The admins (and all the fediverse really) could more clearly state that everything on this site is basically public.
To an extent - lets not forget that a bunch of identifying information is visible to admins, not to users, not publicly. Which is why a privacy policy (such as the one on lemmy.world) is so important, and why it would seem so frustrating when basic legal practices are functionally ignored. What’s the difference between a random troll sending cease and desists out, and a certain corrupt POS Texas AG requesting all the folks who have ever commented that they were trans? Both can be completely and utterly unfounded, and yet still bring you into a lengthy court battle.
because if their risk is anything greater than downloading a videogame without paying, some guy in another country reaching out to a lawyer for an hour is not likely to provide them relief. I don’t like that, but is the reality. The site should improve on making the users aware of that reality.
I have to disagree there, because competency comes into play. Speaking to a lawyer and being aware of how to say “No” properly is important. Knowing how to document bad requests and bad faith actors. Having someone you can reach out to and follow-up with for an unsubstantiated nonsense request from a hate monger is important.
Rolling over immediately and preemptively making decisions on unrelated communities however… that doesn’t provide me with warm and fuzzies.
It would also be great that people with expertise in legal affairs, like you seem to be, volunteered to carry on that job, like the admins carry the technical job voluntary. But not them nor you or anybody should be forced to do so. Exclusively the users up in arms almost demanding piracy free-for-all content, are showing unjust entitlement and misunderstanding about how the fediverse works.
To be clear here - I am not a lawyer. I have run forums before (and I can guarantee the issues around piracy and illegal materials that are bound to be posted have not changed), I worked with lawyers, I carried general liability insurance, etc. These aren’t specialty things, this is what basic operations looks like.
Exclusively the users up in arms almost demanding piracy free-for-all content, are showing unjust entitlement and misunderstanding about how the fediverse works.
I don’t think I’ve seen any of that personally. I’m one of the people who called out an admin for not actually talking to a lawyer though - and frankly I think they should have done that months and months ago. Even just to have found someone available who could provide services as needed.