this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Microblog Memes

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 days ago (5 children)

The comment is not out of place. In many jurisdictions, a "child" is under 14, while 14-18 is a "young adult" or "adolescent"

[–] [email protected] 86 points 3 days ago (3 children)

You might not be familiar with it but "people under 18" is a long standing propaganda trope.

What Reuters could have said is "Children, defined as people under 18". But they hit the "people under 18" keyphrase.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

It's because they want people to mentally subtract "military-age males" from the figures.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

"Children, defined as people under 18"

People under 18 whom it defines as children

Aside from including your 'meme phrase', I don't see the difference

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Women and children are usually two subsequent words which imply innocent people not involved in any combat.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh, didn't know about the meme, thanks

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

There needs to be a clear legal standard, and 18 Years is the arbitrary line we agreed on.
When a 17 Year old go to war, they are child soldiers, and when they get bombed/starve, they count towards the children death toll.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think the UN also counts anyone under 35 as "youth" as well. So there's a lot of statistics-related terminology to deal with here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

No? Like fucking take the effort to verify you’re claims my dude

https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/youth

“There is no universally agreed international definition of the youth age group. For statistical purposes, however, the United Nations—without prejudice to any other definitions made by Member States—defines ‘youth’ as those persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years. This definition, which arose in the context of preparations for the International Youth Year (1985) (see A/36/215), was endorsed by the General Assembly in its resolution 36/28 of 1981. All UN statistics on youth are based on this definition, as is reflected in the annual yearbooks of statistics published by the UN system on demography, education, employment and health.”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The claim was based on me attending "national youth day" activities with a bunch of guys that seemed way too old, and wondering why, then the same day the radio told me included people to to age 35, "according to the UN." So the data point stuck like that.

Which makes sense as this was a southern African nation that likely took their definition from South Africa. Which uses the age of 35.

https://1library.net/article/definitions-of-ys-of-youth-the-concept-of-youth.qop452mz

And the UN does recognize variance in the definition of "youth" in local contexts.

So either we're both wrong, or both right. You pick.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Fair enough. I apologize for the snarky tone.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

No worries, and to be fair, I didn't know the UN had its own standalone definition that ended at 24 until you mentioned it. So maybe we both learned about the grey area that caught us both up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

i thought young adult is 18/19??