This post comes as a result of a little talk we had on GenZedong's Matrix servers a couple of days ago and I thought it was a good idea to bring it as a proposal to discuss here.
There are some strange people in Lemmygrad. I bet you can think of one or two names when I say this. Honestly, I have nothing against it, I don't think anyone should as long as they cause no harm, and quaint characters being attracted to on-line left wing spaces is as much of a natural law as that day follows the night so there's nothing one can do even if they wanted anyway. However, one can tell by some behaviours that the strangeness of some of them come from being young. Too young. And I think it would be nice to limit our list of extravagant individuals to people with a somewhat developed prefrontal cortex, since I think that currently we have none of that.
As some of you may do too, I belong to the earliest sector of Gen Z. As such, it means that I was part of that experiment of giving unlimited access to the internet to someone from an early age, and after remembering well having seen that one video of a man and a glass jar after barely hitting a double digit age, I can say with some confidence that it was a bad move. While there is nothing as nearly as inappropiate as that going on here, I still consider that now that we are older and it is us the ones who are in charge of something, it would be for the best if we did what we could to prevent the youngest ones from wasting their years of brain plasticity on Hoxha-themed soyjaks, anti-psychiatry drama and debates about whether or not the Shining Path was "giga-based" or "turbo-cringe" amongst other brainrot instead of playing Poptropica on coolmathgames dot com or, even better, away from the internet.
My proposal is to set the minimum age for a Lemmygrad account at 16. Of course we can't go around asking for IDs, but I think it would be sensible to put a message stating one must be 16 or older to join in the registration page, make it part of our rules and if someone's behaviour seems sussy then let the mods and admins decide according to their collective judgement.
That's it. Discuss.
Edit: Because some people seem to be missing the point - I know there is no way to enforce thia for all cases. But in the state things are right now, if some kid openly states that they are 12 they would not be able to be banned because there are no rules that justify it, which is no bueno.
There would be absolutely zero way to enforce this.
Everyone has met extremely immature adults with the mind of a 14 year old, and 14 year olds far more mature then their age. Unless the admins begin asking for IDs, or some form of verification picture, that rule would never be feasibly enforced. You say that the admins could use their collective judgment, but all that amounts to is “vibes-based policing” unless someone outright states their age.
Honestly I’d rather a minor be on here then on 4chan or vast portions of Reddit.
It is as unenforceable here as it is anywhere else, yet almost all websites still do it for a reason. Leaving aside the efficiency of the measure in itself, as it has been said before, it can help us prevent getting ourselves in any potential legal trouble (which is probably why other sites do it in the first place).
All websites have that stipulation because of US federal law and EU law, and so that the website cannot be sued for liability. Lemmy already has this as a part of their TOS, so lemmygrad adding something is ultimately meaningless and not useful.
Also there is nothing to sue. Lemmygrad isn’t an independent entity, but a part of lemmy, which the entire purpose of which is to be decentralized without a massive backing LLC.
Also websites where minors are banned usually comes from federal law surrounding access to pornography, and federal law surrounding child labour, taxes, signing legally binding contracts, and child exploitation; none of which are really relevant to Lemmy or Lemmygrad.
The edit makes sense, but I would go back to my first comment and just say that I would rather a 12 year old be here then other parts of the internet. 4chan and the Vaush subreddit are cesspits with no age requirement, and for what goes on here with minor memeing, news, and theory discussions, I don't see all that much that could be harmful to a minor.
For example, in all three of the examples you listed for harmful content, the admins have taken a good position and eliminated the source of the problem. The Shining Path is lambasted as a horrific and atrocious terrorist group, and that one poster that came here from his pro-Shining path website was banned within a few days; the anti-psychiatry sub has been banned multiple times and the people associated with it have similarly been removed, and the soyjacks aren't nearly as bad as what can be found elsewhere.
Also a lot of people don't have anything else to really be doing. Spending time away from the internet is vital, but it is a core component of a modern person's life, and some people are restricted by their societal status, finances, or geography from participating in activities outside of the internet. Even if someone is privileged enough to live in a nice house in the American suburbs, what are they supposed to do without a car? Everything is 10-15 minutes away by car with zero bike or pedestrian access, so they're stuck at home. Same goes for less fortunate individuals.
I would argue that the elimination of third spaces, and the inability to go anywhere unless you have a car is the entire reason behind why GenZ focused on the internet so much, there's quite literally little else to do.
4chan and the Vaush subreddit are cesspits with no age requirement
I don't know about the voosh subreddit but 4chan has a +18 age requirement and outing yourself as a minor will get you banned. This post's inspiration was partly on realizing that this site doesn't have a measure that a place as godforsaken as 4chan does get right.
I would argue that the elimination of third spaces, and the inability to go anywhere unless you have a car is the entire reason behind why GenZ focused on the internet so much, there’s quite literally little else to do.
This is almost if not exclusively an American problem. It could serve as an excuse for the US, but my org is constantly promoting healthy forms of leisure for the youth because we have plenty of activities to do around yet we still have kids on their PCs who don't leave their rooms unless necessary. There has to be more than that to it.
This is almost if not exclusively an American problem. It could serve as an excuse for the US, but my org is constantly promoting healthy forms of leisure for the youth because we have plenty of activities to do around yet we still have kids on their PCs who don’t leave their rooms unless necessary. There has to be more than that to it.
Sadly this has impacted a significant number of countries, and while I used an American example since it is more understandable, an identical problem exists in Belarus as I have seen firsthand. If you are outside of Minsk, and a few select cities, you are shit out of luck when it comes to transportation, unless you can borrow your dedushkas old Vlada. I would even take the chance and say that this problem affects anyone not fortunate enough to find themselves within a city or urban area, at the very least a suburban area with good public transport. That still leaves out billions of people. Good public transport outside of majority cities and towns is virtually unheard of in vast portions of the world.
I don’t know about the voosh subreddit but 4chan has a +18 age requirement and outing yourself as a minor will get you banned. This post’s inspiration was partly on realizing that this site doesn’t have a measure that a place as godforsaken as 4chan does get right.
4Chan only has that requirement because they distribute pornography and are forced to include that as part of their TOS by law. That's the same reason that all porn websites and Reddit make you state that you are over 18 when trying to access sexually explicit materials. I doubt any of them would bother if that was not a mandatory regulation by US law.
By extension, Lemmy, and Lemmygrad do not distribute pornography, with that being against the TOS, and thusly are not forced to include age verification.
FWIW we de jure already have a minimum age here for a large portion of our user base:
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Honestly, i think we should welcome them as long as they follow the rules. It is kind of a miracle that these hypothetical kids landed on lemmygrad, lt may be annoying sometimes and bring the quality of the discourse down but we can guide them in the good direction.
Like i wish i had a community like this available when i was that young.
There are some strange people in Lemmygrad. I bet you can think of one or two names when I say this.
I guess I’m too dense to know who your talking about, but just to be on the safe side I’ll assume you’re talking about me.
Actually I don't think I have ever met or heard about you before. Hi!
👋 I may not have made it weird yet, but it’s never too late for me to make it weird.
As some of you may do too, I belong to the earliest sector of Gen Z. As such, it means that I was part of that experiment of giving unlimited access to the internet to someone from an early age, and after remembering well having seen that one video of a man and a glass jar after barely hitting a double digit age, I can say with some confidence that it was a bad move.
Of a similar age (debatably either oldest Gen Z or youngest millenial) and personally my take on it is "thank god (or science, or the universe, or whatever) for the internet, otherwise I'd have been even more fucked up" myself tbh. Growing up with a cultish, abusive family and as an extreme minority (Asian in the prairies) I feel there'd have been no hope for me otherwise to have any proper pride and dignity or grow into a better person, among other things.
That said- while I'd usually agree that maybe we should vet for kids (and libs... but then again I'd be perfectly fine with this space becoming near-wholly defederated even, probably) this space is about as kid-friendly as it gets. No porn, reactionary bullshit gets dunked on or banned real quick, hell, I saw that post where the 'grad decided not even to have gorier war footage in Ukraine- it's as safe as it gets. FWIW also- if they're sticking around here, I'd expect the opposite of brainrot to be happening. That's a good thing.
wasting their years of brain plasticity on Hoxha-themed soyjaks, anti-psychiatry drama and debates about whether or not the Shining Path was “giga-based” or “turbo-cringe”
Hell, even your examples of brainrot are... well, brainrot, yes, but the kind that could perhaps at least lead them down the right path (eventually). Better that than most youtube/FB reccs, their social sciences/history classes (if they live in the west- my experiences certainly were full of anti-communist propaganda), sermons at the church at bible camp or whatever, or pretty much any western mainstream news, isn't it? Hell, I'd even say that frankly it's better they're thinking than being effectively lobotomized by such things... the internet may be responsible for a lot of brainrot, but I hold firmly to the position that it has been infinitely more beneficial than not all the same.
The only reason I can think of for vetting for minors in this case would be if we had issues with people being creeps. But as far as I've seen that doesn't seem to be the case, and hasn't popped up in the 'grad yet(?) We have good mods, a good community generally.
on Hoxha-themed soyjaks,
anti-psychiatry drama
debates about whether or not the Shining Path was “giga-based” or “turbo-cringe”
Is this the kind of nonsense people do on discord?
Because I definitely haven't seen any of the last one, any ultras who tried would get clowned on fast. Can't recall having seen much of the first and I think we had one episode around the psychiatry thing a while but I think that was resolved reasonably eventually.
My proposal is to set the minimum age for a Lemmygrad account at 16
It should already be at least 13 to comply with certain laws regarding protection of children, I know we may have various issues that place us on authorities' radars already and in potential legal hot water for promotion of communism but we shouldn't risk getting got over a technical violation on something like that.
That said there is zero way to enforce this. Kids lie about their age online all the time. Legally speaking all website admins are required to do is immediately ban and delete data of minors if they openly state that they are 12 or something.
As to admins determining, unless someone is really acting like a pre-teen I don't see any way for admins to know whether someone's just being immature (and you have 20 year olds who act that way and conversely 16 year olds who roll their eyes at these clownish 20 year olds) or if they're young and then you're back to either demanding IDs (bad opsec, awful) or admins just banning people based on vibes of being too immature or young and that would risk encouraging a certain bad faith "kid-jacketing" let's call it whereby people, wreckers, etc construct a narrative of someone being underage and press the admins on it creating drama when the admins do or do not act. Admins already have power to act to remove those from lemmygrad who are disruptive, an account here is much more a privilege than on world or .ml or even hexbear given the scrutiny and narrow purpose of a site for Marxists.
A certain decorum and level of maturity is a good idea and I think we are a bit more serious than another similar instance but it should be driven by community sanction mainly, downvotes, and if needed eventually being called out by a mod or admin privately if it really crosses a line.
Because I definitely haven’t seen any of the last one, any ultras who tried would get clowned on fast. Can’t recall having seen much of the first and I think we had one episode around the psychiatry thing a while but I think that was resolved reasonably eventually.
Themes of anti-psychiatry have resurfaced once or twice after Amicese's ban. I have had some maoist revive a dead thread of mine to tell me about how the Shining Path was cool actually and never boiled any babies. The first one doesn't exist afaik, which is a source of shame for us as a left wing space with meme communities. Overall this post contains some things written humorously so don't take it all literally, but the main point still stands.
That said there is zero way to enforce this. Kids lie about their age online all the time.
Of course. I do not expect it to put a stop on all people who are too young to be here from being here, but nonetheless it would help at getting rid of some if not most.
As to admins determining, unless someone is really acting like a pre-teen I don’t see any way for admins to know whether someone’s just being immature
This measure is mostly aimed at those "unless" people.
Admins already have power to act to remove those from lemmygrad who are disruptive
I do not think we should let kids who are 14 be around here regardless of if they are or not disruptive, which would be a hole in your proposal.
Is this the kind of nonsense people do on discord?
Yes. Because of the way discord's messaging system works, it's virtually impossible to discuss these things without it becoming a shouting match, and terminally online ultras' only argument is to shout down their opponents, so they love discord (and twitter, for similar reasons)
I don't disagree, but like others here, I just don't think something like this is enforceable. This is an inappropriate space for children, but so is 99% of the internet, and I would probably rather a kid learn from people here rather than go on 4chan or Reddit. I do agree that a kid openly stating their age should probably be a banable offence, as it isn't a good idea to state stuff like that on a public forum. But again, it's impossible to enforce something like that. I just don't think this place really has any ability to solve this problem.
If somebody who is younger than 16 wants to learn about communism in a semi-ironic way, they could easily do so on Discord or Reddit rather than here. If they don't find memes about Hoxha or the Shining Path here, they will find it elsewhere.
Some people who are, say, 14 years old are more mature then the average person their age, or even more mature than the average adult. We should judge users by their actions and not their age. If somebody who is 14 follows the rules and acts alright, they should be allowed to stay, they should not be banned from the site just because of their age. If they don't follow the rules, they should be punished just like somebody who is older.
Negative stereotypes about young people are rampant and I do not believe we should contribute to them in any way, even if it's as small as banning them from an obscure internet forum.
The problem is not if a 14yo can or not behave, I bet most can. The problem is what they risk being exposed to here, which between the frequent trolls who come here simply because we are MLs and the fact that most of us are adults (or close to being one) and behave as such with each other, this may not be the best place for them to be around.
I don't think that's a good move:
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Nobody will heed the warning and there's no way to enforce it.
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Banning someone for something as arbitrary as their age (which they can do nothing about) is how internet communities end up dying. Plus, these kinds of rules not only turn people away from the community, they actually end up making the community worse, due to the mods policing with more vigilance.
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There are many alternatives to lemmygrad, especially on reddit. If a teenager wants to join a communist space, then let them do so in one that is good and well-managed.
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(related to the above) If we ban someone for being too young, there's a very good possibility they'll end up in some reactionary space, where the idea that communism is bad will be reinforced in their minds. Once again, let them spend time here than elsewhere.
Yeah, I agree, access to the internet from a young age is a problem. But it's a problem that primarily parents should deal with, and not lone communist internet communities with 500 users.
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As others have said, there is no way of enforcing any sort of age minimum here, or anywhere else really without requiring invasive personal information to be shown as proof. So this point already means it's pretty much pointless to have any real age minimum rule.
But I do agree that some of our frequent posters, who I have a very high suspicion of being quite young, 10-16 or thereabouts, can be somewhat annoying at times when you're looking to engage in something more serious or substantial. But the truth is that children make up an absurdly large amount of the internet's userbase in general, so it's statistically nearly guaranteed that we'll end up with some around here.
I think the best solution would be to either just ignore them if you're not in the mood to deal with that type of thing, or in extreme cases, if you find it's getting too annoying, there is a block feature which you can use should you find the need.
