Many users do not desire to interact with underage users for many reasons. Some underage users may wish to opt out of seeing 18+ users so they may bond with people closer to them in age or perhaps for safety. I think a functionality to
- mark your account as 18+
- hide content from accounts who didn't mark self as 18+
- hide content from accounts who marked self as 18+ would be very useful to those users and set a higher standard of personalized experience for users engaging with social media.
Creeps would just mark their accounts as under 18 so they could easily find target.
Worst case scenario, what you suggest is no worse than what we currently have.
On the reverse side, enforcing underage users can be done with device-level parental controls (and if they can circumvent that, well maybe it's time for them to experience the real Internet).
Voluntarily separating adult material is a no-brainer. If nothing else, this eases the volume of moderation.
What we don't need is shitty government id programs tapped by shady websites.
As said by others creating a giant community of under age kids where anyone could just claim to be under 18 is a bad idea but also any kid could just claim to be born in 1942 like I did when I was a kid
This is a worry and problem I've never had and don't really understand. One of the joys of social media (including the fediverse) is that you're judged by what you say and who you are, not what you look like. As a lifelong fat slob and general ugly person, I appreciate that.
I welcome anyone bright enough to chat intelligently, regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, gender, religion, disability, age, etc.
