[water-your-self]

If a 13 year old was using irc regularly in 2022 I would be concerned for them. Not thata 13 year old shouldn't use irc but I would wonder how they found that destination, especially given the countless other sinks for internet denizens

[necovek]

Free software development and chat still largely happens over IRC: witness irc.gnome.org and libera chat.

As a 13 year old, if I had access to internet instead of buying Slackware floppies from local software "pirates" (they also had all the DOS stuff like Wordperfect and games), I'd probably be hanging around IRC.

I don't think there was much to be concerned about me back then.

[sweetbitter]

I'm curious why you would be concerned. I've seen a good number of teenagers hanging around and playing with computers.