Children should not use nudel

Should children use nudel? Probably not. It’s an (increasingly) unmoderated space where people can chat to each other over the internet. Lots of adults use it. It’s inappropriate for those adults to chat to children over the internet. It puts both groups into a vulnerable position.

Unmoderated spaces tend to be fine until they aren’t. And the point where it isn’t fine anymore goes under the radar, due to lack of moderation. Stories like “I got groomed on habbo hotel” were too common back in the day to be very hippy-anarchist about it.

Talking to someone in nudel is no different to hitting up a random stranger on omegle (do people still know omegle?) or chat roulette, especially with initNudelStream.


On the other hand, I’m against all the “send your government ID for age verification” facial recognition “think of the children” laws being passed right now because they’re just an excuse for mass surveillance and they don’t actually protect anyone. They don’t work and they make things worse.

We can and should do better than this!



If you’re under 18, you probably shouldn’t use nudel without an adult supervising.

But how do we actually get people follow that rule? It’s very very hard to get people to stop doing something. It’s much easier to provide an easy alternative for them to hop across to. This is how we got people to stop using pastagang’s old name: We provided a better and more convenient option.

We should prevent young people from taking part in age-inappropriate tools like nudel. We can do that by providing ways for young people to participate in pastagang in a safe way. How we achieve that is still a mystery.


One interesting thing I observe is the difference in how dente feels compared to nudel. Jammers don’t have a persistent cursor, so you can’t follow along with what any single person is doing. It feels much less like you’re interacting with individual people and it feels much more like you’re participating in some shared creation. This makes it much harder to sustain a conversation. As it gets busier, it gets harder and harder.

For sure, dente is still open to abuse, but it might tell us something about the kinds of options we have for making a new under-18 centered tool, or perhaps it tells us about the kinds of modifications we can make to nudel.

On the other hand, there are cultural and organisational changes we can make. The bare minimum seems to be placing a disclaimer on the welcome screen of nudel, dissuading under-18s from taking part without adult supervision. Again, it won’t completely fix the problem, but if it helps it helps.


I’ll end on this: As a queer kid, I struggled to learn or find any information that helped me to understand myself. It was during a time where talk about queerness was banned within schools in my country. I felt very lost. The internet was basically the only place that told me anything. This was a good thing: I felt less alone and I learned there were others out there who were like me. However, it also taught me some very bad lessons that took a long time to overcome.

I think it’s a shame that the internet is often the place that gives respite / peace / connection to young people (myself and others). But this is the truth! So when I take steps to keep children out of nudel, it brings me some sadness. I ask you: How can we create positive and safe experiences for all members of pastagang? How can we be good(!) role models for the younger generations?

And remember: Sometimes the realest jammers are the tiniest.


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