No need to stop using LW. I’ve got three accounts on different instances plus kbin. Oh, and I fifth on if you count my nsfw login. Partitioning your online life is nbd, really. And the fediverse makes it easy.
Sopuli was my original instance from before I knew what the Fediverse was but however they have their server set federated community discovery has been broken from the beginning. World is my reddit migration account and I moderate a couple of communities there. I really like some of the communities on Beehaw, and they defederated pretty quickly from just about anyone with more than a few users, so I got an account there. Kbin didn’t seem to work as well cross-federation so…number 4. And I use a different handle for NSFW. It would be nice to have an app for aggregating usernames across instances, but I much of my browsing from desktop so it’s really nbd.
Situations like these are the strength of the fediverse. Move your account to an instance that shares your values or doesn’t care about stuff like this.
Maybe you shouldn’t even have had your account on the largest server to begin with?
Edit: Didn’t mean to ridicule any of you all. I based my comment on my experience when I signed up. At that time there were plenty of instances to pick from and getting approved at my instance of choice was very quick. My bad.
One benefit the Fediverse has over a centralized site is that, as long as you set the same display name and avatar, most people will recognize you after a migration. For example, I know a few fellow Lemmygrad guys who have alternate, identical Lemmy.ml accounts for posting on instances that block Lemmygrad, and you can’t even tell which account they’re using unless you visit their page.
It was the only server that was accepting when I joined. I still have applications at a few, but never got approved. Signed up on startrek.website yesterday. I was motivated by the ddos more than any thing else.
Maybe you shouldn’t even have had your account on the largest server to begin with?
Some of us made our accounts on lemmy.world within a week(?) of its creation when it was tiny (June 5 for me). Doesn’t stop it from belonging on mildly infuriating
A strength and a weakness. The strength, as you say, is being able to move to a different instance. However, the weakness is that Lemmy (the software) requires each instance to keep a copy of every federated post for its users to interact with. This means they have to host (and be legally liable for) data that they can’t police beyond blocking the community / instance.
Maybe you shouldn’t even have had your account on the largest server to begin with?
To give credit where it’s due, when the big Reddit migration happened many instances could not handle the influx of migrating users. Some people might have only had .world as an option.
Situation still sucks tho. Hope upcoming Lemmy updates make moving accounts between instances easier.
Situations like these are the strength of the fediverse. Move your account to an instance that shares your values or doesn’t care about stuff like this.
its not a bug, its a feature! the faceless admins get to tell you watch content you can get now, not a faceless corporations! its so good that all the instances are starting a war with each other over the content they host because it means we have the choice of who gets to decide what content we like to see!.
I can sense the sarcasm of your post, yet the words you’ve written are actually true. This is exactly what decentralisation is all about. on some other websites you might lose access to the content entirely, on the fediverse you can just go there direct and still get all of the content, nobody can ever take that away from you except for the people who manage that content.
That’s literally the main selling point of this kind of setup. Nobody, faceless or otherwise, can stop you accessing any of the content.
I went with lemmy world so i could catch the widest net in content. And up till now i agreed with the reasoning of the other defederating.s But it seems like it won’t take much to provoke more restrictions. Guess i will have to lurk in other shores.
I don’t remember where it was for me, but I do remember it being the hop-on point for me into Lemmy because it was already well populated, so I figured it meant “good”. Now that I understand lemmy better, I’ve realized I don’t need to patron it anymore - there are better instances for me. I suspect that this is a good thing that something is causing users to move. I’m sure .world is the face of fediverse, or at least lemmy, for many at this point and will continue to grow in user base. Maybe losing users on the back end will satisfy the DDOS attackers, and also lighten the load while .world’s admin get it figured out.
on the mastodon side at least quite a few people started off on mastodon.social and migrated over to smaller instances (or in some cases migrated to entirely different software families like pleroma or misskey)
i’d go as far as to say (jokingly ofc) that you aren’t a true member of the fediverse if you didn’t migrate at least once
It’s so easy to change instances, and there are extensions and things to export/import your subscriptions, etc. Just head over to one ones that’s hosting the content, or check out others to see if they will keep federated with the pirate communities. Make the same username, and most won’t even know that you’re posting from a different instance. You can still see everything you did before, just also possibly some other stuff. You might also get beehaw and hexbear (for better or for worse is up to you)! I feel like I might hop instances a few more times before I settle.
Okay, you’re not on Reddit anymore where things are just easy because they spent time to figure it out. Fediverse is just a fledging group of sites that are getting an influx of users, while still trying to figure out both their instance, and cooperative rules that fit both their values and the wants/needs of their users. You want a well oiled machine, jump back into the mainstream where they use your data to personalize the adds they place between all the things you want to see. Or, you can go with the flow as this new ecosystem forms, sans ads, and free of data collection.
I highly recommend opening a lurking account in one of the NSFW instances. They are probably some of the fastest, most progressive and best funded instances on Lemmy. You do not have to browse the NSFW content.
I don’t think that makes sense if you’re worried about defederation. Porn instances are particularly at risk of being defederated from (and thus you potentially can’t interact with large communities).
Why would the user be able to sue? Unless they thought their work was being infringed (in which case why they wouldn’t send a dmca?) I don’t see what possible standing they’d have.
Not only that, it was a brand new account on a totally different Lemmy instance that demanded lemmy.world admins remove piracy related communities.
Honestly it seems like lemmy.world admins were trolled by some random throwaway account and took the bait.
EDIT: The post in question in case others haven’t seen it lemmy.world/post/3175920, a new account from lemm.ee makes their first & only post in lemmy.world demanding that they defederate & remove anything piracy related.
Understandable reason but there is not one illegally shared file in these communities. What’s next, watching a John Wick movie makes me a murderer now?
That’s just lemmy.world servers having their usual issues loading. Though it is kind of amusing, a lemmy.world user going to lemm.ee to view a lemmy.world post, federation is funny that way :P
They should have asked them to change their rules instead. Sharing DL links can get the admin in trouble. LueLinks had to do away with it at one point too, and they were primo pirate site back in the day. I think reddit had r/piracy and other subs change their rules - the one that had links to mushroom spore sellers (forgot the name) had to stop sharing links to sellers that sold magic mushroom spores (not an illegal thing to do). It’s tough, but admin made guiding rules, and that breaks one of them. Plus, if it’s on their server, it could be admins head on the chopping block.
It was inevitable and it’s not their fault. Because of how the Fediverse works it means they’re storing all content from those communities on their servers too. This means they’re storing piracy content and can be subject to a takedown.
We knew larger instances would defederate from piracy communities at some point, don’t take it out on the admins.
The communities discuss piracy, not host the content. They are two different things.
The user that requested it was a troll account create dhours before. The same user then went on to create a transphobic community and post hate. Not the sort of person the admins should be knee jerking to.
The Pirate Bay also doesn’t host content, just links to torrents. Why has it been taken down then several times already?
When you directly link pirated content it becomes a liability. Doesn’t matter if the actual content is on your own server or hosted with a third party.
Yeah, Hexbear is a massive lawsuit ready to happen. Far too many Government Cybersecurity bots scanning that instance. I’d rather not have black helicopters hovering above my house due to that site.
It was explicitly because Hexbear stated an intent to brigade. "Politely", but brigading nonetheless.
Also, this whole "anyone opposing tankies must be a capitalist" nonsense really needs to die. But I guess thinking that one is the vanguard savior of the world makes it impossible to view criticism of one's ideology and behavior any other way.
Re read the post and read the actual hexbear post and then come back to me and admit your mistake for unquestioningly accepting what the world admins told you. Hexbear literally told their instance members to not brigade or harass. Beyond those obvious lies, the other stuff that was brought up by the world admins was the fact that hexbear had some positions that are incredibly common on the left - opposition to capital and NATO
Re read the post and read the actual hexbear post and then come back to me and admit your mistake for unquestioningly accepting what the world admins told you.
but only if you know enough about the fediverse to be aware; if i had no logged into like i usually don't do on these days, i would never know and spend the rest of my time on lemmy.world trying to figure out why i can't find any pirating stuff to share.
I would think it would be the responsibility of lemmy.world to put up a notice of why they’ve done this, if they’ve not then that potentially reflects badly on them (but I don’t know enough about the details and reasons).
To be fair, I don’t know where world is hosted by at least according to my local law here they’d be right: linking to piracy can get you in trouble.
Now usually you can safely ignore this still, sure. Unless you’re large. And with world being so big I could see them being the very first target someone would drag in front of a court if they are in a place where such laws exist. It sounds stupid, but I can understand why the devs would not want to go through that.
I'm so thankful the kbin.social owner doesn't give in to the relentless cries and pearl clutching for censorship. You want piracy? Go right ahead! You want to make fun of politicians? Be my guest! You have the "wrong" political beliefs? Just don't go there if it offends you.
From my understanding, Safe Harbor Provisions in the US ensure that as long as the owner responds to DMCA requests in the allotted time, they are not liable for what users post on their sites.
Seeing as the Fediverse is way under corporate radar so far, it seems to be prudent to just wait and see what happens. Then maybe enforce a "no direct links to piracy" if needed. I don't think you can sue a site for simply referring people to sites that do have illegal content, just hosting.
Unless those communities were sharing links to pirated content. If it was just talk about piracy and piracy news then I don’t think that’s a good reason to defederate.
Illegal in which country? Copyright infringement isn’t illegal in my country for example, except for severe cases where you’re profiting off of it. If we have to cater to all countries’ laws we might as well ban music as well since it’s illegal in Afghanistan.
The catch is it is illegal in the USA. The laws of the USA do not stop at their borders and they have successfully prosecuted people abroad for violating US law.
Im not sure the admins need to fear Afghanistan but the US courts will absolutely pursue claims.
I’m assuming Germany. As I understand, lemmy.world’s admin is Dutch, the servers are located in Finland and they are leased from a German company. So if piracy is illegal in any of these countries, they could get into trouble. From what I know, Germany is quite strict, so I’m guessing that is the concern.
There are many different laws with different countries. Don’t forget that most (if not all) Fediverse instances are run by people in their free time with donations that just cover server costs. They aren’t LLCs so there is always the concern about legal issues. Not sure if that is their motivation but could be part of it.
I mean if you support illegally hosted material you can be forced to take down the website. As much as it sucks, piracy is illegal. Anyways, they haven’t defederated, just blocked that community.
Remember that lemmy.world has to keep a copy of whatever content appears in a federated community on their servers, making them legally liable for the content. At least they just blocked the community instead of defederating.
Basically they blocked the communities but not the instances they were hosted on, so people on lemmy.world can still interact with posts and comments made by people like me
Are you a lawyer? Would you happen to know to what extent the owners of lemmy.world are liable in any nation for their role in helping people pirate material? Im willing to bet this is about liability.
Unless the users themselves are directly posting links to the content and hosting it (the pirated content) on lemmy, no instance would be held liable. Anyone defending this has no idea what the fuck they are talking about.
That’s a bit naive, knowing what we know about the sharks that run the large media corporations. For your average instance owner, it’s not a question of being found not liable, it’s the fact that you as an ordinary guy with an ordinary life and an ordinary income suddenly have to defend yourself legally with all the exposure and expense that entails, from day one.
I don’t know about you but engaging a lawyer and going to court to defend myself would be a massive financial drain. And to risk that on simply the hope that a court might find in my favour is far too big of a risk. Then add on all the unwanted public exposure, the internet notoriety etc. Fuck that.
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