I feel you have a very US-centric and litigious take on this. Afaik it’s not illegal (in most places, yet) to discuss the topics of piracy or anarchism on the internet, or to allow younger folks who are interested in these topics to participate in the discussion. Maybe we just have a different outlook on these things. There’s nothing we talk about here that hasn’t also been discussed on Reddit and many other websites for decades.

On the contrary, I want you to discuss the topics of piracy and anarchism online. That’s not even close to what I’m trying to get across here. I love that about dbzer0.

The issue comes with the heightened scrutiny from allowing those underage to participate in the instance. There are a whole host of laws regarding how the data of minors is to be handled, and the reason that many sites, at least nominally, exclude minors is because it’s a significant burden on limited resources, with a very hefty financial sword of damocles swinging overhead if it’s not done ‘correctly’. For non-profit, and especially small non-profit, orgs, this can be a deathblow.

CHOOSING to allow minors to participate is not inherently an issue, but DB0 calling other instances PTB and unreasonable for exercising caution in dealing with minors very much calls into question just how seriously it’s being taken, especially considering the opinions of other admins in this comment thread. If you aren’t covering your asses on this, and on the ball about it, not just “Well, we don’t follow laws in these parts”, it can end very badly - and very abruptly. It’s not some minor point of law that only the bootlickiest of bootlickers even bother to follow - it’s a weapon used to take down the unprepared.

On one hand, I certainly have a US-centric take, because that’s what I’m most familiar with, and a litigious one, as that’s what I’m most concerned with. On the other hand, the EU is considerably stricter about the data of minors than the US, so that’s not necessarily against the main point being made here.

The alternative is to go the LW route and preemptively self-censor discussions to the point that users can’t express their honest opinions any more (e.g. about Luigi). And at that point we might as well close the instance down ourselves as it wouldn’t stand for anything.

Again, I feel the need to point out that censoring Luigi support was done by a couple of mods who interpreted the .world ToS in a very… questionable way. The actual admins clarified that support of Luigi was always allowed, and you see it constantly on .world, because fuck CEOs.

But also, like I said above, I’m not saying censor yourselves. Not in the least. I’m saying be prepared, and don’t take underage issues as a non-issue that only chuds are worried about. It can fuck you.

Anyway, appreciate you being concerned about us.

Legit, I just don’t want to see dbzer0 go down one of these days because of something that could be guarded against. You’re one of the better instances on the Fediverse.