Removal of piracy communities

Earlier, after review, we blocked and removed several communities that were providing assistance to access copyrighted/pirated material, which is currently not allowed per Rule #1 of our Code of Conduct. The communities that were removed due to this decision were:

We took this action to protect lemmy.world, lemmy.world’s users, and lemmy.world staff as the material posted in those communities could be problematic for us, because of potential legal issues around copyrighted material and services that provide access to or assistance in obtaining it.

This decision is about liability and does not mean we are otherwise hostile to any of these communities or their users. As the Lemmyverse grows and instances get big, precautions may happen. We will keep monitoring the situation closely, and if in the future we deem it safe, we would gladly reallow these communities.

The discussions that have happened in various threads on Lemmy make it very clear that removing the communites before we announced our intent to remove them is not the level of transparency the community expects, and that as stewards of this community we need to be extremely transparent before we do this again in the future as well as make sure that we get feedback around what the planned changes are, because lemmy.world is yours as much as it is ours.

Squizzy,

Surely there is a discussion to be had around what is and isn’t allowed, there are plenty of subreddits discussing piracy without dolirect links that are playing within the rules.

Haui,
@Haui@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Especially because discussing copies of your own data also happens in such communities. There must be clear guidelines what can and cannot be discussed. Also, it would have been nice to have those communities selfregulate. For example, giving them 30 days to comply, e.g. removing any content that breaks the law.

Because the fediverse i about democracy. If laws stand in the way of democracy since they have been brought up by governments influenced by global corporations (which are by definition autocratic) then they must be ignored.

So, striking a balance to not get anyone in trouble while not working for IP holders is the way.

TheSpookiestUser,
@TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world avatar

Because the fediverse i about democracy.

Isn’t it, like, the opposite? With the main assumption being that you should find an instance that aligns with your interests and values, not find an instance and try to vote for it to become something you like? That is technically “voting with your feet” but instances don’t actually need a large population to stay running.

M0oP0o,

But we have no tools to migrate users or communities. We can not vote with our feet so much as start over and over and over.

GodzillaFanboy129,

I highly recommend people go to the issue relating to account migration on the lemmy software github and explain why account Migration is as important as it is and should not be considered as a second thought. Not being able to migrate ties you to an instance if you’ve been there long or participated a lot, it makes you dependent on them, this is not a good dynamic to have in the Fediverse, it’s why other platforms like Mastodon have profile migration.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

It’s only about democracy if you make your own instance. Otherwise, you have to follow the rules of wherever you’re signed up.

TheSpookiestUser,
@TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world avatar

If you make your own instance, as a one-man thing, then it’s not really democracy at all either. The only way it would be democracy is if you made your own instance and specifically said “all decisions will be made via vote” and you actually had users around to participate in those votes.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

Your instance is your vote in the fediverse as a whole.

TheSpookiestUser,
@TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world avatar

A vote for what, though? What is being decided, and by who?

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

You are deciding what content you want to see. If you’re on an instance run by someone else, that will never be under your control.

TheSpookiestUser,
@TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world avatar

That’s not democracy though. That’s my only point here is that isn’t related to the concept of democracy at all.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

https://media.tenor.com/mSBSUCrYM5EAAAAC/fair-enough-alastor.gif

Haui,
@Haui@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing.

You’re not wrong. It’s not the same as voting for a desired outcome and if owners/admins push for something, they can usually get it until people leave.

But the system is open source so they can’t just shape their server how they like. They can’t keep others from getting news from outside and they also can’t push their own agenda imo.

So I‘d say you‘re right, it’s not „democracy“ but its either something else entirely or it is „about democracy“. Maybe power equality through federation?

TheSpookiestUser,
@TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world avatar

What it’s about, in my opinion, is trust. To tie it back to Reddit yet again - on Reddit, if the admins of the site did something, their word was final and there wasn’t much you could do about it. On Lemmy, if the admins of an instance do something, even here on the biggest one, their reach is limited to their own space; they cannot affect what happens beyond. This means that instead of having to do a big ol exodus to try and prop up a new network, people can just pick another instance and continue where they left off, outside the reach of the admins that did the thing they dislike.

Therefore, the instance admins and the users (and also the mods) need to actually have trust in each other to stick around, as there are viable alternative spaces they can go to if that trust is broken. Additionally, the entire concept of federation is also built on trust - “we will allow an exchange of content between our instances because we trust you”.

I don’t agree with this decision, but I understand it, and I still trust LW admins because they’ve had a good track record so far. For those reasons I’ll stay here. I don’t fault anyone leaving, though, if their personal threshold of trust has been broken. The only thing I’m really wary of is the free-speech absolutists that insist no one should be defederated from; the tool exists for a reason. There’s not many of them, though.

Haui,
@Haui@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I agree on practically everything you wrote there. Thanks.

I‘d like to add that I was a little upset first by their childish action but then came to the conclusion that they in fact have very little power compared to the whole platform. So yes, it‘s still not ok (and I would be furious if my content just gets deleted) but it is not that big of a deal.

Mubelotix,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

Yes. The thing is there is zero content breaking the law, so they would have looked ridiculous

Haui,
@Haui@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

From the other comments here I think these people are not very smart. Probably should make new sailor sub somewhere else soon. Obviously with relatively strict rules. For example: only trackers, no direct links etc. (I‘m not a pro at this. What I know is from reading)

WarmSoda,

Yeah I’m subbed to few piracy comms just because I like to see how that side of things is going. I’ve never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file. I’ve never even seen anyone link to a website. It’s all been news and discussions and that’s it.

Actually, Reddit was far worse with huge ass lists of links to games and sites.

AlmightySnoo, (edited )
@AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file.

You ignored the “assistance in obtaining it” part, because members of !piracy have been doing that. Also:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b1645823-ae50-4611-869c-38b0de32bb10.png

EDIT: oh boy, shill posts a lie, innocent pirate mob upvotes. I literally post a proof that what he said is completely false, innocent pirate mob downvotes.

WarmSoda,

Are you trying to say I’m a shill? Lol wat.
I chimed in with my experience. You chimed in with one example expecting it to be the end all of the discussion.

If you really want to talk about who does what, look at yourself asking for links to alternate apps for online services so you don’t have to pay for them. Someone’s been asking for assistance in obtaining things alright.

AlmightySnoo,
@AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

my experience

Which is very far from reality. I literally just opened the community and randomly found that thread, I didn’t even have to try hard. You tried too hard to make them look good here:

I’ve never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file. I’ve never even seen anyone link to a website. It’s all been news and discussions and that’s it.

Also, maximum cringe here:

look at yourself asking for links to alternate apps

WarmSoda, (edited )

And, so what?
Why are you so butthurt? I wasn’t even going to respond to your comment because I read it and thought fair enough.

lemmy.world/post/3206301
This is asking for the same exact thing that your apparently so upset over.

Chill.

AlmightySnoo,
@AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

butthurt

It does seem to me that you’re the one who’s butthurt because I called you a shill though? You literally lied, I don’t even see why you still reply. Also, very pathetic of you to compare using an alternative front-end with something that’s clearly illegal.

WarmSoda,

Yeah dude you totally caught me lying. Everything is falling apart not that you’ve exposed me lol

Dong64,

It’s almightysnoo, they’re already known to be an asshole. Nice job calling them out though!

WarmSoda,

Dudes crying over downvotes lol

spiderman, (edited )

The above comment says:

I’ve never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file.

proceeds to post a screenshot where they just name the site and not the particular content.

AlmightySnoo,
@AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve never even seen anyone link to a website

you missed this part, you’re all trying too hard here

spiderman, (edited )

I think some of you have no idea how legal issues will occur. Unless you are linking actual content or the (direct) link to the copyright infringing content, you will not be having any legal issues. That’s why big piracy discussion subreddits in reddit ike r/piracy are not taken down yet.

Even YouTube has copyright infringing content. Now will .world get any legal notice for linking that? No. Will .world get a legal notice for having comments or posts having a direct YouTube link to the copyright infringing content? Yes. That’s how things work.

Hope you guys understand that instead of slamming every reasonable comment.

lwadmin,
@lwadmin@lemmy.world avatar

Sure. But we’re a group of volunteers and we would not like to find out the hard way what is possible and what not. We would think meta discussions about piracy should be allowed as long as there is no linking to actual illegal content.
But is pointing to locations with illegal content legal or not? And having members/admins worldwide it makes it even harder to be sure.

We don’t want to find out the hard way and this is a better safe than sorry measure. Again we personally have nothing against the people on these communities or against the communities itself.

CaptainEffort,

Smart, might as well shut down this whole thread then as we’re discussing piracy here too, right?

kratoz29,

I love Piracy!

xXxBigJeffreyxXx,

should go ahead and ban image uploading to lemmy.world, as there is likely a ton of illegal, copyright-violating content that hasn’t been stress-tested for fair use.

NOT_RICK,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

The music community could be an issue for the same reason, this logic is problematic

snake,

Did you ever consider ceding ownership of the instance to an entity with greater legal capabilities?

In the end, it will not make sense to try to keep this instance running if the owners are unable to provide adequate service to its users.

assassin_aragorn,

to an entity with greater legal capabilities?

Someone who has the necessary legal capabilities is going to be a corporation. And that’s exactly why we left Reddit.

void_wanderer,

No. In Germany we have something called gGmbH. It’s basically a non-profit Limited. But IANAL, no idea if and how this would be able to protect the admins.

Tenthrow,
@Tenthrow@lemmy.world avatar

So this nonprofit is going to run the largest Lemmy instance?

void_wanderer,

I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t.

sfantu,

Lololo

That’s a corporation imbecile

EVERYONE HAS THEM !

LOLOLOLOLO

Let me tell you a secret … THE GOVERNMENT is a corporation … the church… IS A corporation …

Lolololololo

sab,

Yikes. Bit trigger happy with the ban hammer there. It’s at -40, isn’t that filtering enough?

Edit: it was an instance ban initially, this is more reasonable.

Weslee,

Eesh if posting a slightly hurtful comment is enough to get an entire instance ban… I wasn’t going to move home instance just because of those communities but the bans is way more of an eye opener.

kn98, (edited )
@kn98@feddit.nl avatar

This sort for reminds me of a Sybil attack.

I think it’s a good idea for everyone to register at an obscure Lemmy instance. If everyone’s on lemmy.world, it isn’t truly federated.

Reddit allows piracy communities. These Lemmy communities aren’t hosted on your servers. That’s the whole thing - dbzer0.com and lemmy.ml are taking the risks, though there probably aren’t many risks in the first place.

pankuleczkapl,

These communities are not even hosted on lemmy.world, this is an absurdly overreacted response. There were no signs of any legal trouble and I can’t understand how lemmy.world specifically would be the target of such legal action. If you want to host an instance, you should do everything in your power to allow discussions on any topic, while in necessary cases disallowing direct posting/linking of illegal content. Instead, you chose to block a community that has long been known to avoid having any trouble with the moderators.

poopsmith,
@poopsmith@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    CaptainEffort,

    What content? You mean the comments generally discussing piracy? Because there’s no actual pirated content being hosted, or even linked to, in that community.

    tabular,
    @tabular@lemmy.world avatar

    What signs of legal trouble are you referring to?

    pankuleczkapl,

    Pre-legal action such as DMCA requests or cease and desist letters

    tabular,
    @tabular@lemmy.world avatar

    I can’t speak for other’s hosting peoples comments but I would rather avoid getting DMCAs or C&Ds in the first place.

    pankuleczkapl,

    I understand that receiving DMCA’s may cause fear, but keep in mind that online communities are very exposed to such action, and handling DMCA notices should be a part of normal operation. Someone always isn’t going to like what you are hosting and will try to shut you down legally.

    tabular,
    @tabular@lemmy.world avatar

    You can’t stop any random person sending you DMCA, even if they don’t actually own the copyright. If you can avoid the sincere and likely to win DMCAs then you mitigate some of the work. In a big company that’s no work at all, by myself that’s my limited time alive wasted on outdated foreign law.

    M0oP0o,

    Did they get any? I mean I have got some and I don’t even host anything at all. I am wondering what they did or did not get in relation to legal action.

    hydra,

    I enjoyed helping this place grow and doing my part to discuss here but I disagree with this decision and I’m going to evaluate looking for a different home instance.

    mysoulishome,
    @mysoulishome@lemmy.world avatar

    This is incredibly reasonable and reflects the exactly appropriate amount of urgency and emotional reaction to this happening. 👏🏻

    PeleSpirit,

    I’m not sure anyone cares if people leave this instance, no one is making money off of you. This isn’t reddit or any of the other big places, this is volunteers.

    AllukaTheCutie7725,
    @AllukaTheCutie7725@lemmy.world avatar

    They probably won’t if it’s individual people, though they are donation funded so if they show their supporters that they don’t care those supporters might stop financially supporting lemmy.world. So telling them they should just leave because you don’t care or handing out petty bans like “let me help you” isn’t going to inspire these people to continue contributing donations.

    This website doesn’t make a profit, but that’s all the more reason there should be an effort to not make people hate them, because I don’t know anyone who would enthusiastically donate to support people or an organization they hate.

    PeleSpirit, (edited )

    Nah, it probably be best if you go to another instance, we’ll all be happier.

    AllukaTheCutie7725,
    @AllukaTheCutie7725@lemmy.world avatar

    Aww you didn’t seem to like what I said did you, darling. I’m not planning on not saying things just because it bothers you, Stay mad, trolls 😎 🏳️‍⚧️

    PeleSpirit,

    Interesting, you’re not horrible at it but you’re not one of the good ones. Anyone who uses emojis like that is hilarious.

    M0oP0o,

    So are reddit mods, does not make this less slimy

    samus12345,
    @samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

    I can’t understand how lemmy.world specifically would be the target of such legal action.

    Because they’re the largest instance and therefore the biggest target.

    tcj,

    But the content in question isn’t hosted on lemmy.world…?

    samus12345,
    @samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

    It sure is, because that’s how the fediverse works - every community is copied to every other federated instance.

    AllukaTheCutie7725,
    @AllukaTheCutie7725@lemmy.world avatar

    Let’s also not ignore the fact that these communities literally prohibit Links or content from being posted to them. So even if people make the Federation argument about cross-hosting it’s all moot in the end because the community doesn’t allow it in the first place.

    Here is a link to the rules of the Piracy community you will notice if you have any form of reading comprehension (or if you actually read it and aren’t just trolling, like many people here) that rule 3 specifically prohibits linking to or hosting files, which many people making the federated hosting argument seem to leave out of the equation, likely because it destroys their argument altogether since their argument is about illegal content being hosted, but no illegal content is hosted in the first place (and any that is usually is removed by the mods for breaking the rules, just like it is here on Lemmy.world).

    focusforte,

    I think the problem is that because of the way that the fediverse, they ARE hosting the content. They effectively copy the content from that community onto their server to distribute it to all the users of their lemmy instance. So from a legal perspective they are hosting the content and they would be held liable for a distributing it.

    veniasilente,

    I think the problem is that because of the way that the fediverse, they ARE hosting the content.

    And the “content” is discussions about piracy, not piracy.

    Come on. Small instance indie devs don’t have the bandwidth and storage to save all seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 4K.

    focusforte,

    Yeah, but that discussion can still be legally problematic.

    TurboLag,

    And on top of this, the removals were done following the request from a troll account, by a user involved in far more questionable discussions than the legal discussions currently going on in the now-removed communities. Should no attempt be made to differentiate between a legit legal concern and trolling?

    AngrilyEatingMuffins,
    AngrilyEatingMuffins avatar

    A fascist troll account. If only they were a bot! They’d be the admins’ perfect user

    OverfedRaccoon,

    Good ol’ Bungiefan_ak, creating troll accounts on any instance that’ll have them to troll all things piracy and post transphobic and hateful shit wherever they go.

    NOT_RICK,
    @NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

    What is it about Destiny that attracts pieces of shit?

    stown,
    @stown@sedd.it avatar

    If you post to a community that isn’t local, the content of the post is stored on your local server and the remote server just makes a copy. The posters home server is where the illegal content is hosted.

    michaelmrose,

    First of all so far as I know lemmy doesn’t actually host anything. A post which links to the actual host probably isn’t illegal most places.

    silentdon,

    Yes, so illegal content will end up being stored on both servers. The thing is that the piracy communities don’t allow illegal content to be stored or linked to for the same liability reasons.

    Kolanaki,
    @Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

    Can you even upload things other than images to a Lemmy instance? I don’t see the point in worrying about illegal files being shared on the system if the system doesn’t support that kind of file sharing in the first place.

    Sanctus,
    @Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

    Which has me wondering why these moves make sense at all. So many people are jumping to the defense of a knee-jerk reaction to a 10h old troll account. Why was that the admins’ solution to a random post from a new account? Plus, pirate communities shared vast amounts of information and a lot of it is not directly related to piracy itself.

    theyawner,
    @theyawner@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s an elephant in the room. It’s an unavoidable topic that will eventually need to be addressed at some point.

    Sanctus,
    @Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

    Its literally not. Piracy topics are all over the web.

    theyawner,
    @theyawner@lemmy.world avatar

    Others have already pointed it out, but Reddit had to fight a subpoena to reveal users who discussed piracy on their site in 2011 and 2018. And just because everyone else is doing it is not a good argument to justify why this instance should expose themselves to an unnecessary risk.

    michaelmrose,

    Those communities aren’t even on lemmy.world.

    Sanctus,
    @Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

    So that tells me there is precedent for privacy?

    theyawner, (edited )
    @theyawner@lemmy.world avatar

    No. It just means Reddit managed to argue for their specific case. And even then they had to spend resources that a Lemmy instance owner might not have.

    obosob,
    @obosob@feddit.uk avatar

    Any specific infringement material (by which I mean media) would only be on the user’s home server. Links to content aren’t what is actionable for a DMCA notice as far as I’m aware. And the DMCA does not require platforms to actively monitor or remove potentially infringing content, only to follow the takedown procedure when sent an appropriate notification. If they follow that then they are protected from liability. That’s US law but IIRC the implementations in most of the rest of the world are similar if not the same. And here’s the rub: even without those communities, LW will still need to have a DMCA agent and take action against content when notified because people can and will upload infringing media here on other communities.

    They’re not exposing themselves to additional risk by having the piracy communities unblocked. People can and will discuss piracy, in abstract terms at the very least, all over the place. And discussion of copyright infringement is not copyright infringement anyway. Any liability and risk they do hold they will still have to worry about now regardless.

    mcherm,
    @mcherm@lemmy.world avatar

    The ad hominem criticism is irrelevant. The communities should be removed or not removed based on the server’s policies regardless of who first raised the question.

    SheeEttin,

    It’s not ad hominem to say someone is acting in bad faith.

    mp3,
    @mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

    Preemptive strike

    aka shoot and ask questions later

    kiwifoxtrot,
    @kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world avatar

    The content is hosted on lemmy.world - that’s how the fediverse works. Each instance pushes updates to other instances and they host it locally for their users. The issue is that the admins here can’t moderate a community not on their instance. So if an instance is located somewhere it is legal, it might not be legal at the location of another instance.

    drmoose,

    I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. It’s a cache. Is Cloudflare liable for hosting lib genesis then? Because cliudflare caches much worse stuff than copyrighted pictures and books.

    There’s a lot to talk about but afaik Section 230 that defines every website in US says that host is not responsible for user content and I honestly don’t see how big copyright could prosecute lemmy.world here that’s not even hosting data directly.

    DoomBot5,

    They could unsuccessfully prosecute lemmy.world. Of course it won’t really be unsuccessful if the instance folds from legal fees long before any verdict is reached.

    muddybulldog,

    It’s actually a “mirror” moreso than a cache. There’s a complete, distinct, URL for each piece of mirrored content, that points a specific server and is indexable by search engines independent of the original. Instances ARE hosting the data directly.

    lwadmin,
    @lwadmin@lemmy.world avatar

    Doesn’t matter if they are hosted here or not. The way federation works is that threads on different instances are cached locally.

    We have NO issues with the people at db0 - we are just looking out for ourselves in a ‘better safe than sorry’ fashion while we find out more. As mentioned in the OP we would like to unblock as soon as we know we can not get in any legal trouble.

    dimspace,
    @dimspace@lemmy.world avatar

    as far as i have seen (as a subscriber to c/piracy) there is no links to pirated content and they are very clear that that is not allowed

    the vast majority of the discussion is on morals of piracy, anti piracy measures, etc etc

    tcj,

    I feel like there should be a major distinction between caching remote content and hosting that content yourself. Does Cloudflare get in trouble every time the FBI seizes a site that used Cloudflare routing, CDN, or caching? Not as far as I’m aware.

    pankuleczkapl,

    Well, caching content is not the same as copying it. The major difference in the court would be that caching is automatic - and as such you are not in complete responsibility of what it is you copied. If you do everything in your power to comply with any DMCA notices, then I couldn’t realistically see lemmy.world being targeted. This is an analogous situation to eg. accidentally opening a website containing illegal content. Sure, your computer did download the contents to the RAM, but what matters is that you acted in good faith and did not attempt to get the contents, it just happened in the process of browsing the web and as such you could not reasonably expect to receive such content.

    Shazbot,

    Something that’s getting lost in this conversation is the nature of the infringement and what that means to the copyright holder. Memes could be considered a form of infringement, however in practice they often serve as free publicity. The intent is not to deprive the copyright holder of revenue, but use the medium to express themselves. Exposure increases, and so does the likelihood of revenue from the conversion of new fans.

    This changes with public conversations of piracy, because the nature of those conversations drift into how to deprive and evade the copyright holder by providing users just enough information to find pirated content. From a legal standpoint this can be used to prove aiding and abetting, a crime that be considered equal or an accessory to depending on the jurisdiction.

    The admins are aware of how Lemmy’s content caching works, and now publicly acknowledge the existence of their federation with dbzer0; whose piracy communities are its strongest asset. Any defense of ignorance is out the door. Without banning the communities LW becomes an accessory if dbzer0 becomes liable, as would any other instance who caches dbzer0’s c/piracy.

    To those who still disagree, that’s fine. Open your password manager, make some new accounts on other instances, enjoy the lemmyverse. But you have to agree that it is unreasonable to demand you hold the evidence of my crimes because it would inconvenience me otherwise.

    Crashumbc,

    Memes are protected under fair use doctrine as satire. Most places, IANAL.

    Shazbot,

    I am aware. My point is more to do with how the copyright holder perceives the actions of the individual(s). If the copyright holder feels the work brings more attention to their IP in a way can be converted into sales then they are less inclined to take legal action; even if some in the community may be openly pirating. Some however miss these opportunities thinking its just another instance of unlicensed usage.

    michaelmrose,

    So is discussion on the topic of piracy that doesn’t include actual links to content.

    WraithGear,
    @WraithGear@lemmy.world avatar

    Better defederate from all instances then.

    dialecticcake,

    Better to create your own instance then.

    It’s about reducing risk not eradicating it and there’s a huge difference in risk in being targeted for legal action due to hosting c/piracy (via caching/mirroring) than from a single piracy post in c/hellokitty.

    Shadesto,

    Complacency isn’t a legitimate defense against criminal activity and corporations are extremely litigious over piracy. Would you rather lemmy.world spend all their money on fighting lawsuits, or building a better instance?

    Any community that is creating questionable content should create their own instance and not seek open federation with the entire fediverse. That kind of behavior is reckless and counterproductive to what we’re trying to do here.

    pankuleczkapl,

    I am not suggesting lemmy.world should be “complacent” in this activity and keep the content after receiving any type of notice. If you host any website with content coming from users, you are not responsible for what they post, as long as you try to comply with the law and remove any offending content. In this case, complacency would be specifically allowing such content, and not merely not moderating harshly everything in they grey area.

    nan,

    In a world where Quad9 is in the middle of a giant lawsuit over simply serving DNS records, I can’t blame anybody for being extra cautious.

    BradleyUffner,

    Well, caching content is not the same as copying it.

    A cache is literally a local copy.

    Fighting legal challenges requires lawyers, even if you are in the right. Lawyers are crazy expensive.

    NOT_RICK,
    @NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

    Unless I’m missing something, you don’t need a lawyer to take down a post that you’ve received a DMCA removal request on.

    BradleyUffner,

    You do if you get sued because you missed something. It’s not like lemmy world can moderate every post from every server. Any single user can get any federated community’s content pulled locally just by subscribing.

    michaelmrose,

    The law in the US is that you aren’t responsible for what your users post unless you are specifically legally notified and furthermore the communities at issue don’t host links to infringing content they host discussions on the topic

    Necromnomicon,

    So by that logic, .world should defederate from all other instances, just to be safe?

    Maalus,

    Soo ultimately you personally will be the only person determining what people can and can’t see, based on your perception alone. You don’t like something, you’ll ban it. You worry about something, you’ll ban it. And there won’t be a trace without you saying “we banned something”. Which means there are no checks at all to you powertripping in the future. How is this supposed to be free, open and general then? This is even worse than reddit was.

    MothBookkeeper,

    You fucking donkey, did you read their comment before you replied to it? They aren’t doing it just because they want to; there are legal implications.

    Maalus,

    There really aren’t. Talking about piracy is allowed in Europe. Sharing stuff isn’t. This is a kneejerk reaction. Also, please don’t talk to people that way.

    MothBookkeeper,

    I will talk to rude people that harass the admins of a free service that way.

    Blaze,
    @Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    I see the point, but still no need to be agressive

    GodzillaFanboy129,

    Well by your logic maybe you should go kiss Reddit’s ass then if you feel that way, they’re hosting a free service and people criticize their decisions and reactivity.

    The fact that we fund this place with donations gives us all the more right to criticize them for it. Are you also going to attack people for ceasing their donations because after this I’ll never donate another cent to them ever again, and I encourage anyone else reading this to do the same.

    michaelmrose,

    Feel free to leave if this is how you talk to people

    GBU_28,

    Rude

    assassin_aragorn,

    Feel free to contractually agree to pay all their legal fees, in that case.

    Maalus,

    There won’t be any legal fees since the communities being talked about are allowed in the EU. Other people have made the same point already, but if you are scared of litigation, then you can’t host a forum at all. There is always a place where your forum breaks rules. I.e. no disparaging Putin in Russia. Making fun of the twitter CEO is more likely to get you a lawsuit than any of the communities mentioned, yet it is allowed. Also, it never is a straight up instantenous lawsuit. It always starts with communication saying “don’t do that anymore please”. Once you reject, then a lawsuit is viable and not frivolous. So you can wait till that happens and then block those communities, once a company actually complains. Not when you think that maybe somewhere in the future something might happen or maybe not.

    Truth is, lemmy is small fries. It will be that for a long time with the issues it has. Nobody cares about a tiny community hidden way deep inside.

    mysoulishome,
    @mysoulishome@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s so nice to see so many lawyers in this thread offering their legal counsel…it makes me feel very safe when I start hosting piracychat.doodad next week. I’m assuming they will all be willing to defend me if I do get sued since they are so sure I won’t. 😃

    mysoulishome,
    @mysoulishome@lemmy.world avatar

    Beehaw doesn’t have downvotes. DOESNT. HAVE. DOWNVOTES!!! HOW CAN THEY GET AWAY WITH TAKING AWAY DOWNVOTES FROM ME… WHAT RIGHT DO THEY HAVE???

    It doesn’t affect me at all because I don’t have an account there. But I’m real mad, see…

    GBU_28,

    It’s their house, you’re just visiting. If they are concerned, there’s no one else to help. If they get in trouble, will you be stepping in to help them? No.

    Maalus,

    Once you start hosting an instance that has open registration, it’s not just “their house” anymore. They are providing a service to people. They do so willingly. Arbitrairly blocking instances because you don’t know how something works and don’t bother to check it isn’t the way to host a free and open instance.

    GBU_28, (edited )

    Nah, their box, their responsibility, their rules. They could shut it off tomorrow, ban people randomly, change what posts are allowed, federate as they choose. We can’t do shit, and that’s fine cause we can each make our own instance or join another

    Edit Any assumption you have durable rights or privileges is just untrue.

    Yes, they offer access willingly, as in “at their will”

    Edit would a downvoter be able to refute me? Are we in some sort of contracted relationship with instance admins?

    michaelmrose,

    They CAN do all of those things but people would be right to critique them for it. Freedom isn’t freedom from criticism or complaint. Furthermore they want this to be a functional community as much as their users do which is why this discussion even exists.

    GBU_28,

    That doesn’t refute anything I said. Their house, their rules.

    You can criticize mom for setting a bedtime, but you must go to bed.

    michaelmrose,

    The discussion is not whether they can set those rules its should they and should we keep participating

    GBU_28,

    Regarding your first point, there is no discussion, they can do whatever they want, they are omnipotent on that.

    Regarding your second, that’s absolutely fair game.

    michaelmrose,

    Once you start hosting an instance that has open registration, it’s not just “their house” anymore. They are providing a service to people. They do so willingly. Arbitrairly blocking instances because you don’t know how something works and don’t bother to check it isn’t the way to host a free and open instance.

    You seem to be uniquely bad at reading so this is comment is the start of this subthread you originally replied to. Nobody ever suggested they COULDN’T implement any rule they please. It was never a point anyone brought up for you to be refuting. It is literally you dishonestly trying to steer the discussion away from the actual point of discussing SHOULD they.

    GBU_28,

    No, I discussed a facet of the larger concept, which requires basic critical thinking to acknowledge.

    I am not obligated to address all features of the topic, and that is not dishonest.

    Edit I specifically refuted the topic of “once you host, it’s not your house”. Bullshit. It’s 100% their house and that’s the end of the line.

    CaptainEffort,

    Discussing piracy isn’t illegal. It would be one thing if they were hosting pirated content, but they don’t even link to anything.

    If that were to change I’d understand the decision, but this just seems silly to me.

    nickhammes,

    What needs to happen for you to be confident you won’t get in legal trouble, and thus unblock them? Change on the db0 side? Lemmy.world admins getting legal representation/advice? Something else? I’m curious how you all see this playing it out in the future.

    dojan,
    @dojan@lemmy.world avatar

    Highly doubt there’s anything db0 can do. lemmy.world is in Europe, piracy has hefty legal ramifications.

    Like you could argue that it isn’t piracy all you want, but if faced with the possibility of your hobby landing you decades in prison and millions in debt, would you do it?

    Just create an account at db0, this really isn’t the big deal people make it out to be.

    pankuleczkapl,
    @pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Not all of Europe. In most parts (especially Eastern Europe) the most you will get is a slap on the wrist if you are really really unlucky. And decades in prison aren’t a thing anywhere for simply sharing links to pirated content.

    dojan,
    @dojan@lemmy.world avatar

    No one thinks of Eastern Europe as European beyond geography, excepting perhaps Eastern Europeans themselves.

    Prison notwithstanding, financial ruin is a definite possibility.

    People are making a mountain out of a molehill over this. The instance owner doesn’t want to risk any legal issues over hosting this instance, and I get that. Just create an account on db0 and use that. It’s not a big deal.

    Instance admin isn’t some big corporation trying to silence your free speech. He’s just a dude that doesn’t want his hobby to bite him in the arse.

    nitefox,

    I don’t think I ever heard of a case where somebody has been condemned for piracy in Italy; I also know plenty of people who torrents/stream, yet none who uses a VPN to do so.

    In Germany though, afaik, they are quite insane with their anti-piracy laws.

    michaelmrose,

    It would be preferable if you would lie less. Evil pirate uploads potentially_infringing.mp3 to to filehost. Filehost actually serves potentially_infringing.mp3, a community on db0 hosts a link to potentially_infringing.mp3, lemmy.world caches locally a copy of data from db0. Of those the one guy directly uploading the information is at risk of an extremely unlikely single digit thousands of dollars.

    Nobody not even evil pirate himself is at risk of decades in prison or millions in debt. Companies responsibility basically ends at taking stuff down when specifically notified of infringing content.

    michaelmrose,

    Your argument is that user hosts infringing_song.mp3 on file_host, a community on lemmy.ml has a link to filehost and lemmy.world has a cached copy of the text containing the link to lemmy.ml which has a link to filehost and you think lemmy.world has legal exposure?

    veniasilente,

    We have NO issues with the people at db0 - we are just looking out for ourselves in a ‘better safe than sorry’ fashion while we find out more. As mentioned in the OP we would like to unblock as soon as we know we can not get in any legal trouble.

    Words are empty, offers are void in Nebraska. You already took steps against people who simply mostly discuss piracy. What concrete steps can you take now to show that you’d actually unblock “as soon as we know”?

    ComfortablyGlum,

    “we are just looking out for ourselves in a ‘better safe than sorry’ fashion while we find out more.”

    This is an unfortunate aspect of individuals/small groups housing the fediverse vs big companies. Big companies have lawyers and the capital to back them, individuals do not.

    If I was in your shoes, I’d do the same thing. I appreciate your wish for thus to be temporary. I hope you will share your findings once you come to a final decision; information like this is relevant to all those managing servers.

    Hildegarde,

    Lemmy.world maintains a local copy of every external community. This is how federation works. Any piracy related posts on those subs will be copied in their entirety to lemmy.world servers, so lemmy.world could potentially be sued for hosting that content. Being the largest instance makes it a target.

    It is rare to get advanced notice of legal problems. Usually the first you hear about it is a cease and desist, or a lawsuit. Lawsuits are costly to defend even if you’re doing nothing wrong.

    I don’t like this decision. But it is a sensible one to protect the instance. If you care about piracy discussions you can visit those communities directly or on a different instance that made a different decision.

    Mubelotix,
    @Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

    There is no suing for that, talking about piracy is perfectly legal. That’s called freedom of speech for your information

    void_wanderer,

    One link in one discussion that slips through is basically enough.

    Mubelotix,
    @Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

    No it shouldn’t. If it does with your law, tell me your country and I’ll come help you throw the government once we are done with ours in my country

    Crashumbc,

    ROFL…

    GBU_28,

    Don’t you have school in the morning? Straight to bed mister

    Buffalox,

    To encourage and aid in crimes is not covered by free speech in most countries like all of EU. And Lemmy.world is in Finland AFAIK.

    Hildegarde,

    Anyone can sue anyone for anything. All it takes to have a lawsuit is to submit a filing fee to a court, and someone to serve the papers.

    There are many lawsuits that are baseless. There are many lawsuits that are frivolous. If your instance is on the receiving end of one of these lawsuits you will have pay for a lawyer to defend yourself regardless of the merits of the case.

    Courts don’t proactively decide whether someone can or cannot be sued.

    majere,

    The great thing is, now you’re 100% empowered to move forward and host the responsibility yourself. Demanding volunteers shoulder potential liability (when you yourself admit you can’t understand how there’s any in the first place) is juvenile.

    The moment a volunteer is hit with a DMCA notice or any threat of legal action, you think they have any interest in going through the court system? You can do it first.

    conciselyverbose,

    I agree with the point, but US-wise, especially if you aren't even the site actually as the source of truth for the community, you almost definitely don't go to court unless you counterclaim. If you get a claim and nuke the offending communities in response (assuming you don't have tools to block specific posts in the communities, but that would also work), you have protections built in.

    Blaze,
    @Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    Lemmyworld is hosted in Germany, they have agressive anti-piracy laws

    hydra,

    Wasn’t it hosted in Finland? Or have things changed?

    Blaze,
    @Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    It’s both Finland and Germany iirc

    pankuleczkapl,

    I think you don’t understand what a DMCA notice actually is. The whole point of it is to give you a chance to remove offending content. The “threat” of legal action won’t actually result in anything, provided you comply, and that is exactly why I do not understand the preemptive actions, when there is basically no such thing as immediate legal threat in case of DMCA notices. The copyright holders often do not want to go through the court system either and will gladly accept pre-legal-action compliance.

    Deftdrummer,

    Exactly. Those hosting lemmyworld want to bear the burden of fostering Internet discussion and the institutions pertaining to the Internet therein, but don’t dare get close to anything that could threaten the envisioned unencumbered utopia they want it to be.

    Reality: DMCA takedown requests are a part of Internet life and have no legal consequence. - If they are even received in the first place.

    AlmightySnoo,
    @AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

    You seem to know your way around the law then, so please be the change you want to see in this world. Host a piracy instance and show everyone here that we were wrong and that the admins were just overreacting.

    Squander,

    Be the change you want to see -should be the catchphrase specifically for lemmy trolls

    PeleSpirit,

    There are so many attacking lemmy world it’s getting ridiculous.

    WraithGear,
    @WraithGear@lemmy.world avatar

    Criticism is not attacking. They made an unpopular decision for a flimsy reason. Its their right to do it, just like its their right to be wrong about it. But if they can’t handle mild criticism, then maybe hosting a lemmy instance was a bad idea.

    I think lemmy world will be fine with mildly annoyed comments and a bunch of down votes.

    pankuleczkapl,

    I can openly admit I am breaking the law for example by using torrents for piracy - and I seed as much as I can, though it in theory makes me liable. So yes, I am the change I want to see - piracy should be free to discuss everywhere

    AlmightySnoo,
    @AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

    You can go further: host a piracy instance since you seem confident enough and prove us wrong. Why are you avoiding this part? I’m not the only one having suggested this to you.

    pankuleczkapl,

    And here you are (after fighting with docker for an hour) pankuleczka.ydns.eu

    HaywardT,

    Server address not found.

    pankuleczkapl,

    Sure, if someone uses it then it’s no problem for me. There are much bigger communities already out there though, so I see no reason to do that. I’ll set it up right now to show you

    Earthwormjim91,

    It doesn’t really have anything to do with DMCA (a US law). Lemmy world is hosted in Germany which is even harsher on copyright than the US with much stricter penalties.

    The world doesn’t revolve around the US.

    pankuleczkapl,

    It does have a lot with DMCA. Maybe not specifically the DMCA, but all the relevant regulations all around the world that are equivalent to DMCA because of copyright treaties. And yes, while you are right about Germany being more dangerous in terms of piracy (mainly because of copyright trolls), the relevant authority handling the case could very well be the USA court system.

    benjihm,

    The power of the panopticon lies not in being able to see and punish all deviant activity, but to encourage self-correction in all potential deviants who must always assume they are being watched.

    echo64,

    I think you don’t understand what a DMCA notice actually is. The whole point of it is to give you a chance to remove offending content.

    it really isn’t, the whole point is to streamline the capability for copyright holders to remove content they think they have rights to, without a lengthy court cases. it’s still a lot of overhead for any service to manage and also still opens you up to legal action.

    pankuleczkapl,

    From DMCA.com:

    The document stipulates the content that has been stolen and republished without permission with a request for removal. It must be created and submitted in a specific manner so as to comply with the law. Failure to do so means the “notice” to remove the content will not be followed by any party involved in the infringement.

    In exchange for the immediate removal of the content the publisher receives safe harbor from litigation regarding the illegal publication of copyrighted content.

    echo64,

    Yes those are the words defining the initial safe harbor agreement well done.

    I’m talking about in practice and how the dmca has actually been used. Why do you think companies like youtube entirely sidestep the dmca? They do it because the dmca is a huge drain on resources and still opens you up to litigation if you make any mistakes (like not working on the weekends for your volunteered lemmy instance that suddenly got 10,000 dmca requests from Sony pictures)

    Crashumbc,

    You’re fighting a famous “intent warrior” you can’t win. They exist only in their own head where they can’t lose and don’t have an idea how things really work…

    gabe,

    Please make announcements on lemmy instead of exclusively on discord moving forward. That is the biggest issue here, the lack of public transparency. Such a decision affects all instances, not just lemmy.world and making it publicly known is important

    lwadmin,
    @lwadmin@lemmy.world avatar

    This was a misunderstanding from one of the team members. It has since been discussed and will not happen again. Lemmy.World and this announcement community is our primary platform,

    Blaze,
    @Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    Thank you for this

    remotelove,

    Speaking of removed communities, can an admin respond to this please: lemmy.world/post/3165787

    Zuberi,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    M0oP0o,

    Why are the thank you posts getting upthings when they provide no substance? I mean the tone above is not very nice but at least it highlights the need for migration tools.

    Dio,

    Haha, damn.

    gabe,

    Thank you. It is appreciated.

    TrickDacy,

    Misunderstanding eh?

    Kbobabob,

    Yeah. You misunderstood that they are liars.

    Martineski,
    @Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Aged like milk.

    Nobilmantis,
    @Nobilmantis@feddit.it avatar

    Just another misunderstanding bro

    FlihpFlorp,

    Are we raising posts from the dead?

    Secret300,

    Definitely think you should allow them again. Obviously not on your instance but restricting access to other instances is just not right. I do understand the concern though, I really hope in the end you realllow them.

    spez_,

    Stop blocking things. Piracy is ethical

    Jarix,

    You gonna pay for their lawyers to fight that fight?

    DharkStare, (edited )

    Reading all these comments it’s clear that a lot of people have unrealistic ideas regarding what Lemmy and the Fediverse are supposed to be (or maybe it’s me with weird ideas).

    The Fediverse is just a bunch of apps that can all communicate with each other through a shared protocol. There is no requirement for them to be free speech platforms or host everything. The whole purpose of defederation supports the idea that instances are free to associate or disassociate with whichever instances they want. Furthermore, nearly every guide I read on joining Lemmy state that you should choose instances to join based on shared ideals/beliefs.

    For everyone saying “I’m leaving lemmy.world” I say “Good. That’s what you’re supposed to do.” When the instance you join no longer aligns with what you want, you go to another instance and then you’ll be back to viewing all the communities you want to see. That is what the Fediverse is all about and how it’s designed.

    tlit341569,

    please guide me which instances are more open/uncensored?

    GodzillaFanboy129,

    Unilem.org, though it is application registration (for obvious reasons).

    M0oP0o,

    I think the issue is that .world has put itself forward as some sort of super lemmy. The landing page for new users. I agree people should move but also that we do kinda need a superish lemmy, but one that maybe has all the good and bad. Would it make any sense to have an instance that has no communities of its own but also has all the instances?

    DharkStare,

    Honestly, I feel like self-hosting a single user instance is the ideal way to use the Fediverse. It gives you full control over what you see. However, that would require self hosting to become so simple anyone can do it.

    muddybulldog,

    The risk, however, is that you’re going to be potentially liable for things that you DON’T see but are hosting due to federation.

    M0oP0o,

    I don’t think it is so difficult but I also think that would lessen the depth and breadth of lemmy as a whole by limiting full participation behind self hosting.

    PriorProject, (edited )

    I think the issue is that .world has put itself forward as some sort of super lemmy.

    Citation needed. All the admins of lemmy world ever purported to do was host a well-run general-purpose (aka not topic-oriented) lemmy instance. It was and remains that, and part of being a well-run general purpose instance is managing legal risk when a small subset of the community generates an outsized portion of it.

    Being well run meant that they scaled up and remained operational during the first reddit migration wave. People appreciated that, but continuing to function does not amount to a declaration of being a super lemmy.

    World also has kept signups open through good times, and more recently bad. Other instances at various times shut down signups or put irritating steps and purity tests along the way. Keeping signups open is a pretty bare-minimum bar for running a service though, it is again not a declaration of being a super-lemmy.

    Essentially lemmy world just… kept working (until recently when it has done a pretty poor job of that). I dunno where you found a declaration that lemmy world is a super-lemmy, but it’s not coming from the lemmy world admins, it’s likely randos spouting off.

    M0oP0o,

    The advertisement and push they did on sites like reddit and their listing on join-lemmy.org (when they where still listed) made them the biggest instance. And with the name Lemmy.world they did nothing to dissuade anyone from thinking that. If this was all randos pushing the instance then boo to them, but I also saw nothing from .world not claiming to be the bigger instance(super lemmy)

    PriorProject, (edited )

    … advertisement and push they did on sites like reddit…

    The lemmy world admins advertised on Reddit? Can you link an example?

    … their listing on join-lemmy.org…

    Until recently EVERY lemmy instance was listed on join-lemmy.

    And with the name Lemmy.world they did nothing to dissuade anyone from thinking that.

    They run a family of servers under the world tld, including at least mastodon, lemmy, and calckey. They’re all named similarly.

    I also saw nothing from .world not claiming to be the bigger instance(super lemmy)

    They ARE the biggest instance, but that happened organically. It’s not based on any marketing claims from the admin team about being a flagship/super/mega/whatever instance. People just joined, and the admins didn’t stop them (nor should they). It’s not a conspiracy to take over lemmy. It’s just an instance that… until recently… happened to work pretty well when some were struggling.

    AustralianSimon,
    @AustralianSimon@lemmy.world avatar

    If people leave to run their own piracy lemmy depending on where they host it they will probably get raided and have no lemmy.

    The commenter obviously don’t understand that at lemmy.world it hosts copies of content outside its instance which is why you block communities if you don’t defend the whole instance.

    assassin_aragorn,

    If people leave to run their own piracy lemmy depending on where they host it they will probably get raided and have no lemmy.

    The “FAFO” approach

    pankuleczkapl,
    @pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    I can host an instance. I don’t care about “raiding”. If you get raided, it means you have not properly separated your online and real identities.

    AustralianSimon,
    @AustralianSimon@lemmy.world avatar

    Well, for starters if we looked at lemmy.dbzer0.com we can see the domain is held by tucows which is based in Canada which are a copyright protection friendly country. Sure the server is hosted on njalla.net which is based in Sweden. How hard do you think it would be for the FBI to gain the info they needed to:

    1. Figure out who pays the bills and owns the server?
    2. Get a copy of the server data for analysis?

    The only way to resist this would be to host your instance on the darknet with good sec even then that is not 100%.

    pankuleczkapl,
    @pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Again, if you properly separate your identities, than the answer to both questions is simply impossible, since you are not the one figuring on the bill. The only thing they can achieve is link you to some IP behind 2 VPNs and 5 proxies, good luck to them if they want to dig through all that while avoiding you noticing and simply deleting all data from one of them making you completely separated from any illegal activity.

    pankuleczkapl,
    @pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    And why do you think so many cyber crimes are left unsolved? The authorities know that sometimes it is not worth going after some even semi-major criminal if they know what they are doing.

    PropaGandalf,

    Sure but currently switching is a huge pain in the ass as you cant really take over your posts not to mention the migration of your communities which is currently impossible. So all the people saying somwthing like “just switch to another instance” tend to forget that this isn’t really possible at the moment.

    DharkStare,

    Do you have to take your posts with you? I’ve seen people mention this before but I don’t understand why that’s such a big deal. I do agree about the communities though and feel that there needs to be an easy way to export your subscriptions so they can be imported on another account.

    PropaGandalf,

    I like to have a history of my posts linked directly to my account. It’s what I contributed to the community and I’d like it to be a part of my profile.

    joe, (edited )
    @joe@lemmy.world avatar

    Uh, @lwadmin … what’s up with the banning going on in this thread? I noticed on a.lemmy.org that someone was labeled “banned” and their comment was simply “Ight, I’m out”

    The mod note was “Let us help you”.

    There are more similarly weak (spiteful?) bans that certainly don’t seem to be at a standard for a ban. “Litterally 1984” was another one. Is that all it takes to be banned here?

    Edit: Many (all?) the users I referenced as banned are now unbanned from the site, but now banned from this community.

    Weslee,

    The next Reddit/Lemmy is going to be ran by AI lol, us humans are too easily corrupted by power

    M0oP0o,

    Yeahhhh, please leave reddit (they still run ads there for this instance) for lemmy.

    I guess they wanted people to feel at home?

    M0oP0o,

    Just wondering and looking at the mod log for one admin and maybe I am crazy but are they unbanning and rebaning users? (Keep in mind it goes new on top):

    • admin Banned @snake from the community Lemmy.world Announcements reason: troll
    • admin Unbanned @snake
    • admin Banned @soviettaters from the community Lemmy.world Announcements reason: Troll
    • admin Unbanned @soviettaters
    • admin Unbanned @ilfi
    • admin Removed Comment Spineless pieces of shit. by @sused reason: toxic
    • admin Banned @sused reason: Bye
    • admin Banned@ilfi reason: Inactive account comes back to troll. Bye
    joe,
    @joe@lemmy.world avatar

    They’re unbanning them from a sitewide ban and then immediately banning them from the lemmyworld community.

    gabe,

    What in the hell?

    gabe,

    The “ight I’m out” ban note was… hm. Not a great look. Comes across as petty and vindictive.

    Mubelotix,
    @Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

    Where I live we use guillotines on power abusers

    Agamemnon,
    @Agamemnon@lemmy.world avatar

    Where I moderate, even implied death threats are a zero-warnings bannable offense.

    joe,
    @joe@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m not here to defend that guy, but since you offered this stance, what do you think about JFK’s quote

    Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

    Is that an “implied” death threat?

    This isn’t a gotcha; I’m just curious at your personal opinion.

    Agamemnon,
    @Agamemnon@lemmy.world avatar

    Is that an “implied” death threat?

    It’s not. Where are you going with this argument?

    joe,
    @joe@lemmy.world avatar

    Precisely nowhere-- I have seen that quote get people banned for advocating violence, and I think that’s pretty crazy; I semi-randomly ask people who moderate this question. I promise there’s no gotcha here.

    What about a “Four Boxes” reference?

    Agamemnon,
    @Agamemnon@lemmy.world avatar

    I had to look up what that even is, because I haven’t encountered that one before. (me not being US-American)

    I cannot make a call on a reference to a quote brought forth on an unspecified subject without context.

    In regards to JFK - yes that would count as advocating violence in a very generalised sense. But without context, again, I am not able to make a call, whether a ban on someone making the quote is justified or not. In general, moderation policy also falls under freedom of expression. Consequently, freedom of speech is not a claimable right against non-governmental agents. It’s a thing that a lot of people seem to selectively overlook when advocating for what would actually be better described as “Anarchy of speech”.

    joe,
    @joe@lemmy.world avatar

    Please don’t misunderstand. Even the government (US, in my case) doesn’t have unrestricted free speech, and that’s a good thing. We agree here. I even would say that the line as it is currently set in America is “too broad” and that we need to tweak it down a bit. We fail to acknowledge that stochastic terrorism is a thing, in our speech laws, and it essentially makes it completely legal to do as long as you remain sufficiently coded/vague.

    If you don’t mind humoring me one more time, feel free to weigh in on my questions, again, but assuming the quotes were both made in context; that is to say, JFK quote for a scenario where peaceful revolution was being restricted, and four boxes (which, in my mind, comes a little too close to the line) in a scenario where people were losing their ability to weigh in on their government actions via speech, voting, and juries.

    I can’t seem to articulate, even to myself, why the JFK quote is generally (in my mind) considered non-violent, but the four boxes one (again, in my mind) is more threatening. I’m hoping random internet polling will lead to some insight. haha

    Agamemnon,
    @Agamemnon@lemmy.world avatar

    No problem, it’s nice to have a level-headed exchange amidst an ongoing tornado of sewage :)

    So, I can try to empathize with either side (mods and users) for each of the two quotes, and there might be scenarios where one is completely right and one is wrong. But as an outsider to the kind of debates where these quotes are commonly used, I simply don’t have the cultural understanding to help much with answering your question. Sorry.

    Drawing the arch back to my initial statement: There are several levels of escalation present between utilising famous people quotes to make a general point and trying to dodge around community rules by veiling direct threats to a specified (inferred from context) group. I am of the opinion that the guillotine-comment I replied to is definitely stepping over the line and only remains standing, because right now additional enforcement of rules is (probably) not going to improve the weather situation mentioned above.

    joe,
    @joe@lemmy.world avatar

    There are worse, imo.

    user @snake posted:

    Did you ever consider ceding ownership of the instance to an entity with greater legal capabilities?

    In the end, it will not make sense to try to keep this instance running if the owners are unable to provide adequate service to its users.

    and was banned for:

    reason: Go get your service somewhere else

    Definitely not a great look.

    sramder,
    @sramder@lemmy.world avatar

    Ehhhh… the other two comment/bans seem a tad vindictive. This on the other had seems to have a different tone to me. It’s thinly veiled criticism and almost feels like a threat, especially if someone has been DDOSing your server for weeks.

    Earthwormjim91,

    How fuckin childish.

    Are you paying anything for this service? No. It has costs to maintain while they’re shouldering that on their own and giving you this service for free.

    Get over yourself. The entire point of the fediverse is that anyone can host an instance. You can spin up a little free instance yourself and federate or defederate/block anything you see fit.

    Why don’t you? I’m gonna guess because you want a low effort, free service to get your scrolling fix. In which case, they’re right. Go to a different instance that suits your values more. If you want an instance that won’t defederate or block others unless absolutely necessary, go join Lemm.ee. They federate with basically everyone and don’t block hardly anything.

    And, Lemmy world is federated with them. So you won’t lose a single thing here if you move there.

    zabil,

    Is it really childish to quote what someone else said and question it? Seems like quite an overreaction on your behalf to be honest.

    DarkWasp,

    If that comment is truly the reason the person was banned that’s unacceptable and makes me wonder about the viability of this as a platform. Even if you move instances you need to create a brand new account with username, history etc it’s not the easiest transition.

    gabe,

    Lemmy.world admins, I am truly asking you to please reflect on how bad this looks. It honestly makes you seem like you can’t handle criticism and if people get that vibe they will use it to absolutely fuck with you. I know from my own personal experience. I understand that you’re volunteers but this is a step in a very bad direction that will only serve to cause more issues.

    foggy,

    Agree.

    This decisions seems emotionally driven. That will not work on the internet.

    You created rules. Use your rules to make your decisions. Don’t use your emotions.

    It won’t only bring the site into disarray, it will bring you moderators and your emotional states into disarray.

    Make your rules as black and white as poasible. where grayness raises, create new rules.

    Haui,
    @Haui@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    Can someone please post this stuff on lemmy world in its own thread? This needs to be brought to attention.

    The people responsible for this need to then either concede that they have done wrong, leave or otherwise be made to leave.

    CrypticVader,
    @CrypticVader@lemmy.world avatar

    I think some of this instance’s admins are not onboard with the rest. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

    joe,
    @joe@lemmy.world avatar

    Well the radio silence on it sure seems like they’re circling the wagons to protect an admin that clearly isn’t emotionally mature enough to be in such a position.

    ricdeh,
    @ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

    I hope that this demonstrates to people that the oppressive reddit behaviour is not confined to special individuals (such running major social media sites), but is a systematic occurance in online forums. Simply switching from one toxically moderated space to another is not a solution. But this is where the strength of ActivityPub/fediverse lies: we are able to leave for another server while still using the same fundamental service and being able to interact with the same content as before. I would recommend startrek.website as a new or second home for those who wish to migrate.

    joe,
    @joe@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m probably being overly cynical, but I have a pretty unflattering option of volunteer moderators and the type of people that seek out such seemingly thankless positions-- and their motivations for doing so. I know this might seem-- bizarre-- considering where I am posting this, but I think it nonetheless.

    I like lemmy because there’s a modlog to see these things. I do not believe that these users would be unbanned if it hadn’t been noticed in the modlog. And it appears they’re unbanned from the sitewide ban, but still banned in the community. Not sure what sense that makes.

    If your instance gets big enough, you’ll also have to deal with petty tyrants seeking out positions of petty power.

    masterspace,

    If you’re going to ban piracy you should also ban all pro copyright communities and comments, it’s only fair.

    aldalire,

    grabs popcorn

    • me, a lemmy.dbzer0.com native
    DoucheBagMcSwag,

    Yeeeep. I stopped using my LW account once you people simped to Facebook federation.

    nickknack, (edited )

    removed again wtf

    turkishdelight,

    lemmy.world has become reddit.

    TGhost,
    @TGhost@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Thats why you all should chose an another instance.

    CliveRosfield,

    Fucking retarded. Why wasn’t there a community census in this at least?

    applejacks,
    @applejacks@lemmy.world avatar

    be careful, soon they’ll start banning you for using no no words

    KrisND,

    Because it’s not us who have to pay the bills and handle the legal issues?

    CliveRosfield,

    By that logic we better disable images altogether because someone might link an image of the Eiffel Tower at night since that’s illegal and the instance owners might have to pay legal bills hurr durr

    KrisND,

    I’m seriously thinking your post was meant as a joke. There is so much information in these comments already about piracy. Your on a completely separate area and obviously not familiar with laws. Check out google.

    The crime of taking a photo has nothing to do with piracy.

    CliveRosfield,

    You missed the point but that’s ok

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