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LW admins instance-ban a Lemm.ee user for being underage

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  • Gonna go against the grain here and say YDI.

    As others have mentioned, liability. The hosts of Lemmy instances are doing an incredible service enabling us to use this platform for free. And in providing that service, they are also assuming a significant amount of risk in a rather volatile legal environment. The law views a platform that allows ("targets") minors very differently from one that is intended only for adults.

    Additionally, TOS. Its as simple as that. This is not power tripping, this is just enforcement. Even if there was nothing explicity wrong about the behavior, once age is directly mentioned, liability is opened, and their hands are tied.

    As a side note, there is nothing wrong with adult-only community spaces. Sometimes I want to have a discussion without worrying about whether the person on the other end is a literal child - there are enough adults that act like children as it is...

    • "The law discriminates against and limits the freedom of children, therefore they're totally justified!"

      Yeah ok sure

      • For real, this type of apologia is downright disgusting.

      • Wrong way around. The law enforces more protections for children than adults, for which platforms are held to a higher standard.

        Specifically, I'm talking about the higher standards for data privacy, user tracking, and content moderation. These are things that are trivial for large companies to implement, but would be a huge hurdle for small teams of unpaid volunteers.

        • Many people would like you to believe that, the reality is that these laws are designed to keep children away from support networks and just further enforce the idea of parents owning their children. They use these same garbage excuses when talking about children and HRT or puberty blockers, and trying to block trans kids from getting these treatments. They call that "protection" as well.

          Things aren't as they say they are. People aren't honest about their motives. If that's new to you, wake up, it's 2025 people have been lying about the real reasons for decades, it's not and never has been a new concept.

          • You make some good points. I agree there are a lot of traditional ideals engrained in our justice system that enforce archaic power structures and perpetuate harm onto vulnerable people. And you're right, people often use "protecting the children" as an excuse to take more and more rights away from the general populace.

            That said, I still don't think its productive to direct that frustration and anger at a volunteer moderator on a free, nonprofit platform.

            • I'm glad we agree on the part out our rights being suppressed and taken away, though I don't agree that they shouldn't feel the heat from their actions. People who claim to be our allies and support us but capitulate to their own fear of something bad happening and oppressing us, are not real allies, and they need to be held accountable and called out for it.

              They aren't even really doing this for liability they're doing it out of misguided fear and going above and beyond. They are preemptively choosing to be collaborators. Their choice I guess, but they chose yield to fear, they don't get to choose not to get heat and callouts for it, and I'm glad people are giving them shit for it.

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