Very important post. Please do not scroll.
Recently Choco came into my DMs under a pseudonym posing as one of my concerned anons. I engaged in a dialogue with them, only to pull the rug out from under my feet and reveal it was them all along. This was a lapse in judgement on my part. That I own.
There are no laws that state that taking a screenshot of a publicly available, voluntarily published content is illegal. The screenshots were taken out of concern, the minor does not possess the ability to declare that adults cannot "interact with" the content as they should not be making this content public in the first place and it is the responsibility of Tumblr staff (a team consisting exclusively of adults) to moderate and remove such content. There is nothing predatory about taking a screenshot of a minor's account out of concern for their well-being, at that, it is something that reasonable adults should do.
I have never made any attempt to contact the minor in question. I have never been to their blog, nor have I gone searching for it. These images were relayed to me by another concerned adult. This minor had been posting very concerning content on their side nsfw blog, at thirteen years of age, which Choco knew and did nothing about. As an adult in that friendship, Choco should have done the responsible thing and made them aware of the dangers surrounding by what they were doing.
These are the screenshots I was sent. All usernames and identifying information have been censored for the minor’s safety.
The content contains no depictions (images, videos, etc) of a minor in any sexual situation, in fact, the screenshots have no depictions of the minor in question at all. It only contains text posts and images that appear to be from a movie or TV show. There are no intimate images, there is nothing illegal about what I did, nor was there any malicious intent, and to claim so is a blatant is a misrepresentation of the law and a covert way of making the neglect of minor's online safety permissible by making my concern seem predatory. If the people who are concerned are predatory, and therefore should not take screenshots or show any form of concern, ask yourselves: what demographic of people would not follow this moral and supposedly "legal" demand? That's right, actual predators who would be a harm to children. The notion is one which encourages people to ignore accounts like this and therefore let vulnerable minors be preyed upon.
The threat of jail is a thinly veiled scare tactic attempting to illicit a fear response. If this continues it could be considered **coercion**. The end goal is to get me to stop posting, the person who sent the message is likely aware that it is not actually illegal and is merely attempting to threaten me into ceasing and desisting. Repeated attempts like this fall under cyber harassment, an actual crime.
On Threats:
https://joeingramlaw.com/articles/2025/march/the-price-of-threats-america-s-federal-extortion-2/
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/875
On Child Exploitation:
(It should be noted that the screenshots contain zero explicit material, these are useful in clarifiying what would actually be illegal to screenshot.)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252A
On Privacy:
Nothing to cite, as public posts do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy
