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autonomous_hippopotamus wrote

I see often younger people being talked down to in one way or the other by older people, this is true of the left generally as well as all the various leftie online communities.

The problem is, how do you go about making these spaces? how do you get young people to join a space once it's been started, how do you ensure that older people don't just join and continue to derail it? We couldnt' ask peopel to prove their age in any way without endagering their privacy, while good faith goes a long way, any onine group like that is an easy target for trolls and wreckers. It's also true that young people don't like being in groups called Jr or for kids as young people rightfully feel they have the same right to participate the the real discussion as anyone else.

In my opinion when it comes to actual safe spaces, i think the best way to do that would be groups that form organically out of networks of friends, using peer-to-peer software, while yes we could create a forum or subgroup that was intented for and focused on youth issues, it would not be a safe space in any meaningful sense of the term.

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[deleted] wrote

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autonomous_hippopotamus wrote

I think probably the best way to go about it would be to introduce younger people to certain privacy-oriented peer-to-peer software that's easy to use. If parents make an effort to introduce kids to software that allows for secure chat, private rooms, filesharing etc. then the kids will find plenty of uses for it.

With Retroshare, as an example, you can create different circles of friends, you can have a "Family* circle and then another circle that is is young anarchists, and then you coudl have another general political group that is all ages where more knowledgeable people can share educational material. I think the important thing is to allow kids the space to build their own exclusive groups where they are in control So this setup allows older folks, family etc. to interact with the younger people, while everyone's privacy is protected. Retroshare has an entire suite that includes chat, filesharing, email, forums and other features.

Another way could be setting up an instance of Mastodon that is invite only oriented towards young people, where the server collectively managed by some kind of parents association that allows participation from the younger users.

So there are many options, but I think working on a peer to peer levle like that is a lot safer than relying on some kind of third party server that is open to the public, because these become easy targets for predators.

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autonomous_hippopotamus wrote

with red diaper babies, i've always found them annoying, most of them that i've met have had terrible politics imo. But yes, people need to be given the freedom to develope their own politics, room to grow and make mistakes, the freedom to seek out people they have common interests with, grow together or separate as their perspective changes. We can't impose the correct line on people, even if we try, to can only work to influence people through cooperation and open discussion.

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