Of course, these spaces are only meant for adults. They’ll say as much, and they’ll drop the hammer on anyone who admits to being underage. But the key word there is “admits.” It’s trivially easy for a kid to lie about their age to get into such places - and even if they require some form of verification (such as a scan of an ID), it’s not much less trivial for a kid to use a fake ID, someone else’s ID, or a photoshop of their own ID. And they’re going to do it in huge numbers, because teens are horny and impulsive and don’t know what they’re getting into. There is no way to keep them out that is absolutely guaranteed to work in all circumstances - at least, not one that I can think of.

And now these kids are in an NSFW space, interacting with grown adults in a sexual context. Even if no one knows they’re a kid, even if no one deliberately targets them, the adults in those spaces are having inappropriate sexual interactions with the kids by being in conversations with them about things like kinks, porn preferences, &c. that adults should not be talking with kids about - and thus those adults become complicit in something terrible without realizing it or intending to.

It’s the anonymous and depersonalized nature of these online spaces in particular that makes this such a problem, which sucks, because there are many people who have a legitimate need for such spaces - LGBT people in reactionary environments, people with embarrassing but harmless kinks who might face ostracism or loss of their jobs if those around them found out, etc. But the anonymous nature that offers so many benefits is inextricable from its inherent awful risk to children.

I’m not really sure where I was going with this. It just sucks and it’s a bad situation and I wondered if anyone else had thoughts to share.