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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I think this is a good time to remind everyone that the strength of federated social media (and a big reason why we’re all here) is that no private company or country’s laws can have total control over the fediverse.
Everyone who runs an instance is going to have a different risk-tolerance for legal issues however, and I can’t fault anyone for making a judgment call that they feel best protects the server and their users. 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.
In my interactions with the .World admins, I’ve seen nothing but people trying to run an instance in the most fair and neutral way they can, and I personally trust them to make the hard calls when they come up. That being said, if you’re frustrated with the legal concerns of a host’s country or have had a run-in with a mod that upset you, it only strengthens the fediverse if you spread out or create similar communities elsewhere.
Midwest.social is located in the US and is also a leftist instance. However, we don’t host many large comms ourselves.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Usually bc they are trying to see if they can get away with that argument. And sometimes it works so they continue to try.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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”
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
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.”
Anyone who wants The Adjuster to be imprisoned is supporting violence against him. Imprisonment is a violent act. Drag thinks the Lemmy.world admins should make sure to remove any comments advocating imprisonment.
Drag sounds like a hoopy frood, as does The Adjuster. Ford agrees
Drag would like to share a pan galactic gargle blaster with Ford sometime.
Zerg sides with Drag on this.
Just because something is legal, it’s not necessarily ethical and vice versa.
“Adjustment” is creating accountability by other means.Did you refer to yourself in the third person?
No. Drag has first person neopronouns.
Imprisonment is meant to be a means of reducing possible harm and a means of reform, but if you disagree with that then you should take it up with the legislators in the USA and not the website admins.
Oh, sorry, are you saying the use of guns is justified and nonviolent if the intention is to reduce further violence?
Drag wonders if this principle could be applied to any recent events…
I guess we’ll just see how much or how little good comes of all this very soon, won’t we?
Best possible case scenario: it’s still legal to rip people off and privatize healthcare, so that just keeps happening but at least we get to feel good about punishing that one guy’s family for his crimes.
Worst case scenario: A very large number of copycat killers (secretly funded by overseas autocrats) drag Taylor Swift across pavement, Bill Gates burns alive in his home, and both of their heirs invest everything into fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the new US Administration views the situation as worthy of enforcing martial law and deploys the military on its own people. Congress is reluctant at first, but it could always be one of them killed by a vigilante next.
But most likely scenario is still that nothing has changed, nothing will
That other health insurance company already walked back their policy about not covering anaesthetic for the whole of a surgery. Muad’dib has already improved the world.
TBH it’d be hard to organize a board meeting, write up, and sign off on changes like that in like a day so there is a chance that was coincidental timing. You could just as easily say their reversal was the result of the Governor calling them out on it.
If you believe that his family was punished, then do you believe that the death penalty as used by the justice system is also a punishment on those people’s families? Because kin punishment is generally considered a human rights violation, and is illegal in the US as far as I’m aware.
Are you comparing the justice system to vigilante’s killing unarmed civillians in the street as equals?
Let me tell you the difference. You could have voted to change the laws, voted in the people who selected the judges, when you’re arrested it’s the result of choices made by every eligible american citizen, in some states including felons.
You don’t get to choose if a guy who shoots you next week. You don’t get to state your case before a jury. It’s a system where the people most willing and able to commit harm are kings.
My takeaway? It seems like the admins tried making it a banned topic, but the pushback was so great that they eventually said “Ok, ok, murder is bad. Going forward, no murder…but just this once.”
That’s kind of what happened in Politics when Kissinger died… “No celebrating death… but it IS Kissinger…”
I don’t even believe in the death penalty for most murderers.
But when your murder count would make any serial killer that did it with their bare hands instead of an email in all of history blush, with the cold calculation of a sociopath, there’s really nothing more to say.
That doesn’t even feel like murder, that feels like an ongoing mass slaughter.
I can empathize with murders of passion, even misguided, ignorant hatred as that was usually something impressed into them, and can relate to the very human secondary emotion of anger even if felt in ignorance, but murders of “Well if I murder these thousands of people on this newly discovered loophole, I can increase quarterly profits by 2.4%! Score!” then it becomes impossible. It’s like trying to empathize with a computer devoid of any humanity.
There’s also the point that he was continuing to kill thousands of people, on an ongoing basis.
Vigilante justice for someone who killed in the past, bad.
Someone taking down a killer mid-rampage? Hero.
This is just supporting the death penalty with extra steps. Which is fine, just own it.
In a perfect world he would be institutionalized, not murdered.
But society would need to correctly see the insatiably, sociopathically greedy as severely mentally ill and a harm to others, which they are, and not role models, which they are considered in this broken culture.
With our culture as it is, people like him are a threat that can’t be otherwise contained, because they’re of use to the economy that works against most of us.
Chill out, supporting the death penalty is fine.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Probably because they’ve been removed by the mods.
Why use many words when
fewnone do trick?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.
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.
I haven’t seen a single comment actually advocating for violence
It’s almost as if the mods are doing their jobs…
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.
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
Re-read the OP, particularly the third paragraph but also definitely the sixth - it covers exactly this topic.
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.
Divisive topic and comment section, but IMO that feels like a fair change. No stance on this topic will ever not be divisive, but I think this is probably the most impartial stance that could be taken
Everyone who opposes the assassination of one CEO is glorifying the thousands of murders he committed. It’s one or the other.
Uh…that’s not how it works at all. You should get past that logic in 5th or 6th grade.
Classic “angry teenager” argument. Not cool.
Drag disagrees, but drag thought of a better and more fun argument anyway.
Imprisonment is a violent act. Anyone saying the police should imprison The Adjuster is advocating violence, and the admins should remove their comments.
People in the US have justifiable revulsion to its rapacious healthcare system leading to outright un-aliving of a large segment of the population. One might argue that it’s a silent genocide of the underprivileged. This incident has highlighted that sentiment in a way that may effect real change and in a way his untimely demise may lead to positive health outcomes. Suppressing the expression of that anger could have the opposite outcome.
tl;dr (if I am getting this right):
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Sometimes moderators don’t get if something is forbidden under the TOS, or believe something should be forbidden but isn’t. Ask an admin if uncertain.
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Moderators can further restrict content beyond the bare minimum of the TOS. Please don’t complain to the admins if a moderator does this (in good faith, obviously).
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Conversely, moderators, please read the TOS and don’t tell someone something is forbidden under it if it actually isn’t.
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Previously, admins told mods to remove content re: Jury nullification when discussing violent crimes.
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Currently, this has been limited only to discussion of jury nullification of future violent crimes, as it could imply someone should actually perform said violent action because they would be acquitted via jury nullification. As far as I can tell, this is the only actual change of any rule in this post.
Summary over, personal thoughts follow: That one specific change, I don’t actually have any issue with. Reasonable enough. Obviously the devil is in the details of what is forbidden under “advocating violence”; that is a monstrously complex discussion beyond the scope of this particular announcement. Furthermore, the value of some of the clarifications in this post are dependent on admins actually holding an open dialogue with users, the track record of which is… variable. (I am still waiting on a response from months ago, which I was then told would be available in a few weeks.)
Additionally, since lemmy.world remains federated with other instances which tolerate unpleasant behavior and I see no indication on this post that this will change, this functionally changes little of users’ ability to access that content and contribute to it anyhow.
Additionally, since lemmy.world remains federated with other instances which tolerate unpleasant behavior and I see no indication on this post that this will change
There is nobody in this world who can act in a way that isn’t unpleasant for someone. This is such an unachievable bar as to be laughable.
Hi,
could you send me a link to the comment where you wanted a response from us. Sorry if we forgot to respond.
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I really like your post and the changes! Obviously it is a very divisive and polarized event. In my opinion, the lines you have drawn help in creating a productive discussion environment. I am very happy to have an admin team who can deal so well with this situation - thank you for your work and this post! I sincerely appreciate it.
Personally tired of hearing about it. I disagree on the morality of this and made an acct on another instance. Can do same with communities on lemmy.world if we could all agree to move to them.
That option was never off the table. It would make it easier for those of us who prefer justice over murder to block the community of those who want society to devolve into chaos and anarchy. Those who call for violence and some half assed revolution. I don’t need you here.
I’m tired of hearing people espouse their basest thoughts only to come up with murder is justified. It took you two seconds to come up with that? What happens next? When the tribe has devolved to a point where even they could be the target who will be there to say maybe we went too far. Well the line was passed miles ago and you didn’t even realize you crossed it.
All this has taught me is that we have a severe morality and ethics problem. It probably happened about a generation ago. I wonder what stopped being instilled or taught (or who did the teaching) to cause this devolution. That’s what I’m worried about right now.
