Wattpad: Where Children Read Porn

When reading and writing become unsafe

In the past, I had been an administrator and moderator for different writing sites. These sites had always been small but relatively close communities who enjoyed writing and sharing creativity on what was then largely forum-based, text-based affairs. As time passed, so did these writing sites. However, I felt the urge to share my writing again during November of last year, after a reasonably long hiatus. With that in mind, I decided to try Wattpad, a creative writing platform that was developed in 2006.

According to its own promotional material, Wattpad is estimated to have a readership of 45 million users. There are a wide variety of genres on offer — ranging from non-fiction to subcategories of fiction such as sci-fi, mystery and action. Although they were not my cup of tea, there are also several nods towards the younger readers with categories such as ‘vampire’, ‘werewolf’ and fan fiction of the One Direction variety.

I have always found that two constants are required for any writing group to function, regardless of the slickness of their presentation. It is my opinion that the robustness of these constants — the Terms of Service (TOS) and Conduct Guidelines (CG) are important to maintain the transparency of the site’s interactions, as well as to maintain its…