https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/39616364?scrollToComments=true
https://lemmy.world/u/sag@lemm.ee
https://lemmy.world/modlog/?userId=1957570
Underage, you will be unbanned when you turn 18 (happy birthday in advance)
Yeah, it seems a little odd to do a full ban for anyone under 18. Do they feel that all communities on there are not appropriate for minors?
Afaik, there are laws and regulations that make it more difficult to collect personal information about minors including their email address. I imagine the admins understandably just don’t want to deal with that.
That’s not really relevant in this case though, federated profiles don’t contain any of that information. They just contain the public posts and comments and anything the person might have added to their profile bio directly. They don’t contain personal information of any kind.
deleted by creator
So they banned an under age user from only their instance for the exact amount of time until they become old enough to be a legitimate user on their instance?
Man I want Reddit mod drama back. Where’s I was banned for sleeping with my step mod?!?
@Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com Is it the responsibility of gmail to make sure that people on other mail services don’t break their TOS?
Isn’t that the whole point of email being federated?
It’s always a bit surprising when people reply from Misskey or Mastodon, I feel like I have to answer while they just comment generally
@Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com I started making “lists” of lemmy communities on sharkey, because lemmy still doesn’t have the feature.
That is a kind of shitty response from World and seems a little condescending to me, but tone is difficult. You are welcome here and I would rather you stay and interact with the rest of us than leave the fediverse. Your voice matters and I didn’t have the same outlets when I was your age.
PTB. This is unreasonable. Also trying to prevent teenagers from accessing the internet is just going to lead to all teenagers just lying about their age. It’s not going to stop it. It’s just going to mean they can’t discuss their actual opinions and issues honestly. It would also reinforce the need to lie to be part of culture, which is just not healthy.
Teenagers lying about their age on the internet is as old as teenagers on the internet.
Keeping the age barriers in place is good anyway. It communicates to younger people clearly that the content is not considered suitable for them. It gives them a moment to think and reconsider.
Participating in online culture might be generally not healthy for adults as well.
Eh, kinda half and half. Kids these days seem to forget rule #1 of the internet: if you’re under 18 never admit it anywhere, anytime, for any reason.
Hell, don’t even admit you made your account when you were underage, but aren’t now. I’ve seen regular forums and MMORPGs ban people who admitted they were underage at the time they made the account, but not anymore
I feel like the rules of the internet should be taught again, or at least particularly stuff like “don’t feed the trolls”. All of these engagement based algorithms are too focused on pushing bait content.
PTB, this seems really like they’re overstepping their bounds, @Demigodrick@lemmy.zip has clarified the matter.
Unfortunately this isn’t the first time Lemmy.world has done something like this using “legal” as an excuse, and probably won’t be the last time. They’re too big so they’ll never get defederated or penalized by any server wishing to stay even remotely relevant so nothing is likely to change.
Bruh
Why we banning kids now?
What if they have shitty parents and need to go online to vent?
😓
What if they have shitty parents and need to go online to vent?
Fortunately I have good and supportive parents.
What if they have shitty parents and need to go online to vent?
That’s the whole point, they want to keep children away from support networks to enforce the idea of parents owning their children. People are going to argue otherwise but as a trans person myself I’ve seen this and you’re not fooling anyone with your lame excuses about protecting kids. People especially those who are vulnerable need support networks, do you know how many trans kids kill themselves because they can’t get the support they need and live with abusive and controlling parents. Don’t tell me it’s to protect kids, I’m not stupid enough to buy that lie and you’re not stupid enough to think I’d buy it.
This is the fediverse, they can sign up to any instance that will have them.
So the account on Blahaj would be able to see and interact with any community not hosted on World, World gets to stay compliant with whatever laws it needs to abide by, everybody’s happy and there’s jam for tea.
That user’s posts also wouldn’t be visible by all of LW population, so a third of the platform
That’s an issue having a more evenly distributed userbase would solve, assuming that multiple, smaller instances wouldn’t also feel bound by similar laws. You can’t eat your cake and still have it.
Blahaj allow 16+ too.
Children are not fucking chattel and I’m tired of pretending like they are.
Hey, I’m the one that decided to ban this user. I understand the frustration, but it is very much in the TOS of lemmy.world and has been for a long time.
We are having an internal discussion to see if there’s room to lower the age to 16 and if we can make exceptions for federated users.
I hope you see that this really isn’t meant as a powertrip, and we are just trying to protect the Lemmy.world site.
Sorry if I do not respond to comments quickly, it’s late in my timezone.
(Opinion bit)
There should definitely be an exception for federated users. @sag@lemm.ee did not sign up to lemmy.world and therefore did not agree to the ToS.
(I am not a lawyer, anyone else can correct the stuff I say below)
Since lw isn’t storing sag’s data (apart from public posts and comments) there shouldn’t be any concerns with child data protection. lemm.ee would be serving them content that under 18s shouldn’t view, not lw (unless they are hosting it, which I don’t think you do?). I may be missing something (again, not a lawyer) but what is the point of this other than being (in my opinion, a bit too) careful with the law?
Any update on this?
If LW is banning me for real then ban my all alt.
@sag@ani.social
@sag@lemy.lol
Hello,
Thank you for chiming in. Exceptions for federated users would be nice, especially for someone turning 18 in a few months.
Yea, I agree, and I would personally be for that. But I am not well versed in the law, and don’t have any stake in the legal side of it all except for me liking lemmy.world, so it’s not my decision.
I really hope people understand where we as admins are coming from, we really take no enjoyment out of banning anyone (except for spammers).
I really hope people understand where we as admins are coming from, we really take no enjoyment out of banning anyone (except for spammers).
That’s one of the most transparent lies I’ve heard. Power corrupts, and I’ve seen plenty of lemmy.world admins who certainly do enjoy it, and who do it to people to prove a point or as a knee jerk reaction to disagreement. You can call it whatever you want to call, you can deny this fact but it does happen and I’ve seen it myself, and I’d prefer you don’t try to feed me lies I’m smart enough to see right through.
I understand that my comment was ambiguous, I tried to say that the current admins, in my experience, don’t enjoy banning people.
I’m sorry but the “(happy birthday in advance)” doesn’t really paint that ban in the best light
Yeah that doesn’t at all, it definitely does come across as enjoying it and makes his statements less believable.
That wasn’t meant to sound mean, just something that popped up in my head because it was about a birthday.
I don’t know if that’s entirely true for all or even most of the current ones, it certainly isn’t for past lemmy.world admins, who may or may not still be on the team.
Eh, well… I can’t really respond to that statement if I don’t know who you are talking about.
Let’s hope that you can work something out!
Disappointing, yet understandable :/ Thank you for replying, and addressing this.
Damn, i liked sag :(
I think i’m going with a soft PTB from my pov. Tbf dbzer0 is pretty lax on rules, especially towards people outside the instance. I don’t think it’s within my place or anyone else’s to ban someone from such a huge part of the fediverse.
But this highlights the need to decentralize from .world, the fact that a single instance ban can take away such a huge part of the fediverse from a user feels ridiculous.
I get why they did it, but it feels unfair.
I willingly blocked .world that place is a toxic cesspool. It also felt too much like reddit.
Yeah, this sort of stuff strikes me as bad for the user affected and for .world, but good for lemmy overall. An active, competent user is being forced to post to non-LW communities exclusively.
Damn RIP then if I got banned from .world after this post I am leaving Lemmy.
I hope he doesn’t.
Agreed. But even if he does, this sort of stuff contributes to a reputation and could lead future users to choose to post to communities on better instances. That’s the part I think would be good for lemmy overall.
Hey, I want your opinion on this matter. As you are currently admin of lemm.ee. Is my ban reasonable or just stupid? Whatever you will say I wil go with it.
Please stay with us 😶
Most of the user on .world if they can’t even see my post what is point of posting :(
I’m afraid .world users will also miss out on your mod actions in all of your communities, which is a particularly unfortunate side-effect.
I don’t think it’s the end of the world (:P), though - .world is a big instance, but there are still tons of users on other instances. I mean, even in your communities, I don’t think .world is not making up the majority of activity.
That’s a really problematic choice in the software. Mod actions should not be excluded/ignored even when a remote user is site banned, that can create dangerous situations for your server by allowing all mod actions to federate but not to your server. It just seems like a problem waiting to happen.
You can always just make a fresh account (and don’t tell anybody)
There is still lots of people on other instances - and this could push people off .world.
The other person suggested an alt without telling anyone, Ssems like the best outcome, really. That way LW can keep a blind eye to the thing, and your posts on your alts wouldn’t be banned from LW
If you don’t mind. I know you are currently busy because of new wave of user. Sorry and Thanks
I’m not sure why .world has the 18 age requirement - AFAIK GDPR only requires 16+ if you don’t specifically ask for parental consent. Of course, there is the matter of pornography etc, but for example Reddit allows 13+ users, and all they do for pornography is show an NSFW warning, which Lemmy also has (although this is a good point - maybe the NSFW toggle should be improved to explicitly ask users to confirm their age on Lemmy as well, similarly to how it works on Reddit).
But at the end of the day, each instance is free to create whatever rules and processes they want, and to ban people according to those rules. I would say that .world admins are probably just trying to do their best in enforcing their rules, and unfortunately that means that most likely you’ll be cut off from .world for the next 5 months 🫤
ptb
but…
I think it’s great that we can expect actual rules and enforcement from instance admins, and have a chance to suss out the edges of these rules in open fora.
Aw, they actually did the ban. That’s unfortunate.
On one hand, yes, legal liability and all that, but on the other hand half the site is copyright violations. The law only matters sometimes. I say this as someone who has hosted web communities myself, there’s no reason to be banning for something like age on these instances, especially when we’re talking 16 and not 12. It’s unenforceable and trivial enough that there’s no legal pressure to do so.
I just think they should make a new account and not say that they are underage. I don’t so much have a problem with people being underage online but saying that you are is putting an unnecessary target on your back.
I’m really not sure how the TOS apply given it opens with:
This Terms of Service applies to your access to and active use of https://lemmy.world/, it’s API’s and sub-domain services (ex alt GUIs)(we, us, our the website, Lemmy.World, or LW) as well as all other properties and services associated with Lemmy.World.
Sag wasn’t accessing or making active use of lemmy.world itself. This would be like an email provider blocking a particular address from another service because the user of that address doesn’t comply with a part of their TOS.
Fully agree.
CLM/CLA.
@flamingos@feddit.uk While the email analogy works well, activityPub is technically an api.
It’s a protocol, which I suppose you could argue is an API though that’d be a very liberal definition of API.
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.
Just for clarity, are you saying that all rules and regulation which discriminate against young people are inherently bad? e.g. banning them from consuming tobacco, having gambling adverts placed on their shows or being allowed in nightclubs?
The fact that you’re even comparing being on Lemmy or probably also Puberty blockers and HRT to Booze and tobacco shows your motives transparently. Maybe instead of making bad faith comparisons to things that have nothing to do with each other you should actually be thinking of the kids who are hurt by the idea of parents owning kids. Like abused children, or trans kids.
I literally just asked to clarify your position, that you chose to project transphobia onto me from that says more about you than me.
The fact that you are comparing access to spaces like Lemmy to drugs, alcohol, and tobacco says enough about your motives to let me know that any further discussion with you is fruitless. You’re trying to get me to say something that you could claim was implying I support kids taking drugs or alcohol so you could say that the “groomer” (me) supports giving children harmful substances. Ignoring the fact that access to spaces like Lemmy, and access to drugs and alcohol aren’t even remotely similar.
If you’re looking for someone to say it, you’ve got me here. Banning children from tobacco doesn’t stop them from getting it, banning gambling adverts won’t stop them from doing it (cereal box rewards etc) and usually find their ways into nightclubs with alcohol anyways. The only reason these laws exist are to control and subjugate children, not “for their own good.” Such paternalist thought leads to shit like children marriage and any number of different types of child abuse, cause if your kid doesn’t have any rights, what’s stopping the parent from sending their kids to conversion therapy and misgendering then every day?
Fair enough, I think its a rather bizarre take that we shouldnt try stop people who havent fully developed their reasoning capacities from harming themselves but at least you’re consistent.
Do you think that refusing to acknowledge a child’s gender identity and sending them to conversion therapy is protecting them from harm? If so, tell me. How does the act of having one’s gender identity respected cause harm?
Tell me this because you seem to believe that things like Gender affirmation and access to online spaces, are on the same level as drugs and alcohol, or you’re giving the impression that you do.
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.
