this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Lemmy.World Announcements

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

What is it about Destiny that attracts pieces of shit?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (14 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

"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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

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,

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you for this

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Uh, @[email protected] .. 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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The "ight I'm out" ban note was.... hm. Not a great look. Comes across as petty and vindictive.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What in the hell?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)

good thing I followed the advice not to use lemmy.world lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh no. Wtf. Do you know what's funny? I actually joined this instance from piracy subreddit.

I guess it's time to leave.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Boo. Fie and Shame upon your house.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What part is illegal? Are they sharing files on that instance and your instance re-hosts it?

From my understanding, discussions are legal, guides are legal, tips are legal, but actual files (aka "copyrighted content") is illegal. There are no files shared there, links at maximum, but institutions should be after those content-sharing websites, not forums.

I am against this decision and I am happy that I am not part of admins team.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Bwhahahahaha Reddit is more liberated than Lemmy, what a fucking embarrassment.

What's the line, self-censorship is the first sign an authoritarian has won.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Just use a better instance than .world...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

While I'm not ethically opposed pirating, I understand and would probably do the same for a server I was hosting. Anybody remember Kim Dotcom's mansion raid?

What I do not understand is blocking a community surrounding magic mushrooms.. No one is going to prosecute the L.W admins for people discussing shrooms/their use...

Substances are legal/illegal depending on where one lives, just like weed which is apparently perfectly fine to post here, even tho possession is a death sentence in some countries.

It simply doesn't logically follow that weed, or even alcohol communities are permissible while a shroom community is not.

Banning any content deemed illegal in any country in the world establishes a very dangerous precedence (if that's the justification here). Free speech/dissenting from the government is illegal in many places in the world.

One thing the community must remember tho, is that you have to operate your server in accordance with the law in which country you're hosting it (in this case Germany).

I'll gladly admit I'm not too familiar with German law, but it seems unreasonable to expect government persecution for hosting servers which hosts a shroom discussion community.

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