I think this was asked by someone already, but I do wonder. I think it would be cool if my sister joined the Fediverse (but blocked NSFW content). She is a high school freshman, but I can’t have her join an instance where you must be an adult.
I do have friends on other social medias that are 13+ with their teen siblings making an account to follow them, but what are the rules here??
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- Why the fuck do you want your 13 y o sister to look at this cesspit of protests and General politics?
- You can just usw any instance, if shes too young she will be banned because they can guess it from her immature posts anyway, and if not no one will care.
In my experience, immature posts are made by people well over 13.
take the one you just replied to, for example.
Most people will likely agree that 13 is too young, but it kind of depends on her maturity level too. I had unfettered internet access from about that age and I don’t think it messed me up too bad… Lol.
Anyway, I don’t really think there’s many instances, if any, geared towards younger audiences. Maybe Beehaw would be a tamer one to look at?
If I recall correctly beehaw is the one that federates with nearly no one right? If that’s the one I also think that would be most appropriate. They have good moderation and are safe space by design so this would be least problematic.
Mine, sh.itjust.works is 16+.
There’s nothing stopping your sister from just not mentioning her age, but 13 is pretty young for this kind of social media, in my opinion.
@Aurora: I think most Pixelfed instances/apps have a way to block NSFW content. You’ll have to make sure your sister has NSFW content blocking on (and keeps it on) and you’ll want to check in with her every now and then about her experience there. I think marking images as NSFW is optional for the person posting the content, so not every single NSFW image will necessarily be blocked. It’s hard to give someone a completely clean social media experience.
One other thing you can try: look for instances that are focused on a topic your sister enjoys that is not likely to have NSFW content in it, like ppl who are interested in trains or playing a musical instrument. There are some here: https://fediverse.party/en/portal/servers/ (but you should check the server before she joins)
to all the commenters saying the fediverse is not a good place: these kids are going to be on social media, one way or another. It could be tiktok, bluesky, snapchat, or whatever else they can get onto. Some (but not all) parts of the fediverse should be accessible to them. Ofc that means someone has to do the hard work of hosting those instances, which is not easy. Just saying “this isn’t for you” isn’t doing teens or the fediverse or parents any favors.
I’m currently unable to find a minimum age requirement on my instance, so she could try that. I’ve never given this topic much thought because Lemmy didn’t exist when I was a minor…
