On a forum im a part of it recently became a topic of interest that discourse requires you to be 13+ to use it as stated i think somewhere in the TOS? which is not uncommen many sights put it that but i was wondering…
Is it truley discourses choice one a person owns a discourse made forum? [1] or can the owner of the forum decide if they want to let younger people can they do that?
Meaning one made from the software so self hosted and with the .discourse.group endings ↩︎
Discourse doesn’t require you to have a certain age to use it. Communities can, depending on their content and applicable law. See Lilly’s answer below!
(this remains true tho… I hope)
The 13 years old thing is a very US-thing; many old-school forums, in other countries stated in their terms of service that you were required to be 13 years old to register, even if there was no reason for this regarding different local legislations. It was probably just because the term of services were originally written in the US, then translated, and used as it is in other language forums. It led communities outside US believe that the 13 years old was a real thing regardless the country…
On CDCK hosted plans we prohibit the furnishing or soliciting of data which is subject to Special Data Regulations, which includes data from children under 13 years old (COPPA). If you plan to use an external hosting service and expect children to access your site, please pay close attention to the terms and conditions under which you are signing up. If you self-host your site you will need to be aware of any data protection and transfer laws which apply.
i would disagree to some extent. for EU organizations, i believe GDPR countries age requirements and verification for online data is 13-16 depending on the EU country. for example, article 8 for UK requires age 13. i think in France it’s 15.
