrepancies outlined above.

Prior to the ban being issued, a member of staff contacted TENNYSON to inform him of our findings, and asking for an explanation about why he was using pictures from somebody else's social media account, and why he was claiming to be this individual when the information quite clearly showed he could not be. Despite obtaining a read receipt for this PM, TENNYSON immediately signed out of his account and never returned. We gave him just under 2 weeks to get back to us, before his membership was permanently terminated.

It goes without saying that we are extremely disheartened by this incident, but approprite action will always be taken to address dishonest and deceptive individuals. EC members have always been very tolerant of individuals who wish to remain private and who aren't comfortable uploading photos of themselves onto their account, or disclosing other information about themselves. However, that tolerance does not extend to those who steal personal pictures from other individuals, and then create false identities to deceive people.

This incident serves as a crucial reminder that we should always be vigilante of who it is we are potentially talking to online. TENNYSON was an active contributor to the EC forums, and was seemingly trusted by a wide-range of community members. Despite this, we now know his persona wasn't real, and cannot ascertain who the true individual behind the account is. It may have been a 15 year old (or younger) lacking confidence, or it may have been a catfish of any older age getting some twisted thrill from being complimented on their supposed attractiveness by young individuals. We just don't know.

If any of you spot any accounts which are using these pictures, either on EC or elsewhere, please be mindful that it is very likely a catfish. There was nothing on the social media profiles that we located to suggest that the real individual was LGBT+. If any of you are approached by the individual claiming to be TENNYSON, please be mindful that he is not who he says he is. The staff team will continue to monitor the community to ensure that he, as well as other fake identities, do not deceive our community and destroy its authenticity. However, this will require members to be vigilante by exercising common sense when communicating with each other. Additionally, if you have any concerns about any individuals, the staff team is always available to either be PM'ed privately about this concern, or for it to be posted in Ask The Staff. We always appreciate individuals who instigate these reports, even when everything checks out. We're always better safe than sorry.

We apologise to those of you who interacted with TENNYSON and felt you had become friends with him. It's never easy being the victim of deception, particularly on a community that aspires to be a safe space for all. Thankfully, he never became a full member during his time here, so he was unable to provide contact information to the individuals who communicated with him.

If you have any concerns related to this incident, the staff team is available in Ask The Staff to address these with you.

Thank you.

From EC Staff.