I’m not sure when it gets to the legal side of things. It’s probably really difficult (as it’s always the case with law ;-) depends on the jurisdiction of the harmed user, the instance’s jurisdiction and yours. And the case-specific details.

I’m not a lawyer but I’d say it’s not necessarily you in the line. Even if you willed the specific community into existence. The instance owner is providing the service. And it’s also them having the final say in things and they have the logs if something goes wrong. And the actual offense is also commited by somebody else. So it’s primarily their responsibility.

I think I’m more concerned with the ethical side. And if I were you I’d pay attention it doesn’t interfere with the career. So I’d stay pseudonymous and not use my real name.

You’re probably more qualified than some other random person. And always thinking about the negative extreme isn’t getting people anywhere. It’s more the people who just try things who succeed. And sometimes great things come from it. That’d be arguments to do it. In your cases there are bad consequences if you do it wrong. This isn’t the case for casual conversation on Lemmy, but you can also really help people.

Some Ideas: Try distributing the responsibility over more shoulders. Some communities have mods spread across the ocean so there’s someone awake most of the time. And on Lemmy there are lots of people from the USA and from Germany. And you can manage expectations. Tell people what to expect and how to handle negative experiences. That enables them to make a decision for themselves.

I’d like to add that is just my opinion and what my common sense provides me with. So despite me wording this a bit factually, it’s just my 2 cents.