Hi Jeffrey, Thanks for the post!
I saw a little bit of information in your first link that I hadn't spotted before.
THIS DIDN'T WORK (it would work in web.php):
Route::post('privacy_change', 'UsersController@privacy_change')->middleware('can:change_privacy');
THIS WORKED!
Route::group(['middleware' => ['auth:api']], function () {
Route::post('privacy_change', 'UsersController@privacy_change')->middleware('can:change_privacy');
});
Apparently because of this bit of information I found, which I had no knowledge of before... "Out of the box, the web middleware group is automatically applied to your routes/web.php file by the RouteServiceProvider."
It is now working!! I just needed to wrap the API routes