This is a reminder that you must be at least 18 years old to access Lemmy World per their Terms of Service (ToS). Additionally, as moderators of this community, we are obliged to report violations of this rule, so we will have to report it to the admin team if a user in this community explicitly identifies as younger than 18 years old.

We have reached out to the admins requesting for a modification to the rules if [email protected] were to adjust its rules to accommodate the needs of 16 and 17 year-olds. While they were understanding, it seems that the necessary changes are not possible at the moment. Therefore, unless the ToS change, if anyone identifies themselves as younger than 18 years old on [email protected], we will have to report your account. We would hate for someone to get invested in this community, develop a bond, and then have it suddenly taken away. At the same time, we don’t want to jeopardize it by helping users violate terms and ultimately the trust we have with the admin team.

We appreciate your understanding and compliance with this matter.

[email protected] Mods

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    271·
    1 year ago

    Now this is an interesting conundrum. Firstly, I get that their intention, but the wording of “use or access the website” is ambiguous. I’m a user on pawb.social, and could honestly have never used the website at all. Perhaps “create an account or directly interact with a lemmy.world user or community” might be better?

    What about the following situation:

    • I’m over 18 and have a mastodon account on furry.engineer which (apparently) doesn’t have any age restrictions.
    • I make a post there, and think it’s interesting enough for here so I CC in /c/autism, which causes it to be posted here.
    • Someone else on Mastodon sees my post and replies. In their profile they have their age listed as 17, and they have no idea what Lemmy even is.

    Nobody involved has broken any rules. Lemmy.world could remove the post or ban the user, but that brings up the question of how they get their account unbanned when they reach age?

    Of course, this is not /c/autism’s problem to solve, but I get the impression many people still think this is like Reddit when it really is something different with the whole “federation” angle.

    • mark@social.cool110.xyz
      19·
      1 year ago

      @BackOnMyBS @savvywolf With federation the only sensible way to deal with this is to use the precedent set by email.

      You don’t agree to any of Google’s ToS just by sending to a @gmail.com address, and if sending from a work address you certainly wouldn’t have the authority to bind the company. Of course Google can do what they want with their spam filter, including blocking everything from you.

      Following that the terms of lemmy.world have no relevance to external users, unless the admins decide to defederate. Even then there would still be direct delivery between other servers for followers, along with parent post fetching.

      • BOMBS@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
        9·
        1 year ago

        I think these are valid points and will discuss it with the LW admin team. Ultimately, it’s their decision since we are guests on their instance.

        @[email protected]

      • BOMBS@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        We followed up with the admin and provided the arguments that were shared in the comments here. You can see the discussion here. Basically, the rules stand as they are.

        @[email protected]

        • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          Thanks, unfortunately as far as I know that doesn’t really clear up the situation I was talking about. As a concrete example, see the post here: https://furry.engineer/@savvywolf/111547720761183385 / https://lemmy.world/post/9329892 (assume I wasn’t using my alt there - didn’t want to create a new account pretending to be someone else).

          … But honestly, I really, really need to stop getting involved in fediverse drama; it’s not good for me. Unless the lemmy.world admins start defederating other instances for not removing posts from under 18s, it doesn’t really affect me. I’m over 18 and everything I do on Lemmy.world communities (however much that covers) should be compliant with their ToS. So yeah, going to bow out of this whole thing.

          • BOMBS@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            I don’t think I understood your situation, but maybe this will help. What I gather from the admin’s response is that the purpose is to limit access of Lemmy World from users under 18 years of age because the content is not meant for those users. However that plays out, we are expected to help accomplish this goal, despite the technical nuances of the federated system. At the same time, they are also encouraging a compassionate approach to the moderation which includes informing users of the ToS and giving them the chance to make corrections before applying stricter measures.

            But honestly, I really, really need to stop getting involved in fediverse drama; it’s not good for me.

            Yeah, getting into things like that can be mentally taxing for me as well. That’s why sometimes it takes me time to respond to the more engaging comments. I really need to take care of where I decide to use my mental energy. I’m happy you recognized it and decided to limit exposure to it. I hope that [email protected] is not getting to dramatic for you. If you have any recommendations on what we can do as moderators to improve on this while also helping us reach our goals and maintaining to our values, we would be happy to hear about them. Otherwise, I hope that the community is a helpful place for you.

    • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.meEnglish
      132·
      1 year ago

      That’s why the fediverse is great. You can just move the community or users to a different instance with rules you agree with.

      I think LW is doing this because regulations in the US are getting wild as republicans freak out about kids learning stuff they don’t want them to. Solution: don’t use a US instance if you’re a kid.

      (IMO the whole thing is stupid, all it does is lock out kids from relatively safe space and end up on toxic places overseas. Lawmakers don’t understand the Internet, as usual)

      • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        As far as I can tell, lemmy.world isn’t a US instance and isn’t subject to US laws or politics.

        Their tos says “The website and the agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Republic of Finland Suomen.”

        • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.meEnglish
          42·
          1 year ago

          Thanks for pointing that out. I’m not familiar with those jurisdictions, but I’m a little surprised then. That’s what I would have expected from a US hosted site.