This has happened once before and they reversed it. But they said this last time too:
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.
Lemmy world:
- Runs the largest Lemmy instance, for free, for your enjoyment.
- Accepts all liability for content, local and federated (there’s little/no legal distinction when you’re essentially running a copy of a remote community)
- Posts a transparent TOS
- Lists which countries’ governing laws apply to it
- Gave a valid reason for the removal of those communities in the modlog
Users, not even on Lemmy World or directly affected by this:
I’m not in the loop or even involved with LW’s admin affairs, but I would imagine there was a letter or email to them or their service provider that prompted that and likely named those communities specifically. Going out on a limb, I would guess the community removal was a timely response to something like that, and based on LW’s history, an announcement will probably be coming soon-ish.
Before you grab your torches and pitchforks, remember: Pretty much every Lemmy instance is run by volunteers that don’t have legal departments.
