lwadminAug 15, 2023

Removal of piracy communities

https://lemmy.world/post/3234363

Removal of piracy communities - Lemmy.World

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: - [email protected] [/c/[email protected]] - [email protected] [/c/[email protected]] - [email protected] [/c/[email protected]] 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.

Show threadJackthelad

And still people are crying about this.

You can literally change to another instance. That’s the entire point of the Fediverse. If you don’t like a decision the admin has taken, you can move elsewhere.

The entitlement of some people these days is ridiculous.

Aug 15, 2023 at 9:10pmWeb
Show threadArmok: God of BloodAug 15, 2023
I moderate/founded six communities hosted on lemmy.world. There isn’t a way for me to transfer those to a different instance.
Show threadsamus12345Aug 16, 2023
Why would you need to? People from any instance can subscribe to those communities. Use your lemmy.world account to mod the communities and browse with another.
Show threadArmok: God of BloodAug 16, 2023
It’s a headache to constantly have to switch between accounts to check reports and moderate. I also don’t want to keep the communities on an instance hell-bent on blocking/defederating from other communities/instances all the time.
Show threadCabrioAug 16, 2023
If you don’t like it host your own instance with all the blackjack, hookers, and liability you want; instead of bitching about what toys someone else has in their sandbox.
Show threadRealFknNitoAug 15, 2023

The fuck are you talking about? Most sane people go “Damn, this thing I like is now doing a thing I don’t like. I’m going to let them know and hopefully enough people agree to change it back.” but people like you with full fedi brain go “Whelp, this instance has a mod whose name contains two letter U’s in it, better change instances.”

You’ve watered down what the word entitlement so much I’m starting to doubt you ever knew what it meant. Entitlement is demanding your preference be catered to for the sake of it, community is giving feedback on what makes sense and what doesn’t. A general, all-purpose instance shouldn’t ban content except in extreme cases like they themselves state, which is illegal content. Piracy is not illegal, it’s ambiguous. Communities about piracy are not illegal and are infinitely more legal than the act of piracy.

This action makes very little sense when looked at sensibly and rather than hopscotch around instances like your mom in an all-male sorority I think we should give feedback to make an instance better before discarding it carelessly like a used condom in that same all-male sorority.

Show threadBobby BandwidthAug 15, 2023

Bro the fuck YOU talking about?

What would convince anyone to blindly accept liability for 100k users on a volunteer basis? If you owned the servers and your name was on the line, would you feel comfortable hosting “ambiguous” (your words) material?

Your tone echos the people that yell at FOSS devs on GitHub. You are the entitled one. It’s hilarious, you think you’re entitled to random people accepting liability on your behalf.

Show threadAngryMobAug 15, 2023
What liability?
Show threadMuddybulldogAug 15, 2023
Admins and owners of instances can be potentially be held criminally and civilly liable for anything that gets hosted on their instance.
Show threadOduseiAug 15, 2023

There was no illegal content hosted in any of those communities.

These same communities already existed/exist on reddit with no issues.

Show threadMuddybulldogAug 15, 2023

Are you fully versed on all global laws that directly or indirectly target piracy and copyright infringement? Particularly the really murky ones regarding “facilitating infringement”.

I’m not.

Reddit has a very large, well paid legal team on retainer and the cost of litigation is factored in to their business model. Reddit prevailed in this case and likely spent at least a year of LW’s operating costs doing so.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re right, it’s a matter of being able to afford to prove you’re right.

Film studios lose bid to unmask Reddit users who wrote comments on piracy

Judge voids subpoena, says film studios sought info that isn't relevant to case.

Ars Technica
Show threadOduseiAug 15, 2023

Lawsuits are coming to Lemmy, and there’s mortally nothing we can do to stop it. All social media is facing the same crisis of liability, and republicans in America are dead set on killing the rules that currently protect them.

Lemmy.world is always at risk of dumb lawsuits for defedirating exploding heads (“silencing conservative voices in social media”), god knows how many asshole patent trolls, plus their huge gaping GDPR non-compliance.

The EU could literally destroy this all tomorrow if they wanted. Driving up the user base, driving up donations, and acquiring their own legal team is the only way any big instance is going to stick around by this time next year.

Show threadM0oP0oAug 15, 2023
.world took those 100k happily and with open arms…
Show threadBobby BandwidthAug 16, 2023
Lemmy world has always said clearly that it is not a “free speech” zone, they made it clear that they would have rules
Show threadRealFknNitoAug 15, 2023

Friendly reminder 4chan has an entire board directed to posting magnet links to torrents as well as guides on how to use them in rare cases. On the clearnet. For everyone. If you don’t want to be a magnet link directory, fine, that’s an understandable position. Ban communities that allow magnet links. It is sheer paranoia to ban a community that merely engages in the discussion of piracy and related content and banning swaths of content on a general purpose instance defeats the entire point of ‘general purpose’.

But again, telling on yourself not knowing what the fuck entitled means. You’re seven layers of stupid treating piracy like it’s fucking CP.

Show threadMuddybulldogAug 15, 2023
To be fair, Hiro has also been very vocal about his willingness to fight these types of battles and has private investors that support those efforts.
Show threadRealFknNitoAug 15, 2023
Well yes, but I’m not holding any site to the standard of 4chan. A lot of their content is on the edge of morality nevermind legality. I’m just trying to illustrate that this is at least a full layer of legal liability away from what a much larger site does and is still being purged out of paranoia.
Show threadMuddybulldogAug 16, 2023

I 100% agree with your assessment regarding relative level of risk. On the other hand, knowing LW is hosted in Germany does multiply their risk solely by virtue of geography.

Very few instances have proper resources for general moderation never mind sorting out the “hard questions”.

The troll that started this shitshow knew exactly what they were doing. Once the admins were “alerted” they had to act in order maintain “safe harbor” provisions afforded to communications carriers and platforms. While I’m most familiar with the US DCMA, similar legislation and provisions exist in the EU and other locales. Problem is, remote community moderation is somewhat hit or miss right now due to shortcomings in the platform itself. That’s if you even have the resources to look through everything and make a “reasonable” determination on a post by post or comment by comment basis. While I don’t agree with the decision to block these communities I do see how the admins may have reached the conclusion that to do so was their only viable choice, at the moment.

Show threadBobby BandwidthAug 16, 2023

Ratio.

Also lol at using 4chan as your example of how to run a site

Lemmy world clearly stated that they were not a “free speech” zone, that they would have rules, you joined anyway

Show threadRealFknNitoAug 16, 2023

This kid just said Ratio. Bro go back to your Twitter echo chamber, I’ve never given a shit if my opinions are popular, I care if they’re right.

By all means, be the most popular idiot you can be. None of what I’m advocating for is ‘free speech’ you lemming, it’s the contradiction of a ‘general purpose’ instance to ban content out of preference and masquerade it as legal liability. It’s not illegal so it doesn’t break the rules, even though they claim it is and does. So either they’re lying or misinformed and according to Hanlon’s razor, one should never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently be explained by stupidity.

So to recap It’s not illegal. It shouldn’t be banned. I hope the admins change their mind. Take your ratio and hang it up on the fridge for your mom.

Show threadOduseiAug 15, 2023
The troll responsible for this is from another instance, and has been demanding that all other big instances do this. Maybe take it up with them?
Show threadMaximilianKohlerAug 16, 2023

It seems like it would be difficult to keep track of all the instances that have/haven’t banned the communities/instances you’re interested in.

Like if someone wanted to move to an instance that hasn’t banned these piracy communities, how would they even know where to look?

Show threadchic_lukeAug 16, 2023

You get it. This is why Reddit isn’t going anywhere and people are just downloading the official App or patching Infinity or Sync with ReVanced Manager. I’m an advanced user, FOSS advocate, die-hard Linux user and one that gets 90% of their mobile apps through F-Droid. I love the idea of the Fediverse, but I am struggling to use it for my own needs without all the defederation stuff getting in the way and becoming very hard to block. If someone like me is having problems, then it absolutely isn’t ready for prime time.

It reminds me of the Linux desktop back in 2017. It was promising and it was beginning to get more interest and traction, but still when you tried using it was eh. Almost there. But not quite there. There would always be something a touch too inconvenient. So you would eventually image your laptop back to Windows and go with it, while knowing in the back of your mind you shouldn’t, but you want to actually get stuff done and play your games. Linux has matured way past this point and it can now act as a main system no problem and be a reliable performer with a scope that covers 90% of use cases well, the dream was achieved. I hope the Fediverse will follow a similar curve with time, but after months of trying the Fediverse out a way or another it still can’t stop reminding me of that older stage of Linux.

Show threadMaximilianKohlerAug 20, 2023

It’s true that I’m also struggling to use the fediverse for my own needs, and opted to move my communities to a forum instead. But for this issue, I found this:

Awesome Lemmy Instances has a list where you can see how many instances block/are blocked by each other github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances

GitHub - maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances: Comparison of different Lemmy Instances

Comparison of different Lemmy Instances. Contribute to maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Show threaddanieltonAug 16, 2023
People can call me a shill or whatever, but a large instance like lemmy.world should absolutely be careful of what communities are allowed to appear here. A volunteer operation can’t handle the legal bills that come from pissing off rich people.
Show threadGracchiBrosAug 16, 2023
Please educate this idiot on where I can move where I can view everything without some others censoring information from me?