Ah yes, Lemmy, so popular with kids it competes with Roblox for the pervs attention

Scrolling through the community quickly, there were like 3 jokes mentioning a husband’s wife, one mentioning a car’s manual transmission stalling, and one that’s over a week old that includes the word "ass’ which is directly breaking the no-profanity rule, yet somehow the concept of a gay couple is too confusing for a 6 year old? Oh and also a joke about “Cherenkov radiation” which I am 1000% confident no 6 year old on earth has ever heard of.

PTB

Mod posted a response: https://lemmy.world/post/52564578

I have recently received some feedback about including sexuality as a topic for dad jokes. Although it was not the most constructive of feedback, some points were made. Sex as a topic is not the same as sexuality, and I apologize for not making that distinction clearer. I was basing my moderating on what was being reported and sex being a topic as understood for children closer to puberty, although sexuality such as LGBTQ+ parents/partners/people can be understood much earlier. While I stand by still keeping actual sexual themes (anatomy, sex positions, etc.) as an off-limits topic for the community, sexuality seems reasonable to include.

This community is not static; I want to do my best to maintain a place that can grow with the community while staying true as a place for humor in a world that has plenty of unpleasant things. I am not a bot, and am indeed a person that is open to having respectful discussions.

Tell me what you think should and should not be included as “off limits topics.” Should profanity be allowed, or possibly only certain words? Are there other suggestions you have? I will try to look at the common themes from any feedback and apply them over the next two weeks or so.

Ptb. That the mod doesn’t understand the difference between romantic and sexual attraction says a lot about them as a person. It says even more that they expect the jokes to be understandable by a 5yo.

On the bright side, this is Lemmy! Anyone can make a new Dad Jokes community that doesn’t have that stupid rule.

What’s everyone so upset about? Clearly, the 3-6 year-olds on Lemmy have been protected!

…from knowledge about the existence of gay and/or bi people.

PTB, obviously.

Another one of the bigots who think mentioning anything not straight is both sexual and political - PTB

I’m going to say that’s not a dad joke, but it’s fucking hilarious. That said, the stated reason for removing it is idiotic.

Wtf? 10000% PTB.

Split on this. The assumption 5 year olds couldn’t get this joke because its funny to be in a gay marriage but not yourself gay seems bigoted. Kids could get that just as easily as jokes about straight couples. At the same time rule says no jokes with death or sex. PTB I.M.O.

Edit: On reflection placing sexuality in the category with drugs, death, and racism seems rough

All you have to do to illustrate how stupid this removal is, is to imagine this couple also has a kid, whom this joke is told infront of.

Spoilers: The kid likely isn’t going to get it, in the same way that many many kids cartoons make reference based jokes and quips, and even mildly raunchy jokes that kids also do not understand… unless the context has already been previously explained to them.

Thats the point, thats how they work as jokes, you need the context otherwise its meaningless.

Then the other part of the joke is you get it while the kid doesn’t, the joke landing two different ways at the same time makes you feel more knowledgable, that joke is for you, the parent/guardian, so the show is fun for you too.

Even if there were 3-6 yo lemmy users… the logic for removing this still doesn’t actually make sense.

Part of the cleverness of the joke is that it is indecipherable to a kid that doesn’t understand sex or sexuality… it thus doesn’t ‘expose’ kids to anything they don’t already understand.

I clocked Bert and Ernie as a gay couple as a five year old.

“Of course their gonna know what intercourse is by the time they hit fourth grade, they got the discovery channel, don’t they?”. In most situations like this, pre-internet, your older cousins would say “You’ll find out when you’re older”.

Not a dad joke since it’s actually hilarious.

Also, what a PTB.

Clean jokes only please. If you cannot tell this joke to a 5-year-old and they can understand, you probably shouldn’t post it here. Please post edgier jokes to: !unclejokes@lemmy.world

I suppose this is the rule the mod refers to.

And well, I feel like there is a bit of a mix up going on here because the rule implies filthy jokes as well as jokes that go over the head of a 5 year old, which are two different things, but here are treated as the same.

In this case, I completely agree that your joke more than likely would go over the head of a five year old because the concept of bisexuality might not be somethingt a five year old has been exposed to yet and even if they have, they may not understand the punchline as it is a bit high brow for their age group.

However, it’s not a flithy joke and the implications of this rule is super unfortunate.

I also think that if I had been the mod in this instance, I would’ve not given a single fuck that you made a joke that was a bit more high brow than the average dad joke. If I may pretend for a second, that was a particularly nitpicky mod, I would have made a comment mentioning this rule and started a discussion with you and the other users to find out whether or not the joke was too clever for a five year old or if other people in the comments could attest to their five year olds being able to get the joke or not. That way it becomes a productive community discussion rather than a shut down.

I think that would have been a much better approach, tbh, rather than deleting it. No matter what the subject matter is, if it is this harmless, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a mod to start deleting things. It creates a bad atmosphere and insecurity in a community when people can’t express themselves in good faith without getting punished.

Your joke should not have been deleted imo.