I’ve let you drag me off track, that’s my own fault. I actually kind of get your point about a proxy service, but we’re obviously both looking at this in different ways. In your way, that would automatically mean that every post you make, even locally on lemmy.world, as it is sent to every single server that lemmy.world federates with, makes you subject to every single ToS for those servers. That’s just not true though. That’s not how it works.

Importantly, back to the key point, the ToS for lemmy.world say:

No one under 18 years of age or under the regulated minimum age defined by your local law (whichever is higher), is allowed to use or access the website.

They are not using nor are they accessing the “website”. Is their message being sent between servers? Sure, that’s federation. Did the user use or access the website? No.

If that’s the line lemmy.world wants to take, they need to update their ToS to reflect that federated users are also subject to that rule and it applies to federated traffic. At least they’d have a leg to stand on then.

As it stands, they’ve incorrectly interpreted their own ToS. Again, this is analogous to email. Sending an email does not automatically make you subject to an agreement with the receiving company, with a document you’ve not had sight of. They can still moderate that email as they see fit, but the receiving party isn’t providing a service.

Anyway I’ve said all there is to say. I’m sure we’ll continue to disagree.