Do you restrict age on your forum?

[Shawn Gossman]

With all the regulations and child safety and protection measures in place, it seems the best thing to do these days is to restrict forum membership to legal adults only.

By allowing minors to join your forum, in many countries, you accept the full risk of what they may encounter on your forum. In some cases, you can be sued or even charged with a crime.

How do you all feel about this sort of thing?

Do you allow any age on your forum? Do you restrict ages to teenagers and if so, how do you ensure their safety? Or do any of you restrict your forum to adults only?

 

[Nebulous]

It’s a good thing to do in theory but you cannot enforce it. Anyone can enter a false birthdate and claim to be any age they want.

 

[Jay™]

All of my forums are for users aged 18 and older. I agree with Nebby that enforcing this can be challenging. However, by implementing measures such as age warnings during the sign-up process, users at least have to acknowledge that they are of legal age.

The best that most forum operators can do is monitor content.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I don't necessarily mention that my forums are for 18+ because I feel like the younger generation is more interested in social media than forums. Plus this is hard to enforce, the only thing I can think of what you could do is try to have mature topics be placed in a hidden lounge that only certain people can see.

 

[Baw$e]

My forum is focused around the gambling niche, so yes we only want our members to be 18+.

 

[Deleted member 31696]

While there's an age of 13+ in the registration policy, there is no way for me to enforce it.

 

[greenhost.cloud]

Perhaps imposing restrictions can save you from some problems in the future, but we all know that if an underage user wants to use a certain service, they will do so and will not regret their action upon seeing a message.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

All of my forums are for users aged 18 and older. I agree with Nebby that enforcing this can be challenging. However, by implementing measures such as age warnings during the sign-up process, users at least have to acknowledge that they are of legal age.

The best that most forum operators can do is monitor content.

I like your approach.

Choosing to keep it 18+ but knowing you can't honestly enforce it. If an under 18 joins, they're doing so against your terms and therefore should keep you out of at least some kind of liability.

Children join Facebook all the time and lie about their age and get away with it.