Change in community guidelines

I recommend a change in the newly updated community guidelines. Specifically omission of the point, "You must apply an age-restricted label to any channels that contain the discussion of dangerous and regulated goods, such as discussing the effectiveness and durability of dangerous and regulated goods, admitting to personal use and/or possession of firearms, etc." This addition to policy is both illogical and unreasonable, and will inevitably lead to the dissemination of more harmful information regarding these subjects. Firstly, through effectively containing all discussion of firearms and firearm related discussion to users over 18, you are ensuring that 100% of the related information attained by users under 18 will be attained illicitly. This greatly increases the spread of harmful misinformation. Secondly, the fact that any mention of dangerous or regulated items in any capacity or context is grounds for the age restriction of a channel is entirely unreasonable. Not only does the unspecific language cause issues in interpretation from server moderators, but additionally interferes with an incredibly vast amount of otherwise perfectly reasonable discussion. The accurate discussion of important historical events such as the Holocaust are intrinsically connected to the discussion of dangerous or restricted items. This effectively bans anyone under the age of 18 from learning about such important historical subjects in meaningful depth on Discord. Additionally, this creates difficulty for servers that cater exclusively to those who are under the age of 18, such as teacher-run servers. A chemistry teacher will no longer be able to explain a reaction containing Acetate to their students on discord, a history teacher won't be able to answer a student's question regarding the importance of smokeless powder. The admission of this point will serve only to further spread misinformation as well as limit minors to accurate, appropriate, and properly moderated information of related subjects.

Alex

March 01, 2023 16:05
Edited

Not even just the Holocaust, any events that involved firearms. This would also ban discussion on any incident involving a chemical spill, such as what happened in East Palestine, OH. So not only can minors not talk about past events, they can't talk about current events either; at least in any meaningful detail.

Also, it seems like photos of firearms and chemicals aren't restricted? I don't think they should be, but it's odd that they're not given how far this change goes.

RANMAN

March 02, 2023 02:31

100% you’re right and most people know that sort of thing. Definitely advertises to Gen Z that Discord is their place to experience overly-protective mother syndrome. “That’s too much!!!”

Discord, it’s important to be caring, but do you know, within your company, where “too far” is? Like as a guiding principle for decisions. It doesn’t seem so, and it’s showing.

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