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 !autism@lemmy.world 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 !autism@lemmy.world, 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.
!autism@lemmy.world Mods
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.
@savvywolf@pawb.social
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.
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.
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 !autism@lemmy.world 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.