So, Ive been noticing a lot of accounts titledwww.ssexy…and Im not really sure what these are doing here, especially when this is a website where (and I know there are adults here too, but…) children come to learn. This shouldnt be happening anyway, this is supposed to be a safe website. Also, back when we could typebiosfor our profiles, people had put links to similar websites that were also titledsexy.Just... WHY!?! Why do people feel the need to put these on here!?!? These made me really uncomfortable, and I think the memrise staff need to have a word with them. I dont know if these are bothering you, or if youve even seen them, but if youre one of the people who made them, stop now. Young children use this website, and shouldnt be exposed to this. If anyones being followed by them, block `em. Hopefully the staff will hear my plea and get rid of these abominations…
The Memrise staff has been fighting them off for a while now.
They just keep making more accounts though, unfortunately, and we lost those profile descriptions as a direct result of these bots… 
I’m not sure what their motivation is, because I would never follow one of those links, but it’s no doubt something malicious. (viruses, phishing, etc.)
There have been some suggestions on how to combat them more effectively (I posted some here), but Memrise sadly seems to be sticking with the “throw the baby out with the bathwater” mentality by cutting features for all of their users instead…and even that’s not working. 
Hopefully we won’t be losing usernames next…
That’s why we lost the bios? Hmmm. (I agree with you, Memrise feels kinda lonely without them…)
I think losing ALL the usernames seems a bit drastic, but I feel like the ones titled ‘ssexy’ will disappear soon. A more appropriate action for the staff to take would be to somehow ban them from creating anymore accounts. People - children - are here to learn, not to be spammed and harassed by people who find it funny to let kids be exposed to inappropriate material.
I have about two or three of these spam accounts following me, and back when we had bios, there were three accounts with some links attached to the descriptions, followed by ‘if you ever need sex on the beach, I’ll be there.’ What panics me the most about this is that had I been younger than 14, this would’ve been pretty distressing, and the fact that people younger than me are being followed/following them.
Motivation-wise, ummm… I dunno, really. It could be pedophiles, cyber bullying, or just a bunch of people with a sick sense of humour.
Maybe the staff should set age restrictions, so that young children don’t have to be exposed to this (to be honest, nobody should).
But I’m sure if we all lend our support, we can rid Memrise of the spammers.
We have not only lost profile bios informations, but I also can not follow anymore users in course dashboard (weekly/monthly) statistics.
The mouse over popup dialogs to follow users are deactivated - one of the reason probably is that those fake / spam / bot accounts were using this technique to mass-follow quite annoyingly other users “to promote” their sex sites (I do not want to see them in my user list).
I really have to copy & paste the usernames all manually and use direct http URLs to memrise user profile pages.
Followers:
Another big problem on Memrise because adding a new user (follower) is not a bi-directional way, where both parties have to agree / explicitely confirm until the system shows these informations online.
Therefore the “new user creation” hole was IMHO N O T closed reliably by staff.
To do this you need: e-mail verfication, confirmation, anti-bot protection, ask manual questions, a better manual identification process, etc.)…
…besides the other 2nd problem that hackers misused some normal Memrise accounts (but that alone is NOT the problem!)
DuoLingo does the first step of verifying / confirming e-mail accounts for discussion forums.
Not sure what they will do for personal profile information changes before publication (and what if these get changed - will the user be notified or not?).
But that alone is IMHO no better protection against those created fake users at all.
memrise is not for children. But I am sure you already know this - you sound very familiar (including the habit of spamming the fora). Where do you people find all these accounts? You are looking for them?
Memrise is used in lots of schools, so I would say that it’s for all age groups.
And no, we aren’t looking for these accounts. THEY look for US.
I’m pretty sure I, a child, didn’t actively search for accounts with bios about ‘sex on the beach,’ or links to sex websites.
You can either do it “right” really improve it by putting developer man power into it…or you just workaround it like with the bios field (which really hurts, btw!).
I hope we will not see that the complete Memrise web portal “be gone soon”?!
If XING (Ex-OpenBC) would remove all user profile informations, hide it or limit the social aspect in getting in contact with each other (there is no messaging system on Memrise, why?), they could close (well, nowadays there are sooo many limitations with the basic account that I hardly use their portal).
But I have full control there for contacts - as I do not have to confirm everyone or the system would do the auto-confirm, like Memrise (and DuoLingo) does it.
@Lien @MemriseSupport
Is it really that hard to develop something new like a “ban user” feature, like DuoLingo has it, when I click on user profiles (my follower list)?
…by the way: DL also does the social aspect quite wrong by auto-confirming followers!
Memrise itself disagrees with you. Their terms of service prohibit anyone under the age of 13 from using their service:
By using our Services, you confirm that (i) you are at least 13 years old; and (ii) your use of the Services will not violate any applicable law or regulation in the province state, territory or country in which you reside.
Moreover, when fully implemented, the EU GDPR will require web sites such as Memrise to obtain parental consent before processing personal data belonging to users under the age of 16. Personal data is defined very broadly by EU authorities, to including such information as IP address and browser cookie strings. Because Memrise doesn’t require parental consent, nor does it even attempt to obtain it, they won’t legally be able offer their services to users under 16 in the EU.
So you are wrong to claim that Memrise is “for all ages,” when the terms of service and the law says otherwise.
You didn’t just make a “tiny mistake”. The facts undermine the entire premise of your call for censorship and your complaints about “these accounts” and your effort to get Memrise to focus on your complaints.
Parents are responsible for monitoring their children’s online activities. There is nothing to prevent them from installing filters on their kid’s computers to block their children from viewing whatever sites and content they consider to be inappropriate for them. It’s not Memrise’s responsibility to devote their limited resources to eliminating every reference to “sex” on their site.
Hi, I’m new to this thread, so apologies if I’m in the wrong place or ask something already asked… How can I report users? There are two of my followers who are clearly not following me for any genuine reasons - they are following hundreds of people, and seem to have saved a mem advertising sex/a girlfriend. I found this upsetting, and can provide the usernames and a screenshot of the text for proof, if prompted. In the meantime, does anyone know of an option to make users unfollow you, so I can remove these bogus followers?
Thanks.
Hi, @gloverh.
There’s unfortunately no way to remove users from your ‘following’ list yourself. I would recommend posting links to the users’ profiles in this thread. The admins have been fairly responsive in following up on such reports there.
I have 4 “sexy” accounts following me - and its really annoying.
Really struggling to understand how come Memrise did not introduce by now possibility of private accounts?!
I dont need to follow or be followed - leaderboard is enough for me have connections with the people who learn the same what I do.
You are still ignoring the fact that there is a large demographic of people who do not live in European-Union countries (i.e. most of the world + some European countries) who are under 16 but over 13.
@MemriseSupport - just flagging this perennial chestnut again.
I know you are - like us - all to aware of the issues.
Perhaps the “Captcha” or “I am not a robot” you are proposing for new accounts, will resolve the issue.
ATB and thanks.
Hi @belter, sorry to hear that.
It looks like these usernames slipped through our filter. I’ve asked our team to have a look at this.
We will delete these users once our developers have released the change.
Thanks for your feedback about private accounts. We’ll take your comment into consideration for future updates!
Best wishes,
Memrise team.