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.

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.

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…

Wait, are you telling me I can get rid of all my e-waste if I just stick a maga sticker on it and put it on Craigslist?

Ukraine going to be the first to deploy a tactical nuke via FPV drone