There is teenagers on the fediverse. Most of them don't share their age, for hopefully obvious reasons. I'd say that a lot of the accounts which do a lot of posting/commenting are run by teenagers

because most adults probably wouldn't have the time for that much posting.

While the young people of this generation are generally useless when it comes to something more complicated than microsoft word, the people who are good at technology, usually are very good at it.

most of my friends (most of which don't know the difference between a laptop and a desktop) could understand the fediverse as a concept perfectly when I explained it to them irl.

So, if you're in a really stupid argument with someone, try to remember that there is a small chance they are 14.

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[–] ptz@dubvee.org 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

And what's the problem with that?

Laws don't currently make a concession for federated social media. If the law in an instance's jurisdiction says that users on a platform must be of a certain age, then for practical/enforcement purposes it makes no difference if they're local or federated.

FWIW, I also ban people under age 18 on my instance (local and federated). Obviously I can't know everyone's age, but if someone offers it and I become aware, and it's below the minimum age set in our policy, then they're banned until they're of age - simple as that.

I'm in the US, so 13 is the minimum age by law for most services (COPPA), and there's various grumblings to increase the age specifically for social media, so I'm playing it safe with 18 which is the age you're legally considered an adult.

Considering some of the stuff that gets posted here (legitimately and via bad actors), then my legal liabilities are less as I'm going out of my way to only serve adults on the platform. Mind you, I'm running this as a hobby / volunteer and do not have a team of lawyers on hand.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lemm.ee goes with 16, as does Blahaj.

The case linked was kind of an edge case as that user is turning 18 in a few months.

[–] throwaway@lemmy.cafe 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Where does .ee say they only allow 16+? couldn't find it myself.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Our site, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 16 years old. If you are under the age of 16, per the requirements of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) do not use this site.

https://lemm.ee/legal

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Quoth Article 8:

Where point (a) of Article 6(1) applies, in relation to the offer of information society services directly to a child, the processing of the personal data of a child shall be lawful where the child is at least 16 years old.
Where the child is below the age of 16 years, such processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that consent is given or authorised by the holder of parental responsibility over the child.
Member States may provide by law for a lower age for those purposes provided that such lower age is not below 13 years.

The controller shall make reasonable efforts to verify in such cases that consent is given or authorised by the holder of parental responsibility over the child, taking into consideration available technology.

Paragraph 1 shall not affect the general contract law of Member States such as the rules on the validity, formation or effect of a contract in relation to a child.

The referenced point (a) is in the conditions for data processing to be lawful:

the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes;

In essence: The age of consent is 16 when it comes to your personal data. A completely different question is whether lemm.ee even processes personal data, even more so in a matter that requires consent. Because unless you doxx yourself lemm.ee knows nothing more about you than your IP and, presuming best practices, only keeps limited logs around for strictly technical purposes which don't need consent. That point (a) is only one condition under which personal data can be processed, there's also b, c, d, e, and f.

...not that I'm saying that the legal notice is bad it's good. It's overzealous and overcautious going beyond the letter of the law and event intent, reaching into the fabled realms of actually giving a fuck. Like, if the law says "assault is bad" then this notice is saying "please all cuddle, ok?"

[–] throwaway@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 day ago

From a bit of clicking around, its linked no-where but the footer, so if you're making an account they don't tell you to read it. Easy to miss.