Hello World,
following feedback we have received in the last few days, both from users and moderators, we are making some changes to clarify our ToS.
Before we get to the changes, we want to remind everyone that we are not a (US) free speech instance. We are not located in US, which means different laws apply. As written in our ToS, we’re primarily subject to Dutch, Finnish and German laws. Additionally, it is our discretion to further limit discussion that we don’t consider tolerable. There are plenty other websites out there hosted in US and promoting free speech on their platform. You should be aware that even free speech in US does not cover true threats of violence.
Having said that, we have seen a lot of comments removed referring to our ToS, which were not explicitly intended to be covered by our ToS. After discussion with some of our moderators we have determined there to be both an issue with the ambiguity of our ToS to some extent, but also lack of clarity on what we expect from our moderators.
We want to clarify that, when moderators believe certain parts of our ToS do not appropriately cover a specific situation, they are welcome to bring these issues up with our admin team for review, escalating the issue without taking action themselves when in doubt. We also allow for moderator discretion in a lot of cases, as we generally don’t review each individual report or moderator action unless they’re specifically brought to admin attention. This also means that content that may be permitted by ToS can at the same time be violating community rules and therefore result in moderator action. We have added a new section to our ToS to clarify what we expect from moderators.
We are generally aiming to avoid content organizing, glorifying or suggesting to harm people or animals, but we are limiting the scope of our ToS to build the minimum framework inside which we all can have discussions, leaving a broader area for moderators to decide what is and isn’t allowed in the communities they oversee. We trust the moderators judgement and in cases where we see a gross disagreement between moderatos and admins’ criteria we can have a conversation and reach an agreement, as in many cases the decision is case-specific and context matters.
We have previously asked moderators to remove content relating to jury nullification when this was suggested in context of murder or other violent crimes. Following a discussion in our team we want to clarify that we are no longer requesting moderators to remove content relating to jury nullification in the context of violent crimes when the crime in question already happened. We will still consider suggestions of jury nullification for crimes that have not (yet) happened as advocation for violence, which is violating our terms of service.
As always, if you stumble across content that appears to be violating our site or community rules, please use Lemmys report functionality. Especially when threads are very active, moderators will not be able to go through every single comment for review. Reporting content and providing accurate reasons for reports will help moderators deal with problematic content in a reasonable amount of time.
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Personally my big takeaway from the comments here is that either many people think administrating a large internet platform is a joke and happens on its own and you don’t find 10+ legal notices in the PO box every week, or that - and I’ve read about this before - reading comprehension in the english-speaking world has fallen dramatically in recent years and people are genuinely unable to read paragraphs of text of non-trivial content and/or shifting subjects within same sentences, something you learn around 6th grade in school but sadly rarely need after school in modern times.
So discussion of jury nullification is ok as a general topic. If someone mentions JN in the context of a crime that has not yet been committed then that’s not ok. If the crime has already been committed then that’s ok. If the crime is not violent in nature then we can discuss JN, and if we are just having a general conversation about JN that’s ok too.
Specifically, the concern is that talking about JN in the context of some hypothetical violent crime that has not yet been committed could be interpreted as advocating for violence.
This sounds pretty stupid so far, but my question is then, why wrap the ToS around specifically jury nullification? Why not just reiterate the ‘no advocating for violence’ policy.
If someone is advocating for violence, then adding on some point about jury nullification is irrelevant, they are already breaking the rule.
deleted by creator
Too late, I’m already out the door. You assume no one understands the nuances of hosting in a country without free speech laws as liberal as the US.
The truth is most people do. Your moderators’ histrionic response was so obviously from a place of emotion, and can recall numerous times your mods have allowed speech that was similar but didn’t act because they weren’t personally offended.
I think you fail to understand that your audience is international. That you let your moderators power trip not from an abundance of caution but because it’s more convenient for you.
Some of the mods have always been on top of removing posts promoting / glorifying violence against others. Other mods have not. This is a hodgepodge mix of unpaid volunteers, helping on a platform that has very very rudimentary administrative/ moderation tools with very poor systems of notifications and reporting.
If you think the are opportunities for things to run smoother, I would recommend helping out or evangelizing for more people to help out if you’re too busy.
Simply being mad at the admins doesn’t help - especially when they’re trying navigate nuance and a janky platform with good intent.
Nice of you to not give a shit about the potential for other people to get into legal trouble so you can get angry on the internet. Enjoy your new instance.
As a side-note, based on the amount of hate speech some instances still allow, it seems like there isn’t really any threat to this kind of discourse online on a platform that small.
You mean .world? I don’t think it’s your call or my call or anyone else’s call when it comes to whether or not other people should risk legal trouble for the benefit of internet bitching.
No, not LW. I was thinking about instances where hate speech and call to violence against entire countries have been posted.
!meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works for people interested.
You assume no one understands the nuances of hosting in a country without free speech laws as liberal as the US.
Or they may just don’t care. I’ve seen countless of people who not just justify the murder, but also think it should be an inspiration for what should be happen. How people can’t wait to see rich people get murdered. How this should be the new norm and how to fix the system. Which I find extra funny when the same country just elected a person of the same making as the guy who got shot (and now people try to claim that everyone’s on board with justifying the murder, including maggats).
Don’t underestimate the amount of disinformation propaganda pushing even in such a small platform as here, potentially by people radicalized elsewhere but have now decided to bring it here. Not everyone is a bot (nobody here that I know of even, I’m just bringing up the infamous phrase), yet not everyone may be fully cognizant of the reasons behind their own beliefs either.
Over half of America didn’t vote as they see that both democrats and republicans take money from the rich and use it to make the middle class disappear. If it was easier to vote and we got rid of first past the pole, more people would vote. But alas both sides want first past the post as it keeps them in power. So only small minority that did vote did this, and most of America didn’t want either side. But what you gonna do when both sides don’t want you to live. Yes one side is extremely worse, but it is hard to see that when prices go up and your family might die due to higher ups not caring about the help.
No, I’m sorry, but this is straight up Russian disinformation and non voters are even dumber than those voting for Trump, since they automatically enable the bad actors, which is how you end up with despots like Putin btw who pushes for this exact kind of “both sides are the same” & “you can’t trust either side / truth” type bullshit. Voting starts not at the presidential level, but at the local one. You can vote everyone in & out, and if there’s truly no candidate to your liking (even though you should AT THE VERY LEAST vote for the lesser evil in any case) go into politics yourself. In a democracy, the voters are the ones who are responsible for making changes. But of course, if you elect people like Trump (not just Trump himself), then yes, you end up with a broken system that gets more and more dismantled - until it is gone and you truly don’t need to bother voting anymore. And that’s the point where you’re at now, thanks to people’s wrong vote, or lack of a vote. Both cases are responsible for this, dooming not just the US, but the rest of the world, thanks to Trumps (anti) climate policies.
I think you fail to understand that your audience is international.
I think you fail to understand that being international means that your American-centric views take a backseat for once in your life.
The USDefaultism is already strong back in reddit, but sadly it seems to be worse on Lemmy. Tired of seeing folks from US acting like they’re the main characters, kinda puts me off using this platform
!asklemmy@lemmy.world added a rule to remove US politics questions. That was a welcome change
Still waiting for a large generalist US-centric instance to emerge
Look through this list and sort by monthly active users (MAU): https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy
The server location info doesn’t seem 100% accurate, but it should still help. I would suggest either the instance I use, lemmy.sdf.org (run by an American, technology-oriented non-profit org), or perhaps lemmy.zip, which also looks good - I started looking into it but haven’t fully vetted it yet.
By the way, I don’t think that being in a larger instance has much benefit, by the way. In fact, I tried one of the larger ones and found that it suffered performance-wise, so I went back. You can get pretty much everything from every other Lemmy instance, especially one that doesn’t block and is not blocked by other instances (lemmy.sdf.org also applies here).
Edit: lemmy.zip seems to be subject to the laws of the UK, according to their code of conduct.
https://legal.lemmy.zip/docs/terms_of_service/
The website and the agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the United Kingdom and the European Union.
https://discuss.online/ is US based and just defederated hexbear
By the way, I don’t think that being in a larger instance has much benefit, by the way.
Content accessibility can be an issue due to the way instances only fetch remote communities if a local user is subscribed. Also, having a larger userbase usually means that the instance has been around long enough to show some good track record for the instance
Thanks, I edited the post and noted that lemmy.zip was UK-based after I originally posted.
https://discuss.online/ is US based and just defederated hexbear
That’s a negative for me. I don’t want anyone blocking instances on my behalf unless those instances are doing blatantly illegal stuff.
Content accessibility can be an issue due to the way instances only fetch remote communities if a local user is subscribed. Also, having a larger userbase usually means that the instance has been around long enough to show some good track record for the instance
Yeah, that’s true. I did use some of the great Lemmy community directory sites to find some communities that weren’t already subscribed from my instance. I understand that better community discoverability is planned for upcoming Lemmy versions.
That’s a negative for me. I don’t want anyone blocking instances on my behalf unless those instances are doing blatantly illegal stuff.
In that case, there’s https://lemmy.today/ . Their blocklist is empty, and they’re from Oregon.
We prefer to recommend https://discuss.online/ for new joiners, so that they don’t have to stumble upon hexbear from their very first minutes on the platform. For more advanced users, it’s a different story.
I still prefer lemmy.sdf.org. They also have an empty blocklist (from what I can tell - the version of Lemmy they’re on I don’t think splits it off into a separate tab), they’re also from Oregon from what I recall, have 2.5x more monthly active users than lemmy.today, and they’re a non-profit that’s larger than and longer than only their Lemmy instance.
Again, I don’t get the hexbear issue. I wish someone could explain to me what the problem actually is.
If the last criteria is defederation from hexbear.net, then there is strong hope for Discuss.Online. Though I don’t know if they would want to host a political community that would involve such controversial topics. They probably would be welcoming to like an AskUSA one.
I’m on dbzer0 which is federated with hexbear and I honestly haven’t noticed anything bad from there. I always heard horor stories about it before I signed up here but it has actually been remarkably tame. I mean, they’re obviously leftist but I’ve seen far far worse tankie shit from just lemmy.ml.
!meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works , a few of the HB threads are wild
To be fair, if you cherry pick threads then you can find some pretty wild stuff on .world too. People also like to cherry pick stuff for things like “sjw fail” videos all the time as well and those things aren’t indicative of the whole community.
For .world, definitely. !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com has a few.
Both things are true at the same time.
They can be fun to talk with. They can also be extremely harassing, though tbf more for people who don’t know what !ChapoTrapHouse@hexbear.net is all about - i.e. who have not read its sidebar text. And yet, many apps (like Voyager, and the basic mobile browser web UI) do not show that? Like porn, it’s mainly only bad if you stumble upon it unawares - e.g. while at work - and would have to opt-out of it. Which, if Lemmy was that way, then many people would have to simply cease checking Lemmy while at work on those devices.
Many of the users on lemmy.ml who are seen harassing people the most outside of the actual Hexbear communities are self-admittedly alts of Hexbear accounts. Consent means nothing to them, apparently, so when hexbear.net was defederated from Lemmy.World a year ago, they simply shifted over to an account that wasn’t blocked. Like an incel who will never cease telling you what a “nice man” he is, they simply WILL NOT stop.
Which is all the more sad considering how many legitimately nice conversations go on daily inside of the many other Hexbear communities. But those conversations aren’t why Lemmy.World and so many other instances chose to defederate from them. In the post whose link I sent earlier are a bunch of other links where each instance makes its own determination and offers links to exact posts and comments that they felt justified their decision to defederate, if you want to read through some examples. Tbf many have since been deleted by their creators, though that should tell you something right there, about the transparency and integrity of Hexbear users who when blamed don’t always retort with the truth so much as do whatever they hope will work so as to be able to dunk on people (and thus when caught, lie, even the instance admins, to other instance admins even!?!?!? which I also put a link to that event as well in that post).
TLDR: I get it, it is not literally every single comment, user, and/or community that does it, but it is there, if you spend more time looking. There are exact links there if you want help finding them.
They just did
Woah.
Ofc it won’t stop alts from leaking through - nothing can stop that - but in fighting against spam, every little bit helps.
Will you now be using it as your primary instance recommendation on Reddit? There is perhaps literally nothing better for that, so this is fantastic news that may help even the non-USA parts of the Fediverse by allowing the bringing in of more users who will feel safer to talk than they would have before, due to harassment for having a USA centrist (which let’s be real translates into a global and especially from the EU perspective, right-leaning) viewpoint. Comics, memes, hardware, woodworking or more techie Maker stuff and so many other hobbies, I hope to see more discussions about them all, with this helping people on Reddit to now be less resistant to joining.
🎉🥳💐🎇
primary instance recommendation
I just did: https://feddit.org/post/5497724/3543560
Being happy that a man responsible for the deaths of thousands is an “American Centric View” now.
And don’t call yourself “world” if you cannot reasonably accommodate a wide rage of views. Call yourself “Dutch” and make your limitations clear.
You world sycophants want the benefits of being the authoritative instance without the responsibility.
It’s an American story, effecting 100’s of millions of Americans directly. So no, not this this time. See a therapist to work out all this reflexive anti Americaism
It’s an American story, effecting 100’s of millions of Americans directly.
And it’s not an American server. So live with it. You’re not entitled to do whatever you want in whatever space you want just because you’re American and have feelings about something.
Then like I said, don’t call yourself world and continue to promote yourself as the authoritative instance. This instance is the the default for all the mobile apps.
This instance is the the default for all the mobile apps.
Voyager just switched its default to lemm.ee in v2.20.0 last week.
Good news!
Which new instance have you chosen?
I think diversifying mods is a good idea.
The one who “misinterpreted” the rules is a mod of pretty much all the main subs on world.
There’s a handful of accounts like that. And they hold way too much sway on the instance as a whole. It’s what got reddit in trouble. Mods would add each other as mods in other subs, and it ended up with a whole bunch of super mods with way more influence then they should have had. Especially since that mainly happens when mods agree on things.
Make a limit, even 10 which feels huge would be better than nothing.
Otherwise a handful of people can chase away the entire userbase. Because when a big news story breaks, they control almost all the serious discussions. Which is what happened here. And it’ll happen again if things dont change.
Then step up to volunteer your services as a mod? Reportedly the tools are terrible and the reason why there are so few mods is that so few are willing to do the job. If a limit were to be placed, without having such volunteers, then how would all those empty positions be filled?
I think diversifying mods is a good idea.
Great, so then every post gets 10 chances to be incorrectly identified and culled? We don’t need diversity of opinion here, we need quite the opposite. We need a unification of opinion so that rules can be solidified around that.
We need a unification of opinion so that rules can be solidified around that.
No one says we wouldn’t. That would still have to come from the admins…
The point is one rogue mod can’t “misinterpret” something and enforce it in:
News, Politics, World News, and World News Politics.
If they limited a single mods crossover, then it would mitigate the damage done by “misinterpreting”.
Like, this is basic compartmentalization, it has nothing to do specifically with the fediverse or even social media…
You just don’t set up an organization where a handful of people have day to day control, especially when it’s all volunteers. You got to spread it around for a multitude of reasons.
No way, get this outta here. Last thing we need is the same mod on every community on every instance going wild with power. This line of thinking allows and empowered that sort of behavior.
The one who “misinterpreted” the rules is a mod of pretty much all the main subs on world.
That’s because few want to. I’ve been asked myself whether I want to mod multiple communities because the current mod isn’t active, and some of those aren’t even small.
(edit: Fair enough, did not even know it’s public what somebody mods - in that case however you should be inherently aware of how naturally moderating communities is something extremely few people would want to do, and how this naturally results in very few users moderating vast swathes of communities)
If you look at someone’s profile, you can see what communities they mod…
Or you can just keep wildly assuming things and hoping you’re right.
Or just read the existing reply chain before making your own reply?
You had lots of options bruh. But you’ve also made over 5% of the comments in this thread, and you didn’t do that in any of them either.
Just randomly telling everyone what your uninformed opinion is about stuff…
I’m glad you haven’t taken up anyone’s offers to mod anything. And I truly mean that.
many communities would be happy to have more mods. many of these cases come from the lack of people volunteering to moderate a community. this is already being considered when people are promoted as moderators in communities by our admin or community team if a community doesn’t have active moderators. we already try to find people that aren’t already moderating as many communities in those cases.
I 100% get it.
I mod one sub because it was vacant and someone asked me, and another because I was going to post there but it was vacant so I requested it.
We 100% need more people to step up.
But even if those subs just opened the door, the same ones will still be above everyone in the chain.
Especially with communities where the top couple mods gave up on their account and it’s a zombie. Someone could be 3rd or 4th and defacto head mod.
Just a suggestion though, it would have prevented the appearance in this situation from being “lemmy.world’s official stance” because one person misunderstood something.
Misunderstandings are going to happen, it’s unavoidable. If you want a way to mitigate the damage, it’s limit how much reach each person has. Pruning is a natural part of growth, and any mod that gets their feelings hurt about it…
Well, that’s the type of person we would be doing this to protect against. Someone who lets their feelings get in the way of moderation.
Yea this became a huge part of why reddit got so shitty. There needs to be a cap implemented on how many subs a mod can manage.
Hmm, maybe a change of scenery is needed. .this place is getting stupid. I haven’t seen a single comment actually advocating for violence, mostly just people who aren’t sad that this happened. Your mods have also demonstrated a lack of impartial judgemental in the past, and it’s starting to show.
I haven’t seen a single comment actually advocating for violence
Re-read the OP, particularly the third paragraph but also definitely the sixth - it covers exactly this topic.
I doubt that’s true, but if it is, you can see plenty of them in the Lemmy.world modlog over the past few days. It is a public modlog.
There’s posts all over with CEO faces and names and pretty transparent text related to the “adjuster” finding them.
I get the motivation but it is pretty clear they are saying “hey go kill these specific people”
And countless comments, even in this post saying “all X deserve to die”
Now before people assume me an apologist, my preferred solution would be letting Bernie, AOC, and Warren off the leash to criminalize the profiteering rampant in our society, while nationalizing all basics such as basic shelter, healthcare, education, advocacy, and nutrition.
A society is measured by it’s poorest/weakest.
I haven’t seen a single comment actually advocating for violence
It’s almost as if the mods are doing their jobs…
Agree. And I’d we can get more free speech I think it’s time to relocate things.
I haven’t seen a single comment actually advocating for violence
Probably because they’ve been removed by the mods.
Why use many words when
fewnone do trick?You responded to a comment worth a thousand words.
I’ve never seen this before and had to look this up. A fantastic little piece of history, excellently memeified.
Further reading for anyone curious
And section in Survivorahip bias page
Man/Ma’am, I’ve seen dozens lately. Most were fun actually, but I side with the admins here. You can actually get prosecuted, and badly, in Europe, for this.
We will still consider suggestions of jury nullification for crimes that have not (yet) happened as advocation for violence, which is violating our terms of service.
?? So, discussing jury nullification by itself, or suggesting ‘crimes that have not yet happened’ - itself is not a violation (i.e. someone should disturb the peace) but suggesting that “someone should disturb the peace and everyone on the jury, should they be prosecuted, should advocate for jury nullification” is a violation of the ToS?
I’m not understanding that part.
suggesting ‘crimes that have not yet happened’ - itself is not a violation
this was already covered. this is not a new change. if you write “someone should kill person XYZ” this is clearly a call for murder that we do not tolerate here. discussing jury nullification in the same context where murder or other violent crimes are suggested is what was clarified to be subject for moderator action.
It’s generally better to use generalized statements
Like “Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives”
That’s just a historical fact
How’s this one?
“Thousands of families are crying tears of joy thanks to The Adjuster, who was wrong to save all those lives and improve society.”
Specifically where it relates to violent crime.
Essentially it is supposed to make statements like the following a rule violation:
“If someone murdered [fictional person] they would totally get acquitted because any jury would just nullify the charges.”
While the following sentence would not be a violation of TOS:
“The murderer of UHC CEO Brian Thompson should get acquitted via Jury Nullification because [reasons] and this is super dope.”
The first example could be read as a call to violence, while the 2nd is not calling for a crime.
As I understand it “All future jurors in money laundring cases should nullify, because tax evasion is… like… super cool” would also be legal, because money laundring is not a violent crime.
money laundring is not a violent crime.
So it sounds like the laws prohibit advocating blue collar crime, but advocating white collar crime is fine.
That’s not what blue collar/white collar crime is
Mods could still remove it though, not for instance ToS but community rules.
They could remove it by flip of a coin
True… then it could be appealed to admins I suppose. Someone could make an entire community dedicated to coin flipping, where that is the sole means of deciding whether posts get to stay or not. So long as no instance rules are violated, it’s all good.
Actually that would be funny, with like, a webcam of a little coin flipper bot.
Anyway I was highlighting a core feature of the fediverse…mods and especially admins are beholden to noone. All standards are a courtesy
Oh absolutely (and it wasn’t me who downvoted you btw, in fact I’m upvoting both here bc relevance). I would argue that there’s a social contract, regardless of money, to the people who contribute to making an instance what it truly is - e.g. spez did not “own” all of Reddit content. Though at the end of the day, don’t the admins have far more involvement in the matter than a mere lurker, and a mod perhaps the most of all, since they donate their blood sweat and tears into the thing that they build (or at least help build, as in curate) daily?
So if people don’t like an instance then move, and same with communities. I blocked !news@lemmy.world months ago and subscribed to !globalnews@lemmy.zip instead. The world is what we make it.
Not being combative but I actually believe there’s zero social contact… It’s an illusion of privilege. The fact that we even get to quibble about mod / admin behavior is at their whim. Now, sure, the ultimate conclusion could be that everyone leaves and they’re a mod of no one, but there’s a whole lot of sausage to be made between here and “server is empty”
The nuances on this issue are challenging. On the one hand, there are those that simply see the murder as being abhorrent. On the other, there are those who see it simply as being comeuppance. I believe the issue is one coming out of deep seated and wide-spread resentment at structural inequality and in many cases, personal stories of suffering caused by the failure of the existing system. The victim was a key player in that system, but he was also a human being with children.
A key function of social media is to provide a space for debate about social issues, and to facilitate discussions about how we can collectively build a better future. The challenge for moderators is to try to find a line between extremes that balances conflicting perspectives in a way that respects the community, and I believe the intent of the fediverse to be free from corporate control of discussion. In terms of rules, the key sentence in the ToS seems to be “We do not tolerate serious threats or calls for violence.”
I would suggest that:
- comments/posts that actively call for violence should be removed. e.g. “Someone should shoot all CEO’s”.
- comments/posts that more reflect a dissatisfaction with the system should not. e.g. “He contributed to untold suffering. I’m not surprised someone took matters into their own hands.”
His life isn’t more valuable because he had children. Sorry.
In fact there are plenty children who would specifically mark out one or both of their parents as having been detrimental to their life.
As I understand it, unless you have lawyers on retainer you can’t really make a good call when the second part is okay and when it isn’t. What is feels-wise a “call to violence” and what is legally a Call To Violence™️does not always match up. Hence most moderation inherently overshoots massively and casts an extremely wide net, for legal protection.
we are not a (US) free speech instance
Thank you for reminding this. Some people always think that Lemmy.world is US-based or managed, while this is clearly not the case.
I think the issue is, there IS NO major Lemmy instance that IS us based. So Americans just sort of clump where the other Americans are. Then, that sets the tone for where we are. Everybody has a us centric experience, and so it becomes well known that Lemmy.World is a us based instance…even if it’s not true.
So now all of it’s users are behaving in a manner which lines up with their own local culture, in this case America, and have no clue which other nations laws apply, or what those laws even are.
You could tell me that Germany has a law that every 300th meal has to be sausage and schnitzel. I would be doubtful that you’re telling the truth, but I’d have no leg to stand on to dispute.
So you say “Go to the american instance then!!!” And to that I say “It doesn’t exist. Or if it does exist it’s too small to notice.”
I’ve posting this a lot lately but
If you want a US based-instance
- https://discuss.online blocks hexbear and lemmygrad
- https://lemmy.today does not block anyone
See also this post: https://discuss.online/post/14151634
How dead is the .today Instance?
The stats are in the sidebar
I’m confused, what does free speech have to do with where the instance is based? This is the internet, what country is going to extradite a US citizen for making a comment on a defederated social platform?
The overreach is insane.
I don’t know anything about Dutch or Finnish laws, but I’ve seen many recent articles about people arrested in Germany for their social media posts that were considered hateful or violent (which is frankly a culture shock to me as an American), so I can see why some of the posts on Lemmy in the past week would be concerning.
https://lemmy.world/comment/13870047
If you are a US citizen and would prefer a US-based instance, there is
- https://discuss.online/ which blocks hexbear and lemmygrad
- https://lemmy.today/ which does not block any instance
Will check them out, just want to make sure they’re not like what the askthedonald became where it’s another echo chamber. I like perspective, but I loathe the virtue padded safe spaces.
They are only instances, you would still visit your usual communities. Their might be a change should anyone want to create a “AskUS” community there, but that’s not the case yet
People also seem to somehow believe that free speech in the US means that private instances can’t deplatform you for the things you say.
I have no idea why anyone thinks that extends to anyone besides the government censoring speech or why they think free speech means freedom from the consequences of that speech.
Many Americans have a weak grasp on even the most basic details of their constitution. During my stay there, I heard “free speech” improperly being used as a defense by people of many different backgrounds.
This drives me crazy. I’ve commented this before, but I’ll say it again:
People in the US love to cry first amendment (freedom of speech, etc) any time something they say has consequences.
- Sexually harass a coworker? Freedom of speech!
- Business owner says something bigoted and people stop patronizing their business? Freedom of speech!
- Get banned from a Facebook group for being an ass? Freedom of speech!
- Kicked out of a shop for your offensive shirt? Freedom of speech!
Funny how the same people with wE tHe PeOpLe bumper stickers are the ones who haven’t actually bothered to read their own bill of rights. These people also seem to think that “free speech” (as they define it) should only apply to speech they agree with.
Those are the idiots, the real users of the first amendment are the assholes who allowed corporations to have free speech.
This is what led to to the Citizens United decision that has pumped billions into our election cycle (which now never ends). It has created a media that is dependent on those billions in ad revenue, YouTube included. And along with the Super PAC rules, allows unlimited bribing of our “elected” officials.
Legally you’re right. But I think it sort of ignores the spirit of what that free speech should be and the reality it actually exists in. There are corporations that have reached a level of size and power comparable to governments. Plus the government in general is an arm of the capitalist class it represents. Most of the speech that happens today is on these privately owned services. To allow those large corporations to act as censors, it makes the protections on speech from government interference largely moot. Generalizing more, the way I put it is in America, you have freedom… if you can afford it. Sure, nobody is able to stop you from saying what you want to say. But you get to say it to a handful of people you know while a rich person gets to say it to millions of people through media channels and advertising. Sure everyone gets one vote, but if you’re rich you can influence a lot more than one vote (and you can probably buy more than one vote of influence with whoever wins.) You may have the right to an abortion, but if you’re poor you might not have the means to actually do it. People have the legal right to due process, but despite that, tons of cases end in plea deals or settlements because people don’t have the means to be adequately represented in a legal case. When the US legally abolished (most) slavery, many of the freed slaves ended up as share croppers, not much better off or free than they were before because they didn’t have the material means to exercise that freedom. Later, the US passed anti-discrimination laws. No more barring black people from living in some towns/neighborhoods. But despite that, the area I grew up in was still heavily segregated. Legal freedoms don’t mean much if you don’t have the economic freedom to exercise them.
Now, there’s clearly a line. It seems obvious that say, if you had some private chat room it would be fine to kick people out of it for whatever reason. And at the extreme end we have these massive platforms acting which perform the role of a public service but in the hands of private interests. There I think there should be limits on what censorship they should be able to do. So where do you make the cutoff along that spectrum? Idk. I feel like a Lemmy instance is probably closer to a private chatroom than a social media corporation. They’re small, they’re not run for profit, and they’re not engaged in any anti-competitive behavior. There’s not that much stopping someone from moving to another instance or even making their own.
A huge number of Americans are dumbfucks. I deal with that every day.
911 = life or limb emergency.
I can assure you that 98% of Americans can’t even grasp that simple concept.
911 = life or limb emergency.
But have you considered that my neighbors are being pretty loud, and I would really like some police to go knock on their door and tell them to be quiet?
Misinformation.
Many places here in the states don’t operate a separate, non-emergency line and calling 911 is appropriate even when it isn’t an emergency.
You should let them know that it’s an non-emergency upon calling.
Exactly right.
Free speech means that the government can’t prosecute you for what you say (except in certain specific circumstances).
Free speech doesn’t mean that I can’t kick you out of my house for what you say.
What we need is a government-operated fediverse instance to serve as a public forum.
What we need is a government-operated fediverse instance to serve as a public forum.
That sounds like something Bernie or AOC would advocate for. It would honestly be pretty lit for a bit, before being taken over by lobby industry bots.
Free speech is a principle (like free trade) in addition to a fundamental right enumerated in the 1A enforceable against the government. People are making policy arguments when they discuss it in the context of private entities deplatforming advocating for private implementation of the principle into business practices.
Usually bc they are trying to see if they can get away with that argument. And sometimes it works so they continue to try.
I would argue that it’s certainly not clear. That’s probably part of the problem.
Why would you assume “.world” would mean the USA…? It’s obviously NOT USA, so why assume USA instead of the other 99.99% countries? Thats why you read the shit dude. This whole idea that the USA is “the world” is only in Americans head and it’s hilarious to see from the outside in this frequency.
There’s even a term for it since it’s so common “Americentrism”
That’s not what I’m assuming. The assumption isn’t that it’s the USA or any country at all. The assumption most people make is that they and their actions are covered under the laws of their locality.
The assumption most people make is that they and their actions are covered under the laws of their locality.
Yes, which means that the site owners have to deal with the laws of their locality, and may be held accountable under their laws for allowing the content on their instance.
Maybe unlikely to happen, but given the potential consequences, I can’t blame a small group of volunteers not wanting to take the risk.
More importantly: nobody has a right to assume LW is a democracy. Their instance, their rules.
Again. I’m going to stipulate that I do understand that the site owners have to deal with the fallout of that, in the event that they are private citizens and not business entities.
Section 230 in the US gives certain immunity in regards to content that is posted for social media platforms.
Provides immunity to online platforms from civil liability based on third-party content and for the removal of content in certain circumstances. <<
Meaning you can’t be held civilly liable for the actions of your users if you run a social media platform as a business. It specifically doesn’t consider social media to be a publisher and therefore not subject to the same legal restrictions as a publisher would be.
But, if the business is not US based, even if the majority of its users are American, it may or may not be decided that such an entity is subject to it (or that even if that business is subject to the laws of its locality, the US can and often has considered that immunity to hold which was not the intention (it was not intended to be used for global immunity)).
So if we flip that around, and take into consideration the natural assumptions of most users who may or may not be from the locality in question, they 1. Do not give any thought whatsoever to the owner of the social media platforms they use, and 2. Assume that any such legal action taken as a result of their personal statements or actions will only be considered in their own locality. This is human nature. I’m not defending it.
This thread and the original post are about adding clarity for users, moderators and admins of this instance. If clarity is the goal, users should be made aware of the locality under which the platform legally falls. Since we also know the average user is unlikely to have read the complete TOS, we know that having that information there at the very bottom and nowhere else means most users will not ever come across it.
Now, can we stop assuming this is just Americans messing it up for the rest, and leave the mentality behind and focus on the assumptions of anyone who might sign up here (from any country) that is not the locality of where the website is hosted or where it’s owners reside?
Nobody is asking anyone to take any risks here. I’m literally saying that the problem is that people make natural assumptions that most people are prone to, and as a result, a better way to inform them could potentially be implemented. I’m not even arguing that the owners don’t get to make the rules. I’m not sure where you got that from. That’s why I asked (not demanded).
If a mod (from say South American or Zimbabwe) was operating under the laws in their country and banned someone for content that they felt was against the law, but it was not against the law in the locality of the site or the offender, would that mod be in the right? There’s at least one comment I’ve seen on this post from a mod who felt a comment not in a community they moderate was breaking the rules and they admit their initial reaction was to ban the person before they realized that they are not the entity that should be undertaking that duty.
If clarity is important, maybe this should be considered.
You make some valid points. My take is that it is up to the users to comply with their local laws (EU citizens have been convicted in court for social media posts that broke local laws but not necessarily the site rules), and the TOS are not there to address that. It’s up to the instance owners to comply with the laws applicable to them, and for that they need to guide and educate the moderators, not the users (some of whom are going to ignore the rules anyway). So perhaps mods need detailed rules on what is and is not allowed on the site, but sharing that level of detail with the users is just sparking pointless discussions.
How is this not clear?
From https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
Our Governing Laws
The website and the agreement will be governed by and construed per the laws of the following countries and/or states:
The Netherlands
Republic of Finland
Federal Republic of GermanyIf people are looking for US-based instances, there is https://discuss.online/
That’s at pretty much the very bottom of the TOS and given the number of people who skim or don’t even read TOS and EULA’s (and the number of jurisdictions that have ruled they aren’t a binding agreement), I’d say something directly on the sign up page is warranted. Additionally this information is not anywhere that I can find on any sidebar or about section.
People don’t often “look” for instances specific to their locale when joining Lemmy. That’s a lot of the reason this instance is so large. I would wager that most people who are users of this instance do not know that this instance is based in Scandinavia (and Germany). I bet most of them are also unfamiliar with the laws and regulations of those countries as well.
something directly on the sign up page is warranted.
The sign up page literally asks people to write "I agree to the TOS” in the form, with a link to the ToS
People don’t often “look” for instances specific to their locale when joining Lemmy.
Not so sure, lemmy.ca, feddit.org, sopuli.xyz, aussie.zone and midwest.social are in the top 20 of most active instances. If you go top 30, you find feddit.nl, feddit.uk and jlai.lu
Don’t skip the bit about how many people often do not read the TOS or EULA. That’s important to what I am saying. I was literally told when asking about Lemmy instances that lemmy.world was THE recommendation for instances specifically because it was so large and active as a result. Just because there are other instances where the users are local to the locale of the instance doesn’t necessarily undermine my point since what we’re talking about is lemmy.world specifically.
And anything with a .uk or similar is more likely to be identified at first glance as being for that locale which means more of the users would naturally gravitate towards it. Like it or not lemmy.world is a jumping off point for lots of users, plenty of whom move on to other instances (some of which may be an instance more local to them).
Don’t skip the bit about how many people often do not read the TOS or EULA. That’s important to what I am saying.
The vast majority of the people on LW probably do not care. We see a lot of people announcing they are changing instances in this thread, but I would be surprised to see more than a few dozens actually do it, inertia is a thing, and a good portion of the people seem to think the changes are reasonable.
I was literally told when asking about Lemmy instances that lemmy.world was THE recommendation for instances specifically because it was so large and active as a result.
You created your account in 2023, when LW was a few weeks old, as well as most of the other instances. There was no way for people to know that this kind of issues would arise, at the time the ToS probably didn’t even exist.
Recommendations nowadays usually suggest Lemm.ee or discuss.online, as LW has become too large, and every decision they make have an impact on Lemmy as a whole, such as this one.
Like it or not lemmy.world is a jumping off point for lots of users, plenty of whom move on to other instances (some of which may be an instance more local to them).
But if they move to another instance, then the LW rules don’t apply to them anymore, so no need to change the sign up page?
But if they move to another instance, then the LW rules don’t apply to them anymore, so no need to change the sign up page?<<
You said it yourself. Inertia is a thing. Some people move on. Some people don’t and probably won’t.
Clarity is important if we’re talking about enforcing a TOS to comply with the law. Especially when the average Lemmy instance owner doesn’t just have a team of lawyers on retainer.
The point I’m making though is a lot of people (perhaps myself included) wouldn’t have come to lemmy.world at all if they had known that they’d be beholden to laws they had never even heard of and aren’t normally subject to in their daily lives.
I don’t think what I’m suggesting (I’m not pushing to enact the stuff I suggested) is all that unreasonable. But of course it’s not up to me, and probably not even up to the majority of Lemmy.world users.
But the .world part of the name is something of a misnomer if you consider how confusing it may be to new users, especially if this is their first foray into the fediverse.
I haven’t decided it’s worth the time to vet another instance to move to and transfer everything I have set up over to that new instance.
Though this wasn’t handled the way I would have personally handled it, I’m largely not too bothered about the changes because I’m unlikely to ever run afoul of them.
Even though I absolutely believe that karma is a thing, and you get out of the world what you put into it, at the end of the day I’m not on Lemmy (or any other platforms) to advocate for the death of people. Probably the closest I have ever gotten is saying something like “eat the rich” and that’s meant to be taken as having a healthy dose of sarcasm.
Delay deny depose :3
It’s weird how lemmy was going full NRA.
Honestly, I went back to Reddit to take a look and they were acting so normal in comparison.
I don’t support the CEO either, but this place was starting to sound more like truth social and 4chan
Huh, so hos instance has officially become garbage and it’s time to dump it? Anyone have suggestions for a reasonable instance?
K bye.
Makes sense to me.
We will still consider suggestions of jury nullification for crimes that have not (yet) happened as advocation for violence, which is violating our terms of service.
I’m one of the lucky people who was introduced to this song today.
The whole album is a treat. It’s best enjoyed knowing the history of frank zappa’s various run-ins with the police due to his music
Well, I just finished. That was a ride.
I’ll have to look up more about his history.
