Feddit.org announced today that they are changing their rules to match German law despite their server not being hosted in Germany.

Feddit.org now bans

  • The sentence “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”

  • Comparing Israel to the Nazis

  • Calls to end Zionism

  • Calling for the dissolution of Israel

And much more. The full original post can be found here, or

Click here for full text of original post:

Hi.

In the past few days, discontent regarding mod decisions in this community has been brewing, particularly when it comes to comments on Palestine, Israel, and Israeli politics and actions. There are also misunderstandings regarding mod intention and German law. We hope to clear that up with this post.

While the servers of feddit.org are in Austria, most of the mods of this community as well as admins of this server live in Germany. Speaking of, our server admins have also posted a write-up on the same topic.

And with that, let’s go:

In Germany, antisemitism is specifically sanctioned in German criminal law, both for speech and as a motivation for other criminal behavior. In addition, Germany seeks to protect the Jewish state of Israel (the so-called “Reason of State” introduced in 2008) and thus verges toward protecting Zionism as well. Certain criticism of Israel/Israelis is also categorized as “Israel-related antisemitism”.

Since criminal law is involved, enforcement can mean things like police raids and device confiscations. After such police action, it does not really matter if it was appropriate or if cases are dropped or never charged: The damage is done. All told, it’s not that fun.

There is also no point in engaging in discussions about the veracity of statements that could get us into legal trouble. In addition, we believe that you can express most opinions without breaking rules.

If your comment contains the following, it will be removed from this community:

  • Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
  • Calling for a destruction, annihilation, an end of all Zionism or the like.
  • Equating Israeli actions and (historical) Nazism.
  • The slogan “from the river…”
  • Endorsement of or justifications for Hamas or Hezbollah, or slogans or graphics positively referring to these organizations. These are considered terrorist organizations in Germany.
  • … and obviously: Any of the common antisemitic tropes or calls to violence against Jews or Israelis

Comments will not be removed for the following:

  • Denouncing genocide.
  • Denouncing Israeli war crimes.
  • Criticizing Zionism as an ideology or political movement.
  • Referring to the current Israeli government as “criminal,” “expansionist,” or “far-right”.

If your comment is removed nonetheless, these are not the reason. I’d also like to stress that this community was never a free-speech-absolutist zone: It is a (usually lightly) moderated community. There may also be times when bans go too far. In such cases, please DM the @EuroMod@feddit.org account (which all mods have access to).

To help you understand why, I'll leave an assortment of sources here (translations via DeepL).
  • A news report:

    Berlin in mid-May [2024] around 6 o’clock in the morning. A loud, continuous “banging” against the apartment door wakes student Alina T. from her sleep. […] When her husband opens the door, several LKA officers, two employees of the district office and the SEK “storm” past him into the apartment. Puzzled, he looks at the search warrant. […] The background to this was a Facebook entry in the student’s profile: "From the river […]

  • A legal treatise:

    In November 2023, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs also issued a prohibition order against Hamas.[60] According to the order, “the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ (in German or other languages)” is a distinguishing mark of Hamas[61]. […] the current legal situation [regarding “Denial of Israel’s right to exist”] is - contrary to what the statements of the Federal Ministry of Justice suggest[63] - anything but clear. Whether incitements to eliminate the State of Israel are prosecuted depends on the respective legal opinion and the prosecution will of the respective public prosecutor’s office.

  • Press release from the previous government:

    In this context, Section 111 StGB, which covers public incitement to commit crimes, may also be relevant. Incitement to extinguish Israel’s existence by force may be punishable under this provision. The same applies to calls to publicly display the Hamas flag. If Hamas attacks are publicly cheered and celebrated, this may also be punishable. This means that people who cheer on Hamas’s actions or publicly express their sympathy with the attacks may constitute the criminal offence of “approval of criminal acts” under Section 140 of the German Criminal Code (StGB).

  • Another news report

    In connection with the controversial Palestine Congress in Berlin, the German authorities have also imposed an entry ban on former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. “In order to prevent antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda at the event”, several entry bans have been issued, the news agency AFP learned from security sources on Sunday. One of these concerned Varoufakis. (Notably, Varoufakis would have spoken about one-state solutions …)

  • Overview Germany in 2024 by Amnesty International

  • Overview Germany in 2024 by Human Rights Watch

federal reverse (on behalf of the mods of !europe)


  • Dessalines
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    2 months ago

    Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.

    Calling for a destruction, annihilation, an end of all Zionism or the like.

    Zionism means colonialism not just in practice, but from its very inception:

    • poVoq
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      32 months ago

      Yes, and you are free to critizise Zionism for that on Feddit.org. The legal problem is not that, but that the German authorities don’t play word games and tend to equate Zionism/Israel/Jews as a shortcut and leave it to courts to decide later if that was justified or not.

      • Dessalines
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        322 months ago

        They clearly state in one of the rules that I just linked, that calling for an end to zionism is a bannable offense.

        The german state is full of witch-hunters and its people have learned nothing.

        • poVoq
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          2 months ago

          Yes and as I explained already there is a very specific legal reason for that, but this doesn’t mean you can’t critizise Zionism or call it a terrible settler-colonialist project.

          As for learning from past mistakes… I think you of all people should not throw the first stone there 😅

          • @anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            232 months ago

            there is a very specific legal reason for that

            A misguided or intentionally malicious reason, for what the effect of that law is. Codifying into law the conflation of Judaism/ethnic Jewish identity with zionism is itself antisemitic. Calling for the end of Zionism isn’t the same as calling for the end of Jews or Judaism. What is the use of being allowed to criticize Zionism the ideology when you’re not also allowed to advocate for its end?

            “Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology.” <- Ok “Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology, and Israel as a Zionist project should be dissolved in favor of a single-state that provides equal rights for Palestinians” <- Not ok, somehow?

            The law as written only allows abstract and dissociated critique of Zionism, but forbids any criticism that comes too close to threatening Israel’s existence as a ethno-nationalist state. That’s a huge problem.

            • poVoq
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              32 months ago

              I didn’t make those laws, and I agree that the German government should make more of a distinction between antisemitism and anti-zionism. But it doesn’t and honestly in your above example you could just say:

              “Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology, and Israel should become a state that provides equal rights for Palestinians”

              An no one would object 🤷

              This singular and persistent focus on the destruction of the (unfortunatly) already existing state of Israel, really makes it likely that many people rather use that as a dogwistle for antisemitism.

              • OBJECTION!
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                142 months ago

                It’s so funny how you types are constantly hiding behind the law and saying, “I didn’t make the law, I don’t agree with it, but they have to do this to avoid legal liability, hands are tied” and then five seconds later you say stuff like, “criticism of Israel is a dogwhistle for antisemitism.”

                You’re a coward, refusing to admit your real positions because you know you can’t defend them.

                • poVoq
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                  2 months ago

                  Please don’t put words in my mouth. My real position is crystal clear and I am happy to stand by it.

              • @anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                2 months ago

                “Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology, and Israel should become a state that provides equal rights for Palestinians

                Except the moderation rule feddit has implemented does not allow for this statement, unless you specifically say that jews deserve equal rights in a single-state solution - which is similar to those who respond to ‘black lives matter’ by saying ‘but all lives matter’. Saying ‘Palestinians deserve equal rights’ wouldn’t be necessary if equal rights were already afforded them, and the point of making that statement is to draw attention to the fact that they currently aren’t

                This singular and persistent focus on the destruction of the (unfortunatly) already existing state of Israel, really makes it likely that many people rather use that as a dogwistle for antisemitism.

                Nobody who is advocating for Palestinian liberation uses the word “destroy” or ‘destruction’ when referring to the dissolution of Israel - I only ever see those words used by people trying to make this inference between anti-zionism and antisemitism. The only people who take statements of liberation as a threat against Jews are people who are collaborating or benefiting from the oppression Israel conducts in their name.

                • poVoq
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                  2 months ago

                  Sorry, but you are misinterpreting that rule. What I said is perfectly compatible with the rule. The extension that this also applies to Jews is solely to preempt the common “equal rights and the Jews are free to leave” dogwistle.

                  And you are highly mistaken that there are no people advocating for the destruction of Israel, in fact it is quite common.

      • acargitz
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        32 months ago

        Oh I see. Which is why the admins/mods of Feddit.org are also publicly coming out criticizing the German government for this crackdown on nuanced speech, right? Right?

      • @BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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        82 months ago

        but that the German authorities don’t play word games and tend to equate Zionism/Israel/Jews

        Sounds like they very much do play word games then.

    • @deathbird@mander.xyz
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      42 months ago

      And yet every self-declared pro-Zionist I’ve talked to says Zionism is just the right of the state of Israel to exist, and so being anti-Zionist is being for the destruction of the state, and being for the destruction of the state is being for the death or dispossession of every person in the state.

      I think the German state is probably more inclined to interpret discussion of Zionism the way the pro-Zionists I’ve spoken to have describe the term.

      I think the historical description in the text that you link is accurate, but if you’re trying to argue that Germans should be able to critique Zionism however they want because of that, it’s like literally getting into an argument about the literal meaning of literally with people who use literally to mean figuratively, but instead of a random teenager or twee linguistic descriptivist, you are arguing with the state.

    • console.log(bathing_in_bismuth)
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      62 months ago

      Who got the oldest artifacts in Palestine? Doesn’t seem colonizing if you have one of the earliest histories somewhere, right? That’s why Russia has a right to reclaim Ukraine /s

    • comfy
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      202 months ago

      Assuming you’re using the default Lemmy UI, there’s a block settings menu in your account settings page. It’s worth exploring, there’s some good options to play around with.

    • @IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Germans and being complicit because they are “just following laws/orders”. Name a better duo.

  • comfy
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    2 months ago

    The write-up they link is also insightful. Notably, they “explicitly reject these accusations” of being Zionists and insist it’s a legal precaution required by their countries.

    I’ve bought servers for hosting some small communities and I sometimes thought maybe I was paranoid for retaining anonymity and carefully picking the country and company to allow muh freedoms as far as speech goes, but it’s interesting seeing .world and feddit pull out the “just following legislation” card (which is understandable, given that staff imprisonment is obviously bad for their community, but also irresponsible and complicit to simply accept the situation instead of resolving it, and because this is an internet community there are safe ways to resolve it).

          • @ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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            42 months ago

            It is however illegal for them to allow such material to remain on their servers once they’re made aware of it.

            • @anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              132 months ago

              Their server isn’t located within Germany, from what I’m reading.

              From what I understand, the situation they are worried about is a german authority gaining access to their personal devices or somehow de-anonymizing their accounts and associating them with their actual identity while living in/traveling through germany, and seeing the type of content they are posting/allowing to be posted on a community they moderate.

              The actual risk of exposure to them is incredibly small.

              • poVoq
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                52 months ago

                This is false. The German police will contact the Austrian one, who will share the contact details of the persons legally responsible for publication, and if those happen to be residents of Germany, the Austrian laws are irrelevant to what the German police does.

    • poVoq
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      82 months ago

      Feddit.org was not started as an law-skirting activist space with specific op-sec requirements.

      My impression when talking with the admins is that they are quite sympethatic to such efforts, but simply ask that to be done somewhere else where it is safer for everyone involved.

  • @frostysauce@lemmy.world
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    272 months ago

    Comments will not be removed for the following:

    • Denouncing genocide.
    • Denouncing Israeli war crimes.
    • Criticizing Zionism as an ideology or political movement.
    • Referring to the current Israeli government as “criminal,” “expansionist,” or “far-right”.

    Y’all grabbed your pitchforks before you even got to that part, didn’t you?

    • @MetalMachine@feddit.nl
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      132 months ago

      You can’t call for the end of israel, a state started by ethnically cleansing the Palestinians and stealing their land. You don’t realize why thats a problem?

    • @deathbird@mander.xyz
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      32 months ago

      What, you’re scared of getting harrassed by your government for wrongthink on your hobby project? You sir are the actual fascist! We’ll defederate! Can’t let any of those instance users access ours. 🤡

    • @Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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      472 months ago
      • You can criticize Zionism as an ideology, but you can’t call for its end.

      • You can refer to the current Israeli government as “criminal,” but you can’t call for the dissolution of the state of Israel as it currently exists.

      You see the problem, surely?

          • @chobeat@lemmy.ml
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            92 months ago

            Germany is doing plenty of extra-judicial repression of pro-Palestine activism. Jurisdiction doesn’t matter.

          • poVoq
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            52 months ago

            These laws are AFAIK in Austria similar to those in Germany, and Austrian police will share the contact details of those responsible for publication who happen to be people living in Germany. The server location alone is not the only criteria.

  • @BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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    572 months ago

    While the servers of feddit.org are in Austria, most of the mods of this community as well as admins of this server live in Germany… Since criminal law is involved, enforcement can mean things like police raids and device confiscations.

    Lol, they’re trying to pretend that the cops will kick down their doors if someone says “free Palestine” on a server they’re mods of.

    • @chobeat@lemmy.ml
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      152 months ago

      I live in Germany, and it’s a totally realistic scenario, especially in Bavaria. They seize computers to intimidate digital activists all the time for way less serious topics.

        • @chobeat@lemmy.ml
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          72 months ago

          social media site specifically I don’t know, but raids for managing infrastructure for completely legal but politically inconvenient activities, yes, plenty. I remember going to a talk from a guy managing the servers of Extinction Rebellion and he got all his stuff seized, never got accused of anything, had to wait months to get his stuff back and never got back a few things.

          • @BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            Source?

            And that’s very different to just being an admin on a social media site that doesn’t ruthlessly enforce German law.

            • @deathbird@mander.xyz
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              32 months ago

              So here’s an article about a raid on an environmentalist group in Germany called Last Generation: https://earth.org/last-generation-activists/

              There’s a link to the German language statement from the police which is quite readable after translation, and of course the article itself describes the general activities that they were engaged in and accused of.

              Of the activities that they were accused of, it does seem in line with prior environmental activist groups like Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, and Earth First!

              As for what laws get enforced by a website, that is going to depend on jurisdiction. For example, the USA has section 230 of the DMCA, which holds that website operators are not responsible for user content with the exception of content accused of violating copyright within certain parameters. Doesn’t mean they won’t raid your servers, just means you won’t be held legally responsible if they think you were sufficiently responsive to issues when raised.

              At this time I don’t know the specifics of what Germans have to think about to avoid state interference, but it does look like it is more severe than what the US has to do with.

  • @highduc@lemmy.ml
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    432 months ago

    Wow, real mask off moment, though they were using the “German law” pretext for a while now.

  • Time to defederate Feddit.org.

    To bad. They weren’t that bad, IME. But denying criticism of a state actively carrying out a globally recognized genocide… that’s a strict rule I’ve adopted.

    If midwest.social won’t defederate, I’ll have to block the whole instance.

    • poVoq
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      132 months ago

      The post literally says that you can critizise that 🤦

      Please understand that there can be some nuance on the topic and that people in Germany are understandably extra careful on the topic.

  • @anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    972 months ago

    Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular

    This part floored me. As if it wasnt Israel that was currently denying equal rights to Palestinians and not the other way around… this is just the zionist version of ‘all lives matter’ bullshit.

  • marcie (she/her)
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    302 months ago

    Genuine freak shit. Maybe wait until the government bothers you, don’t preempt them

    • poVoq
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      82 months ago

      Says the person not at risk of early moring police raids of their home including months long confiscation of all their communication devices and costly legal proceedings to get them back.

        • poVoq
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          32 months ago

          Right, people arguing to not expose others to the risk of police raids are “asckually Nazis”. You realize how absurd that is? Anne Frank was found during a police raid…

          • @Grapho@lemmy.ml
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            152 months ago

            Are you fr? Are the feddit admins (appropriate as fuck name) hosting Palestinian refugees in their server locations, now?

            Eur*s and their guilt tripping for shit they caused in the first place I stg

      • marcie (she/her)
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        2 months ago

        I’m a communist trans woman with guns who helps house people for free in the USA. I’ve had ICE and police show up to my doorstep before. For some reason, I doubt a bunch of cishet white nerd guys in Germany are about to have as many problems as I do for hosting anti israel content on a small social site.

          • Cowbee [he/they]
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            62 months ago

            Communists have always been pro-gun, you can’t have a revolution without them. Things get more nuanced within Socialism, once the revolution has broadly succeeded, but an armed working class in Capitalism is harder to oppress.

        • poVoq
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          2 months ago

          Great, more power to you, but you do realize that this is still quite a different situation? What you are doing is not illegal (for now at least) and you have some control over the risks you personally take.

          Hosting a space for others but still being legally responsible for what they do in that space has different requirements. You would probably also ask people you host to not set up a meth lab in your place.

          • marcie (she/her)
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            What I’m doing is illegal in my jurisdiction, ICE showed up for a reason. The law can eat my ass no one should be homeless

            • poVoq
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              32 months ago

              Fine, I don’t know your situation, but there is still the difference that you chose to take that personal risk intentionally, while the feddit.org admins did not.

              • marcie (she/her)
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                Unforced error really, there’s a lot of secure hosting providers that take anonymous payments. Could easily say you transferred domain control to someone else to avoid liability when the law passed. They’re doing this because they have no convictions and are lazy at best, at worst they support Israel.

                • Not really.

                  You can’t become anonymous and retain site ownership. The site would’ve needed to be shut down and a new, somehow completely unrelated site would have to be started.

                  Besides, even if that were done you bet your ass a random German lawyer would immediately sue the new site for violating Impressumspflicht. That’s one quick way to get the police investigating your site. Your OPSEC better be close to “hosting an illegal streaming site” level.

                  Even German forums about piracy would rather have an impress and remove illegal content than remain anonymous and evade police - see tarnkappe.info.

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost
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        142 months ago

        “Look it’s the law, disobeying the law is bad, I must obey the law and report my local Jews pro-Palestine thought crime.”

        • poVoq
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          22 months ago

          The irony of all the armchair warriors here is too thick 🤦 Go get yourself squatted and possibly arrested, that will for sure help the Palestinians that are facing a genocide /s

            • poVoq
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              32 months ago

              A Solarpunk with better opsec, yes. Maybe you should learn a bit about that yourself.

                • poVoq
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                  22 months ago

                  I am not one of the admins effected by this, but I know better than to expose others to such risks over stupid arguments on a public internet forum.

                  But apparently that is too much to expect here 🙄

                • poVoq
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                  12 months ago

                  That wasn’t me, but in specific cases where multiple accounts are used for ban evasion or similar stuff that can be justified from a moderation perspective.

                  And if you do such a bad job that it is easy to guess your sockpuppet accounts then that is really a failure in opsec on your side 😅

                • poVoq
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                  22 months ago

                  You need to look up the definition of censorship, because you are apparently ignorant or brainwashed by some freeze peach people on the topic.

                  Asking people not to post stuff on a public forum that could endanger themselves and the operators of the forum is good opsec practise, as is removing such posts that are made regardless of that.

          • @Count042@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            I’m a devops engineer and host quite a few things. Running a point to point VPN is fucking simple for anyone capable of running Lemmy.

            Your argument is transparently stupid to anyone with even an ounce of technical capabilities.

            • poVoq
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              2 months ago

              Ok great, than explain it to us, because apparently you have no idea about the actual situation Mr. “DevOps Engineer”… (a joke of a job title for actual security professionals). /s

              • @Count042@lemmy.ml
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                You’re as competent a security professional as your beloved Rhodesian military was at fighting.

                I also literally did tell you how in the comment above. Setup a point to point VPN and set the remote endpoint address in DNS for the URL. Make sure the remote endpoint is not in German jurisdiction.

                Someone that was actually competent (not you) would know how to do that.

  • megane-kun
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    2 months ago

    I am curious about the reactions in the thread linked in the OP, but I can’t access it. I don’t know if the thread is deleted either since I can’t access even the server.

    Are they temporarily down?


    EDIT:

    False alarm. I was able to access it after some struggle. I don’t know why I can’t access it in my desktop but I was able to access it via mobile. At any rate, it’s a problem on my end.

    Reading the linked post, I’m glad to note that it seems to me that the consensus is largely against the change. Even the few comments from those in the instance is pretty much against it.