Ugh, I just can’t win. I generally don’t like to edit out (but just append to) stuff I’ve written but I’m really sorry about besmirching you and your instance due to another user causing me to doubt my interpretation of the modlog. Going to remove all mentions of dbzer0.

Sorry.

Those communities are hosted by db0 as their home instance - can’t federate their content out to others if the origin doesn’t exist (as I understand the mechanics anyway).

I updated my post after another user stated that it wasn’t lemmy.world admins that performed the ban but the db0 team that did. I can’t say with certainty that’s actually the case since the modlog is pretty opaque and I don’t have full knowledge of how [federated] actions are propagated & displayed.

I (incorrectly?) assumed since those communities had existed for so long on the dbzer0 instance they had at least tacit approval from the admins there and were in communication with them enough that a full ban wouldn’t occur – when I saw the removal in the modlog I didn’t even consider that possibility.

Sorry for kicking up drama here if the Lemmy.World team had no part in this :(

Shit, sorry for all the drama if this is just me misunderstanding the federation system. I wish there was more information provided in the modlog than just “admin”, like at least stating the origin server that took action. I just assumed since those communities had been “supported” (or at least tolerated) by db0 for so long they were on good terms and in communication with each other - didn’t even cross my mind.

Some other categories of communities that are flagrantly violating the TOS and should also be banned:

• news & politics - reference entities advocating for hate crimes, war crimes and various forms of discrimination
• religions - indrectly facilitate human rights abuse, especially against children
• developer & security - reference network, system and programming knowledge that indirectly facilitate compromising Lemmy.World
• DIY makers - indirectly facilitate the creation of weapons and theft of proprietary designs
• books, movies, television - reference and indirectly facilitate every harmful and illegal thing imaginable

It wouldn’t be ethical, legal or really even feasible, but I wonder how long it would take for law enforcement to aggressively reform their methods and attitudes if some percentage of the calls they were sent to were “secret shopper” style tests involving important people.

Dispatched for reports of suspicious activity or drug dealing and it’s some relative of the DA/mayor/governor etc. Make it part of the hiring process that relatives need to accept they might be unexpectedly used for that purpose and if they decline it hurts or prevents the official or officer’s chances of being hired. Surely if there isn’t any expectation of being abused there should be no concerns with having engagements with the police.

I’m sure in practice they’d work out secret handshakes and markers to identify themselves but maybe that could be exploited by the public like some do with police supporter bumper stickers.

EDIT: I recognize this didn’t happen in the US, adjust specific terms and concepts as needed to localize :)

Tesseract is one tool that can do it.