is the age restricted adding system really that bad?

some conversation has kicked off about FriendRewind's age system. some people like it, some people dont. 

in the past, the way ive shared my own stance on things has caused some people to assume that i'm telling them how to feel, so im going to give a bit of a disclaimer now: you dont have to agree with my stance on this if you dont agree with it. you can voice disagreement in my comments if you feel the need to do so. you're entitled to your opinions, but you are obligated to be respectful- if you are disrespectful in my comment section towards me and others, your comment will be deleted and you will be blocked. fuck up enough and youre getting pinned and blocked instead so people can clown on you in the replies. i believe in respect, but i also believe in matching energy. dont put out shit you cant handle, that's all.

anyways, let me explain how the age-restricted request system works. if you (like myself) are over the age of eighteen, you will not be able to add users who are under the age of eighteen. they will have to add you first. in addition, when you make your account, you must put in your real age, and if you are caught lying (particularly with the intent to add users under eighteen), then you will be banned* for doing so. if you are under eighteen and try to add someone who is over eighteen, you will be given a warning about it.

one response i have seen to this (word for word) is:

"what the hell... so like if a person is 17 they cant chat with 18+??? thats so stupid... this aint a dating site wth"

my response is that, undoubtedly, d3fection and his team's decision to prevent adults from adding minors on this site unprompted. typically speaking, when it comes to the predation of children online, it's predatory adults that attempt to get in contact with children first, not the other way around. 

a friend of mine ran an experiment to find and expose some of the predatory users on SpaceHey a while ago. he posed as a fourteen year old girl, and opted not to add anyone first. what followed was three different grown men adding the account and flirting with who they assumed to be a fourteen year old girl, one of having NSFW content on their page, and another of them going so far as to sexually roleplay with her. all of these users added the account, under the guise that she was fourteen. SpaceHey has no system set to prevent this from happening to real children.  

FriendRewind implememnted a system for peventing this- only allowing 18+ users to send requests to users who are also 18+. as for children adding adults as far as i can tell, they are given a warning before adding users who are over the age of eighteen. 

i have also seen people upset with the fact that this would technically include an 18 year old adding a 17 year old (and vice versa). while the team did recently update it to allow for that, this update was quickly reverted to be the same as it was before. 

what a handful of people are forgetting is that there's a clear, objective difference between happening to bump into a minor as an adult on a platform meant for general ages, and intentionally seeking out minors to add and start conversation with: the first of these is something bound to happen on any platform, while the second is outright predatory. 

to conclude: i agree with the FriendRewind team's decision on how friend requests work not every adult on the internet has a secret agenda based around the abuse and manipulation of children- including adults who happen to bump into children online. the system prevents those who are predatory from adding children, which is what it's designed to do.