But I would like a NSFW-tag on content.
And as a side-note: The game is free everywhere, Steam, too.
I have tested a fully SFW avatar with the NSFW flag checked in the past and I was able to use it just fine inside private and public lobbies so what we actually need here is a way for either world creators and/or lobby visibility settings to restrict what avatar flags are allowed within the current session of that lobby, as well as the ability for users to auto hide/show avatars with specific flags checked.
This wont be bullet proof as this relies heavily on user based trust (which VRChat have a long history of being against) and someone can very easily reverse what I did and mark a heavily NSFW avatar as SFWto bypass such filters, but it will be a good start for limiting exposure to these avatars.
To go even further, it seems the same issues occur on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, and those sites don't have to install kernel level anti-cheat to ensure you don't look at illicit content. At the same time, I would argue that this shows that kid-unfriendliness is an internet-wide problem and maybe we should be doing more in general to build an internet that works for kids.
If you’re a kid, it can be scary and potentially dangerous. The game is advertised with cartoon characters and a child-friendly aesthetic, far from what you actually find in public worlds. It’s easy for bad actors to hone in on kids based on voice, then corner them and do bad things. I’ve spoken to kids who were approached and “flashed” by much older users with explicit, ejaculating sexual avatars. It’s unpleasant and disorienting. Not to mention adults who zero in on kids, drop a portal to show them a “cool world” and then get them one-on-one in essentially an unsupervised VoIP call. This platform is practically designed to trap and abuse kids.
And yes, kids technically aren’t allowed to play VRChat or even go online using the Quest per Terms of Service. Enforcement is impossible, not that anyone tries, so kids are everywhere.
Please don't let your child talk to strangers - in person, in Roblox or VRChat, in sketchy forums, etc. If you do, set boundaries for them and have the talk about danger.
If you let your kid talk to strangers, strangers will talk to them.
There is no NSFW tagging system, no content filtering for uploaded avatars, no effective means to permanently ban abusive users, and extremely lax in-game moderation. There are tons of sexualized, fully nude, and fully-functional avatars all over the place. Spend a couple hours in the main public worlds and you're almost guaranteed to see some. Remember, this game is absolutely full of children and pre-teens, and the kind of adults who choose to hang out around them. The game is free on the Meta Quest store with zero age restrictions.