These communities are not even hosted on lemmy.world, this is an absurdly overreacted response. There were no signs of any legal trouble and I can't understand how lemmy.world specifically would be the target of such legal action. If you want to host an instance, you should do everything in your power to allow discussions on any topic, while in necessary cases disallowing direct posting/linking of illegal content. Instead, you chose to block a community that has long been known to avoid having any trouble with the moderators.

And on top of this, the removals were done following the request from a troll account, by a user involved in far more questionable discussions than the legal discussions currently going on in the now-removed communities. Should no attempt be made to differentiate between a legit legal concern and trolling?
- Good ol' Bungiefan_ak, creating troll accounts on any instance that'll have them to troll all things piracy and post transphobic and hateful shit wherever they go.
- If you post to a community that isn't local, the content of the post is stored on your local server and the remote server just makes a copy. The posters home server is where the illegal content is hosted.
- The ad hominem criticism is irrelevant. The communities should be removed or not removed based on the server's policies regardless of who first raised the question.
The great thing is, now you're 100% empowered to move forward and host the responsibility yourself. Demanding volunteers shoulder potential liability (when you yourself admit you can't understand how there's any in the first place) is juvenile.
The moment a volunteer is hit with a DMCA notice or any threat of legal action, you think they have any interest in going through the court system? You can do it first.
- I think you don't understand what a DMCA notice actually is. The whole point of it is to give you a chance to remove offending content. The "threat" of legal action won't actually result in anything, provided you comply, and that is exactly why I do not understand the preemptive actions, when there is basically no such thing as immediate legal threat in case of DMCA notices. The copyright holders often do not want to go through the court system either and will gladly accept pre-legal-action compliance.
- I agree with the point, but US-wise, especially if you aren't even the site actually as the source of truth for the community, you almost definitely don't go to court unless you counterclaim. If you get a claim and nuke the offending communities in response (assuming you don't have tools to block specific posts in the communities, but that would also work), you have protections built in.
Doesn't matter if they are hosted here or not. The way federation works is that threads on different instances are cached locally.
We have NO issues with the people at db0 - we are just looking out for ourselves in a 'better safe than sorry' fashion while we find out more. As mentioned in the OP we would like to unblock as soon as we know we can not get in any legal trouble.
- "we are just looking out for ourselves in a 'better safe than sorry' fashion while we find out more."
  This is an unfortunate aspect of individuals/small groups housing the fediverse vs big companies. Big companies have lawyers and the capital to back them, individuals do not.
  If I was in your shoes, I'd do the same thing. I appreciate your wish for thus to be temporary. I hope you will share your findings once you come to a final decision; information like this is relevant to all those managing servers.
- What needs to happen for you to be confident you won't get in legal trouble, and thus unblock them? Change on the db0 side? Lemmy.world admins getting legal representation/advice? Something else? I'm curious how you all see this playing it out in the future.
- Discussing piracy isn’t illegal. It would be one thing if they were hosting pirated content, but they don’t even link to anything.
  If that were to change I’d understand the decision, but this just seems silly to me.
- as far as i have seen (as a subscriber to c/piracy) there is no links to pirated content and they are very clear that that is not allowed
  the vast majority of the discussion is on morals of piracy, anti piracy measures, etc etc
- I feel like there should be a major distinction between caching remote content and hosting that content yourself. Does Cloudflare get in trouble every time the FBI seizes a site that used Cloudflare routing, CDN, or caching? Not as far as I'm aware.
- We have NO issues with the people at db0 - we are just looking out for ourselves in a ‘better safe than sorry’ fashion while we find out more. As mentioned in the OP we would like to unblock as soon as we know we can not get in any legal trouble.
  Words are empty, offers are void in Nebraska. You already took steps against people who simply mostly discuss piracy. What concrete steps can you take now to show that you'd actually unblock "as soon as we know"?
- Soo ultimately you personally will be the only person determining what people can and can't see, based on your perception alone. You don't like something, you'll ban it. You worry about something, you'll ban it. And there won't be a trace without you saying "we banned something". Which means there are no checks at all to you powertripping in the future. How is this supposed to be free, open and general then? This is even worse than reddit was.
- Your argument is that user hosts infringing_song.mp3 on file_host, a community on lemmy.ml has a link to filehost and lemmy.world has a cached copy of the text containing the link to lemmy.ml which has a link to filehost and you think lemmy.world has legal exposure?
- Well, caching content is not the same as copying it. The major difference in the court would be that caching is automatic - and as such you are not in complete responsibility of what it is you copied. If you do everything in your power to comply with any DMCA notices, then I couldn't realistically see lemmy.world being targeted. This is an analogous situation to eg. accidentally opening a website containing illegal content. Sure, your computer did download the contents to the RAM, but what matters is that you acted in good faith and did not attempt to get the contents, it just happened in the process of browsing the web and as such you could not reasonably expect to receive such content.
The content is hosted on lemmy.world - that's how the fediverse works. Each instance pushes updates to other instances and they host it locally for their users. The issue is that the admins here can't moderate a community not on their instance. So if an instance is located somewhere it is legal, it might not be legal at the location of another instance.
- I don't think that's a fair assessment. It's a cache. Is Cloudflare liable for hosting lib genesis then? Because cliudflare caches much worse stuff than copyrighted pictures and books.
  There's a lot to talk about but afaik Section 230 that defines every website in US says that host is not responsible for user content and I honestly don't see how big copyright could prosecute lemmy.world here that's not even hosting data directly.
- What content? You mean the comments generally discussing piracy? Because there’s no actual pirated content being hosted, or even linked to, in that community.
Lemmy.world maintains a local copy of every external community. This is how federation works. Any piracy related posts on those subs will be copied in their entirety to lemmy.world servers, so lemmy.world could potentially be sued for hosting that content. Being the largest instance makes it a target.
It is rare to get advanced notice of legal problems. Usually the first you hear about it is a cease and desist, or a lawsuit. Lawsuits are costly to defend even if you're doing nothing wrong.
I don't like this decision. But it is a sensible one to protect the instance. If you care about piracy discussions you can visit those communities directly or on a different instance that made a different decision.
- There is no suing for that, talking about piracy is perfectly legal. That's called freedom of speech for your information
I enjoyed helping this place grow and doing my part to discuss here but I disagree with this decision and I'm going to evaluate looking for a different home instance.
- This is incredibly reasonable and reflects the exactly appropriate amount of urgency and emotional reaction to this happening. 👏🏻
What signs of legal trouble are you referring to?
- Pre-legal action such as DMCA requests or cease and desist letters
Let's also not ignore the fact that these communities literally prohibit Links or content from being posted to them. So even if people make the Federation argument about cross-hosting it's all moot in the end because the community doesn't allow it in the first place.
Here is a link to the rules of the Piracy community you will notice if you have any form of reading comprehension (or if you actually read it and aren't just trolling, like many people here) that rule 3 specifically prohibits linking to or hosting files, which many people making the federated hosting argument seem to leave out of the equation, likely because it destroys their argument altogether since their argument is about illegal content being hosted, but no illegal content is hosted in the first place (and any that is usually is removed by the mods for breaking the rules, just like it is here on Lemmy.world).
I can’t understand how lemmy.world specifically would be the target of such legal action.
Because they're the largest instance and therefore the biggest target.
- But the content in question isn't hosted on lemmy.world..?
I think the problem is that because of the way that the fediverse, they ARE hosting the content. They effectively copy the content from that community onto their server to distribute it to all the users of their lemmy instance. So from a legal perspective they are hosting the content and they would be held liable for a distributing it.
- I think the problem is that because of the way that the fediverse, they ARE hosting the content.
  And the "content" is discussions about piracy, not piracy.
  Come on. Small instance indie devs don't have the bandwidth and storage to save all seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 4K.

Please make announcements on lemmy instead of exclusively on discord moving forward. That is the biggest issue here, the lack of public transparency. Such a decision affects all instances, not just lemmy.world and making it publicly known is important

This was a misunderstanding from one of the team members. It has since been discussed and will not happen again. Lemmy.World and this announcement community is our primary platform,

Uh, @lwadmin@lemmy.world .. what's up with the banning going on in this thread? I noticed on a.lemmy.org that someone was labeled "banned" and their comment was simply "Ight, I’m out"

The mod note was "Let us help you".

There are more similarly weak (spiteful?) bans that certainly don't seem to be at a standard for a ban. "Litterally 1984" was another one. Is that all it takes to be banned here?

Edit: Many (all?) the users I referenced as banned are now unbanned from the site, but now banned from this community.

The "ight I'm out" ban note was.... hm. Not a great look. Comes across as petty and vindictive.

I hope that this demonstrates to people that the oppressive reddit behaviour is not confined to special individuals (such running major social media sites), but is a systematic occurance in online forums. Simply switching from one toxically moderated space to another is not a solution. But this is where the strength of ActivityPub/fediverse lies: we are able to leave for another server while still using the same fundamental service and being able to interact with the same content as before. I would recommend startrek.website as a new or second home for those who wish to migrate.

Reading all these comments it's clear that a lot of people have unrealistic ideas regarding what Lemmy and the Fediverse are supposed to be (or maybe it's me with weird ideas).

The Fediverse is just a bunch of apps that can all communicate with each other through a shared protocol. There is no requirement for them to be free speech platforms or host everything. The whole purpose of defederation supports the idea that instances are free to associate or disassociate with whichever instances they want. Furthermore, nearly every guide I read on joining Lemmy state that you should choose instances to join based on shared ideals/beliefs.

For everyone saying "I'm leaving lemmy.world" I say "Good. That's what you're supposed to do." When the instance you join no longer aligns with what you want, you go to another instance and then you'll be back to viewing all the communities you want to see. That is what the Fediverse is all about and how it's designed.

What part is illegal? Are they sharing files on that instance and your instance re-hosts it?

From my understanding, discussions are legal, guides are legal, tips are legal, but actual files (aka "copyrighted content") is illegal. There are no files shared there, links at maximum, but institutions should be after those content-sharing websites, not forums.

I am against this decision and I am happy that I am not part of admins team.

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.

Surely there is a discussion to be had around what is and isn't allowed, there are plenty of subreddits discussing piracy without dolirect links that are playing within the rules.

Yeah I'm subbed to few piracy comms just because I like to see how that side of things is going. I've never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file. I've never even seen anyone link to a website. It's all been news and discussions and that's it.
- I’ve never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file.
  You ignored the "assistance in obtaining it" part, because members of !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com have been doing that. Also:
  EDIT: oh boy, shill posts a lie, innocent pirate mob upvotes. I literally post a proof that what he said is completely false, innocent pirate mob downvotes.
Especially because discussing copies of your own data also happens in such communities. There must be clear guidelines what can and cannot be discussed. Also, it would have been nice to have those communities selfregulate. For example, giving them 30 days to comply, e.g. removing any content that breaks the law.
Because the fediverse i about democracy. If laws stand in the way of democracy since they have been brought up by governments influenced by global corporations (which are by definition autocratic) then they must be ignored.
So, striking a balance to not get anyone in trouble while not working for IP holders is the way.
- Because the fediverse i about democracy.
  Isn't it, like, the opposite? With the main assumption being that you should find an instance that aligns with your interests and values, not find an instance and try to vote for it to become something you like? That is technically "voting with your feet" but instances don't actually need a large population to stay running.
- Yes. The thing is there is zero content breaking the law, so they would have looked ridiculous
Reddit has the money for legal defense when companies try to go after redditors. The mods and administration for world are volunteers and don't have th resources to defend themselves. It's unfortunate but this move makes sense as part of the bigger picture.
Sure. But we're a group of volunteers and we would not like to find out the hard way what is possible and what not. We would think meta discussions about piracy should be allowed as long as there is no linking to actual illegal content.
But is pointing to locations with illegal content legal or not? And having members/admins worldwide it makes it even harder to be sure.
We don't want to find out the hard way and this is a better safe than sorry measure. Again we personally have nothing against the people on these communities or against the communities itself.
- should go ahead and ban image uploading to lemmy.world, as there is likely a ton of illegal, copyright-violating content that hasn't been stress-tested for fair use.
- Smart, might as well shut down this whole thread then as we’re discussing piracy here too, right?
- I support your decision. Want to see the new instances that will pop up now hosted by your critics 😄

The fact that there was no announcement before the banning of the communities is not great, but good on you for acknowledging that mistake.

It's unfortunate that this action had to be done, but it's also understandable. It's not about what's right or wrong, and it's not even about whether there actually is any illegal content in these communities. It's about the fact that the Big Entertainment Companies don't care about the difference and see it ALL as bad, irregardless of whether it actually is illegal or not. If the admin team had a legal team and the financial security to fight back, then it wouldn't be as much of an issue. But they're not, they're just a bunch of regular folks, so they're being cautious and trying to pre-emptively prevent these problems from coming up, especially as Lemmy continues to grow every day.

The beauty of the Fediverse is that you can always switch instances or make an alt account.

Oh no. Wtf. Do you know what's funny? I actually joined this instance from piracy subreddit.

I guess it's time to leave.

While I'm not ethically opposed pirating, I understand and would probably do the same for a server I was hosting. Anybody remember Kim Dotcom's mansion raid?

What I do not understand is blocking a community surrounding magic mushrooms.. No one is going to prosecute the L.W admins for people discussing shrooms/their use...

Substances are legal/illegal depending on where one lives, just like weed which is apparently perfectly fine to post here, even tho possession is a death sentence in some countries.

It simply doesn't logically follow that weed, or even alcohol communities are permissible while a shroom community is not.

Banning any content deemed illegal in any country in the world establishes a very dangerous precedence (if that's the justification here). Free speech/dissenting from the government is illegal in many places in the world.

One thing the community must remember tho, is that you have to operate your server in accordance with the law in which country you're hosting it (in this case Germany).

I'll gladly admit I'm not too familiar with German law, but it seems unreasonable to expect government persecution for hosting servers which hosts a shroom discussion community.

I don't understand why people are upset even a little about this. This is a prefect advert for the fediverse. If you are not completely happy with an instance(which can never realistically happen) then you just host your own or have multiple accounts. Apps have this built in and easily accessible. Why do people want to concentrate everything they want into one instance? What if that instance goes down? This should not be hated or applauded.... just ignored as the way the fediverse should work. Don't get too attached to any single instance.

Thanks for only banning the communities and not the entire instance as a whole. That is a much healthier approach to deferation.

Lovely this happened because someone complained after being banned from the piracy instance for being a transphobic asshole.

Not sure why people are downvoting you, since that's exactly what happened. It's Bungiefan_ak, a troll that admins are playing wackamole with, as the person keeps appearing on new instances and pulling the same shit.
- Is there any indication this happened because of that? The reason people are downvoting is because such a link seems tenuous without proof.

The people whining are not the people that could face multimillion-dollar lawsuits over the issue. Like it or not, media companies are powerful and will go after websites seen as promoting piracy. Do what you reasonably have to do.

Ight, I'm out

From the modlog
Banned @soviettaters@lemmy.world
reason: Let us help you
That is petty and thin-skinned af lmao
EDIT 1: Account has been unbanned sitewide
EDIT 2: Banned from !lemmyworld@lemmy.world instead, for "trolling" (ツ)_/¯
At least there is a public modlog for accountability on Lemmy
- The modlog is a great feature. Thank you for sharing
- At least there is a public modlog for accountability on Lemmy
  This is one of the features I like in Lemmy so far. Accountability for actions.
Here's my new account. I found a random tiny instance and am chillin. I'd rather you not ban my new account (since I did nothing wrong) but bygones will be bygones.
Between Beehaw and LemmyWorld, I'm on my third account at this point. What starts as an alt quickly becomes the main under the right circumstances. 😂
- Gotta choose progressively smaller instances until you self-host.
- You can solve your "problem" by running your own instance and federate with whoever you want
- Join smaller instances, they don't do that there
Understand that Lemmy.world is run by volunteers. It is not a company. They don't have the resources to fight legal battles. The Fediverse is big, feel free to migrate to another instance if you want to participate in that community.
- But why would lemmy.world be the target of those supposed legal battles? These instances aren't even hosted on lemmy.world.

Even if we look past the issue that all of this was in response to a 10h troll account, there was no cease and desist, no threat of a lawsuit, nothing credible AT ALL.

Let's ignore all of that and say there was, it still means this instance is completely ill equipped to provide any sort of resistance, to something trivial.

It's like it's hosted in the middle of Illinois, by John Frank, at 3125 maple lane... Zero layers of protection.

That is awful and means no meaningful discussion can ever happen here. Nevermind piracy, what if people want to criticize the government? Or public figures?

If this instance can't fight a fake troll it can't fight and protect anything.

Which means we need to pool resources and fund instances that can and will fight back.

And yes that means fundraising to build up a defense fund and hosting outside the US etc.

I think a this is a bigger issue then just .worlds stance on piracy. Lemmy.world has put it self forward as the "front page of lemmy" but has now also removed one of the largest community using lemmy. And did so with no input on a discord server (not on any instance). This front page status was already shakey with all the down time and clunk. This seems like maybe not the best side to show new users.

Time to host my own instance. I disagree with this move.

Time to switch instances

"Alright let's all be adults about th--"

reads comments

¯(ツ)_/¯

It's a tough decision.

There's a target on the collective back of Lemmy, its developers and this instance. Rooting out these issues early is part of it. One of my first recommendations to @ruud@lemmy.world was to start putting aside contribution dollars from donors for a legal fund to manage liabilities like this. This decision is just solid management and avoiding issues well ahead of time.

I wish the admins well. And for those who have had their communities 'snipped' from being connected to Lemmy.world, I hear you. It's hard when you have built a connection and a sense of self on a platform, and then it becomes severed. That's hard.

You're not allowed to discuss piracy. You wouldn't talk about stealing a car would you?

Delete this.

- Were there any links to torrents though?
You are allowed to discuss piracy. You aren’t allowed to facilitate piracy (I.e. providing links to pirated content). It is illegal in the country where this instance is hosted.
- That community never linked to pirated content, you goose

QQ: Have there been other communities removed and was it communicated?

I have just realized that c/Shrooms has been banned too, but I cannot find a statement regarding this particular ban.

Are or will there be more bans? I am not asking to complain about it or make remarks about which the decision is correct to me or not, but rather point out the lack of communication or unfortunate communication.

I can understand this. This is a server hosted by an individual who doesn't want the potential legal headaches that may arise. Everyone is free to make another account on another instance, or create their own instance.

Y'all realize that saying things like "You've just lost a user!" or "Deleting my account!" or "This is now the worst instance on Lemmy!"... you sound like a Karen telling the kid at the register in CVS that she's leaving a bad Yelp review... right? Y'all seeing this? Am I going crazy here?

Seems overly cautious, or lemmy.world is trying to find excuses to cut off content they don't like. Legal trouble for allowing access to those communities, which aren't even based on lemmy.world, would be so much of an overstep, they'd probably be able to get free legal counsel from the EFF or a similar organization.

Anyways, this will be my last post on this server. Even though I don't use any of those communities, I don't want to have to constantly monitor what has been banned to see what I may miss out on.

Apparently, lemmy.world also removed c/shrooms, which I didn't even know about. And again, risk of legal trouble for that would be extremely low.

I do understand that you would remove them if they were also hosted here... But they are hosted on other instances so I don't understand the issue? Is linking to that specific instance via comment the same issue as if they were visible for everyone on this instance? Or even mentioning it now in the OP like it is?

Oh no! Users are complaining and downvoting. They just need to get inline and do what they're told. Okay for real, you people are worst type of people. Lemmy users are just showing their disapproval of the action. They have the right to do.

Do those communities house copyright content? The answer is no. Having discussions, giving guides & tips are are legal. So I don't see the problem. If someone going to get sued for it. It will be dbzer0.com and lemmy.ml due to said communities being part of the instances not LW.

Aight peace ✌️ you do you. Gonna go sail my ship over to another instance.

What is the legal theory being used here?

People chatting about piracy is now a crime in US? I thought the crime was uploading or downloading copyrighted content...

The DMCA has a provision on circumventing technical protection measures. It is illegal to break DRM. And it is illegal to "offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology... primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure"
Hosting discussions, or linking to anything that defeats any DRM scheme would have them offering that to the public. A lawsuit would likely cite the specific sections of the DMCA about circumvention.
The other thing to remember, is that you have to pay to have a lawyer defend you in court. Even if you're innocent. Even if they are 100% wrong, you have to have enough money to defend yourself. And a community hosted non-profit instance doesn't want that expense.
- I wish the state put this much energy into defending my property too
  Either way, fuck media companies, they can keep trying.
- DMCA isn’t particularly relevant here though.
- Good summary.
  Shorter version: DMCA is a shitty law, beacuse it's not practical for individuals to exercise their rights under it.
  Until we can get rid of the DMCA, copyright and freedom of the press is threatened.
  Folks in this thread would be better served turning their anger on the DMCA and those that keep that unpopular bill in the law books.
  Edit: DMCA doesn't apply to this server, I don't think. So nevermind. That's nice, at least.
Lemmy.world is based in the Netherlands, not the US. I don't know what the law is there.
- lemmy world is hosted in Finland. the owner, ruud, is in the Netherlands
- This is a good point, could anyone comment on the copyright law differences in Netherlands v. US? I think simplifying it for everyone might make it more palatable, otherwise people will continue speculating Lemmy World is overreacting.
https://www.hrpo.pitt.edu/european-union-eu-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20GDPR%3F,of%20individuals%20in%20the%20EEA.
- Sorry, how is GDPR relevant here?

I can still access r piracy on Reddit, i thought lemmy.world had more freedom of speech than corporate sellouts. 💀

This is a bit concerning… why is Lemmy censoring things that not even Reddit is censoring? This seems like a bleak warning for the future of the platform. I understand censoring illegal content, but if nothing is hosted on Lemmy, then what’s the problem?

Honestly fuck off. I came to Lemmy because I'm sick of people telling me what I can view and how I can view it. Guess I'll go find another instance again.

I am strongly opposed to the way this is handled. Discussing piracy may not be censored in any way and being afraid of shady lawsuits is not good, this is one of the main responsibilities of a server admin of such a grand operation. Especially so for what is effectively an image board which is grey zoning on copyright all the time. It is fine to ban communities who direct link to well known piracy sites, both because of the legal and perhaps ethical complications this brings.

We need now more than ever platforms where we defend basic freedoms as discussion of hot topics. I view the negative impact of this as banning discussion on drugs. Disclaimers about dangers and help lines for addiction should be forced, as the banning of purchase options, however please stay out of experiences, discussions and warnings on them.

The copyblight strikes again.

This decision was the logical one, however, it was only rendered logical because of the awful state of copyright law.

Unfortunate, but I understand the necessity of avoiding legal troubles as a volunteer group.

By that logic shouldn't they just shut down the instance? There's nothing to stop anyone posting direct links to piracy in any comm
- Ah, yes. Slippery slope. My old friend.

Any suggestions on instances to move over to?

I'm no fan of piracy - just seems like a pretty name for petty theft to me - but this decision seems problematic. I went and read some of the threads about this decision on some of the other communities, including dbzer0, and I looked around the blocked communities on an alt account.

I'm not seeing evidence of actual copyrighted material posted, just discussions about how to steal content, which itself isn't illegal. And there's a pretty fair amount of content - the communities are active - so if there was a violation I feel like it should be handled as the exception it appears to be. Those communities themselves don't allow posting of copyrighted content, so it shouldn't be a problem to get a violation removed. If someone posted an image that contained child pornography to one of the NSFW communities, would we block the whole community, or just get that post removed (and alert the authorities)? The latter, I hope.

They also make a good case that the action was taken in response to a troll on a newly-created account who didn't provide any evidence of there being copyrighted material. That in itself seems like a problem, though maybe someone looked into it? I'm pretty supportive of the .World admins, I think you're doing a good job in a difficult situation, but I believe these communities should be unblocked unless there is an actual problem.

How does Reddit get away with hosting these communities without the mentioned issues?

What are your thoughts on communities about drugs? Pretty big topic for me, although the drug subs mostly haven't moved here yet, is that because you ban them? If so, I'm wasting my time waiting for them here.

Not with me. Pirating for personal use is perfectly legal in my country.

Do we have an account migration tool yet and can somebody recommend a nice instance?

is this the new most downvoted post on lemmy?

I don't understand how lemmy world has removed them, aren't those all communities on different servers? How is this our problem?

I understood about this earlier with the defederation of hexbear instance. So I moved to another. Preemptive defederation is something I don't support. It should be the last resort.
- Hexbear is evil

This is why Lemmy won't grow, a lot of instances are forcing their users to create another account on other instances, this was my third account due to the blocking of some instances like this...

While I wish there was more transparency about this decision before action was taken, in this case it's kind of understandable due to the servers being hosted in Germany and them having really draconian piracy laws. Just hoping that this won't lead to a chain reaction of other communities being removed due to legal complaints.

In the meantime, happy to get my piracy content over at db0.

Ahhhh right, we are now one step closer to become the new reddit…

Time to get serious about running my own instance. I now have to wonder what kind of political opinion I might voice which could make the instance operators liable. This is not tolerable long-term.

I kinda do understand their stance, it sucks but its better than having to deal with legal shit.

From what I can see it is informational only. There is no direct content linking, this does not sound illegal.

Just to put my two cents: Thanks for the good work. Continue keeping up to make sure lemmy.world won’t be liable in any way for possible issues.

I did not know you can defederate from specific communities. I thought it can be done only to instances.

There is a local piracy-focused community at !piracy@lemmy.world. It's pretty dead, of course, only 4 posts ever, but still. How does this square with those others being blocked?

You have won my goodwill with your track record of decisions so far. I don't agree with this one, but it is not a dealbreaker for me. Thank you for getting around to announcing this in a public space, but as you say, please make sure to do this first next time something of this caliber is put through.

The issue seems to stem from the fact that the blocked communities posted direct links to copyrighted content. Duentonhave federation works those links get cached onto this instances server possibly making them liable for them.
- The issue seems to stem from the fact that the blocked communities posted direct links to copyrighted content
  Incorrect, !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com has a rule forbidding direct links to content. If those posts/comments exist mods there would simply remove them for breaking rules. Sort of seems like you're making random assumptions.

I‘m absolutely pro pirated software, as in many cases DRM violates many personal rights, so this decision will lead to the deletion of my account. I never support censorship. Gbye.

Goodbye y’all I’m out

Didn't even know an instance could block a specific community of another instance. I thought the only option was defederation. Is there any way to see/list the communities blocked by an instance?

I can't believe you've done this.

Not even Reddit banned their r/piracy

are platforms liable for user behavior?

Pathetic. Defeats the entire point if federated networks.

This is how lemmy is going to fail with the entire thing being fragmented mess. Which is sad as I was hoping it would be the proper exit plan for Reddit.

And once again we have people thinking that the instance owners would have to discuss everything they want to do with them and get the approval of everyone. It's already great that they're making announcements instead of doing it silently until people notice on their own. Plus, it's not hard to make an account elsewhere if you don't like it here. I doubt you're restricted to this single instance.

👎

So, in order to subscribe to those communities I should create another account in a different instance that either has them or is federated with them, right….? Any workaround for that? This sounds like it’s going to be a real chore to follow and will push a lot of people out of lemmy in general

Unpinned hoping this goes away?

I wish people would be more mature about their reaction to this, as well as other people's reactions, regardless of whether they agree or disagree with the choice.

I'm not opposed to piracy, though I understand the risks that come with a platform allowing potentially pirated content. While I respect the decision and see the reasoning behind it, I don't agree with it, and will likely change my home instance to one that allows me to continue communicating with those communities, as I was subscribed to one of them.

I'll still be participating in communities hosted here, and I hope that with this decision, the admins' concern about being potentially sued is substantially alleviated.

Is there any way to migrate accounts to other instances yet?

Thank you for the update!

I don't begrudge your decision. To me this comes down to a question of if you're willing to be on the hook for a multi million dollar lawsuit, even if you'd definitely win in the end. It's still an expensive process.

I sure as hell am not willing to do that, so I'm not going judge other people who aren't willing either. I wish more people would look at it from this perspective.

By design, this isn't Reddit. We didn't want to be at the whims of their bullshit CEO and corporation. Unfortunately, that's also exactly who can afford to have legal squabbles and not go bankrupt. This is just a natural consequence of having a community run space vs a corporate one.

Boooo

What. The. Fuck.

WTF. Time to go. See ya.

This is a prime example of why I suspect we'll see a lot more lemmy instances with a more narrow focus over time instead of just a few super lemmys. Its only keeping them indexed that will be a problem so that they can be found.

Yeah fuck off im out of here.

Is it a liability when the discussion happened outside of lemmy.world?

The way federation works, discussions on other instances are cached locally.
- Yes, that's what it is: cache
Impossible to answer as laws vary by country so what may be legal in the US may be illegal in Finland where LW is. Aside from the multi-national difficulties involved there's also the fact that there's been near zero court cases on it anywhere in the world (that I know of). Legal Lightening is going to strike some instance somewhere in the world eventually but no instance owner wants it to be them.

Well that was a stupid thing to do.

Oh well, there goes the removal of my monthly donation.

Reddit 2.0...already migrating off this censorship.

You can use LASIM app (Windows/Mac/Linux) to migrate your profile and settings to another instance. Highly recommend.

removed again wtf

If you're looking to avoid all "problematic" content, you better shut down the service right now.

time to migrate change instance shit.

lemmy.world has become reddit.

I don’t think this was the right call. Don’t have it hosted on here, fine. But defederated? I don’t see how being federated would be an issue at all. Oh well guess i got to actively go seek them out now.

At this rate, you might as well as defederate from all instances. Cant be too careful.

Besides the downvoting, there is not much blind disagreement comments here, nor agreement ones. Definitely a comment section worth reading. Fair points of views on both sides.

It's arguable, but that's what federation is about. No default instance, you pick those you want to participate in and agree with, and their admins have their choices too. It's neat.

The piracy communities don't allow linking to pirated content and have broken no rules. This was tyrannical.

What surprises me is that people think making a community specifically for illegal activity isn't a problem, and that they should only be called on their behaviour when a copyright holder notices them. There are plenty of places to go for piracy online, so what's the need to add a community for it here? Or are you people claiming a piracy community wasn't primarily intended for piracy?

Pre-emptively hitting my last resort button

You either die a hero...

Wonder if this has to do with Piracy instance being listed as the largest lemmy community a few days back. Guess it might attract the wrong kind of attention.

I think you need to make rule 1 more specific or create a rule for this specific issue. When I read rule 1 it seems vague but I might have a bias.

Speaking of having a bias, I don't think the liability is that big of an issue but I also understand that it is your instance to do what you want.

Thank you for being transparent and understanding that you made a mistake in not engaging the community first.

Thank you for the update, and thank you for working hard to keep the gates to the Fediverse open.

Sorry you're getting so much flack from folks who don't understand how federation works.

I believe most will understand in time, and go on to become valuable additions to the Fediverse.

Hang in there, and know that the many of understand and appreciate what you're doing.

Stop blocking things. Piracy is ethical

👎🏿👎🏿 BOO! 👎🏿👎🏿

I suspect this won't be a popular opinion, but it seems strange to me that a lot of people are making a fuss about lemmy.world blocking communities that literally advocate for illegal practices. If you disagree with lemmy.world blocking piracy communities, where should they draw the line? Allow literally any community to be created irrespective of the legality of what its advocating for? I would presume (and hope) that you wouldn't have a problem with lemmy.world blocking CP communities for example?

The Fediverse can't function as a free-for-all. It has to have rules, and instances have to be able to police those rules for the betterment of the whole.

I'm very conflicted about this. On one hand, it's kind of bullshit to take this level of action on something that can be handled on a case-by-case basis, when the need arises.

On the other hand, I'd prefer to see Lemmy avoid the reputation that Mastodon has garnered with the activities that are vastly under moderated there. With the size that some instances are reaching obviously there needs to be a level of discretion towards the content you will allow.

It's, however, a slippery slope from protecting the community to accepting bribes for exclusive access to your user base.

"Due to moral objections, we've decided to block this meme community. However here's an alternative that will show you advertisements disguised as funny memes! They even have most of the same content as the old one! Enjoy!"

Don't let that become reality.

Bwhahahahaha Reddit is more liberated than Lemmy, what a fucking embarrassment.

What's the line, self-censorship is the first sign an authoritarian has won.

Just use a better instance than .world...

Personally, I believe copyright should last five years max, but I understand this is merely a hypothesis and not everyone has to agree, but that's the beauty of mankind. Additionally, the beauty of the Fediverse is anyone is capable of finding their own safe haven which shares their views =)

Thanks for the links. I didn't know about these great communities (mostly because I didn't look ;) )

Awfully silly decision.

Yeeeep. I stopped using my LW account once you people simped to Facebook federation.

If you're going to ban piracy you should also ban all pro copyright communities and comments, it's only fair.

good thing I followed the advice not to use lemmy.world lol

Indeed
Which instance is recommended?
- not entirely sure, I'm still new here. I haven't had any problems with lemm.ee
  there's probably a thread in !asklemmy@lemmy.ml where people discuss the pros and cons of different instances

Thank you for this update and your work!

It was sad to see the level of hostility displayed in some of the threads yesterday.

You are still doing a great job as the most public facing instance, and it's good to hear you noticed the request for more transparency.

Take care!

Thanks mom, is there anything else you want to protect our poor little eyes from?

@lwadmin, you are probably not the first people trying to sort out an issue like this.

Can the hosting for lemmy.world be moved somewhere where privacy laws are stronger and be payed using privacy crypto like XMR?

Would probably secure lemmy.world from more then just the piracy lawsuits, other stuff as well.

Maybe Njalla?

https://njal.la/about/

The last paragraph clearly shows you have absolutely no idea why people are upset.

grabs popcorn

me, a lemmy.dbzer0.com native

Personally, I think this was a terrible decision and I think it's abundantly clear you will lose users for this. I used this as the reason to self host my own instance. Good luck.

Thats why you all should chose an another instance.

Can you also put the reason for the block on the blocklist so I can more easily see what ones to avoid? I appreciate you calling them out in the post btw, those rascals!

Absolutely understandable decision. I would have done the same.

All the people saying just change instances, I would and will but this being the biggest instance and calling itself the front-page of Lemmy. This sets a precedent for banning things capitalism doesn't support with out even talking to your user base. And I disapprove.

This goes against the principles of the fediverse, I'd expect content censorship from the likes of reddit and twitter. This feels like a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that doesn't exist on communities from completely different instances (and judging by the backlash this decision came out of nowhere without consultng the community). I seriously urge you to reconsider this decision.

Pathetic

Why is this not called "copyright infringement" anymore again? Where did the sea pirate association start?

I don't think this is a lemmy.world problem as much as it's a Fediverse problem. Assuming that the only reason to block these communities is legal safety, we should figure out what is legally unsafe and see if that can be enforced on the piracy communities, or everyone in the Fediverse could also be at risk and should block these communities.

I know that the piracy communities themselves are already taking these kinds of measures to make sure they are not unsafe, so if anything is found we should solve it together. If push comes to shove, I suspect that piracy communities would rather restrict themselves than risk taking a stand and endangering others. It's not that big of a deal to skirt legal concerns while still being a useful piracy resource - /r/piracy existed in much the same state.

I have an idea. How about all of the complainers go and start your own instance and allow whatever you want. When you have 100k users good luck sleeping.

…you realize there are dozens of other instances right? Nobody has to make another one lol, you can just join one of the others.
- Your comment is low effort, captain, and you missed the point.

Definitely think you should allow them again. Obviously not on your instance but restricting access to other instances is just not right. I do understand the concern though, I really hope in the end you realllow them.

make sure that we get feedback around what the planned changes are, because lemmy.world is yours as much as it is ours.

Really happy to hear this. Thank you!

Probably enough for me to jump ship. The performance on this instance is a sack of shit anyways 👋

This sort for reminds me of a Sybil attack.

I think it’s a good idea for everyone to register at an obscure Lemmy instance. If everyone’s on lemmy.world, it isn’t truly federated.

Reddit allows piracy communities. These Lemmy communities aren’t hosted on your servers. That’s the whole thing - dbzer0.com and lemmy.ml are taking the risks, though there probably aren’t many risks in the first place.

How the fuck do i change instance on Sync?

Just had a look there and they're talking about the removals too, someone commented saying the word 'bitch' is censored here too?

Are there any Lemmy instances that have a policy against any censorship? I'd rather use one that doesn't defederate or censor anything.

Boo. Fie and Shame upon your house.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Because you're so scared of corporate lawsuits you may as well defederate from any union-positive instances as well.

Just to mitigate risk of corporations that wouldn't appreciate it at all. Never know when you might get sued.

Guess they deserved it because were too subtle in naming.

Oh great Reddit 2.0

Screw this, I'm out.

ITT a bunch of fuckheads who don't understand how federation works, and thinks that lemmy should be a free-for-all with infinite 'freedom of speech'

Jesus, go host your own instances, there's literally nothing stopping you. it's as easy as editing a config file and running a single command. Why people find defederation some major sleight i'll never understand.

What the HECK is with the people complaining and downvoting... some of the things that struck me as weird about the lemmy.world community are coming into sharp focus. @lwadmin transparency and responsiveness is fine and admirable, but you don't owe these people anything lol

Coward shit.

My biggest complaint about lemmy is the lack of content and censorship.

The only meaningful lemmy is dbz0.

If i want to read about cybersec, darknet, drugs etc. Reddit has far more content and far more discussion with less censorship -- which is insane because they just about create everything now.

Why do we even need a Reddit clone as if one isn’t causing enough distress.

I don't get all the hate. LW is run by some volunteers. They can ban or censor whatever they want for why-ever they want. They don't owe anyone here anything. They don't really have to even say why, or when, or what communities they ban. Hell, they could ban all communities that start with the letter H if they wanted just to do it.

The people frothing at the mouth screaming about this is why I left reddit are a riot. Go back. Go to another instance. Fucking sack up and host your own instance, with hookers and blackjack. But stop demanding people you don't employ do your bidding. Would you even work for a boss acting like that?

You kidding me? Lame.

Easy for you to say that, not being the one footing potential legal bills.
- Files not actually hosted here but ok.
  I'll just sail my pirate ass to a different island. Not the end of the world. Their instance so I get it's their choice but I can still think it's lame though. Lol.

Well it didn't take long for censorship to roll in.

This has absolutely nothing to do with censorship.
- It has everything to do with censorship. This sets a precedent in which a community can be banned by admins and moderators who deem a community to fall outside of their viewing needs.
  This is controlling the narrative which we know LW cannot be held legally liable for what is posted on the web, otherwise we'd see search engines being shutdown for caching results.

This should be more of a Matrix thing, perhaps.

WTF am I reading?

Looks like we finally found the part of lemmy.ml that this site is comfortable with blocking.

Threads integration must be imminent. Gotta get your nose clean before the lamestream meta users come in

The logo(s) may be different, but the methods are the same.

Fucking retarded. Why wasn’t there a community census in this at least?

Sad. This instance showed me how amazing Lemmy could be. It's not me, it's you. Please get better.

This is a real shame, and highlights to me that the federation model might be wrong. If I want to access these subs now, I have to create a new account and I wish I didn't have to. I wonder if the federated part should be user federation rather than instance federation?

something something blockchain?

Thank you for the publicity

I didn't look for that community and I may not support it... But I'll not be staying an instance that wants to censor other instances from its users. Too many other examples of things being censored by lemmy.world in these comments.

IDK that admins should be handing out preemptive bans for fear of legal action. How about defederating from all NSFW communities b/c I could argue that the majority of their Content is not OC but is re-posted material without the copyright owners permission. Just a matter of time before someone sends a cease and desist. Or for that matter, what step are NSFW communities taking to make sure the content uploaded is consists of models of legal age? Or the content isn't revenge porn and has the models permission? Now I'm trolling here because I think your decision was dumb, my feelings about it, sorry, but everything I just described here has the very real possibility of happening. Where do we draw the line. Anytime someone posts an article and a tldr bot scraps the article and posts it in the comments are robbing the original "copyright" holder of the article of the traffic that would have gone there for people who would have read the article on the site, but have now never gone to the actual address. Like I could be one petty ass hole, actually I am here. However, all of these examples could occur, TBH probably a matter of time. So you need to do sweeping deferation to a lot of communities, or grow a fucking pair, and just take action when action needs to be taken. Whatever, i can still see it from mastodon, but still dick move guys, you were supposed to be the chosen ones, only reddits deal in absolutes.

I’m guessing the idea here is to eventually sell out to a corporate operator

That moment when Reddit is actually better... Fuck me sideways!

I'm surprised this is so down voted, I guess there's a bunch of airheads in this community

I'm just here so I can post the 1000th comment

Mind linking this number one rule you're speaking of? The code of conduct I find just talks about ut harassment.

We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.

Found this page on censorship, how does this fit in?

https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/05-censorship-resistance.html

I wish I could downvote this post from Firefish.

I believe most users understand the difficulties and appreciate your work...
Cheers !

Yeah no, I ain't sticking around. Next time try and ask the community on how to approach things before acting yourself.

You are doing the right thing, assisting piracy is illegal in probably all countries. Sadly nothing but trouble would come from allowing access to those subs to continue.

Maybe there could be a legal loophole in that those subs were on a different server, but personally I wouldn't take that chance either.

Losers.

Based on the down votes and comments I think a lot of people could benefit from reading the whole post...

Yarr. But still, I support this.

Good lord, what a bunch of whiny little fucks you are. Go host your own server, maybe you'll have time after Algebra class...

Now I won't sympathize with Lemmy.world during their next DDOS attack. Solidarity has been destroyed.

Wow. It’s amazing the replies here. If you want to steal other peoples work, then go elsewhere. No one owes you the right to steal other peoples content.

Wow, so meny downvotes... Don't people know you can just create your instance of lemmy if they don't like this decision?

I'm sure this comment will receive plenty of hate, but I'm really struggling to understand why piracy seems to get so staunchly defended by seemingly everyone here. Piracy is stealing. It is morally wrong. We can argue all day about how it's a 'victimless crime' or how media conglomerates are greedy and deserve it, but at the end of the day there's nothing that makes it 'right'. With maybe a few exceptions, no one needs the things they're pirating and it's just childish to refuse to pay for content and go on pretending it's a necessity. What needs to happen is more money going to the creators whose content we all enjoy so much.

There's plenty of places to go where you can still interact with these communities, and we shouldn't be surprised that a large and general instance wants to be distant from them. Personally I applaud the decision.

You should also remove the cached content, if possible. Also no idea about the downvotes... If you don't like the decisions that an instance makes, go to another one. It's that easy.

Just ban NSFW instances instead for our mental health.

Interesting the level of outrage. I guess if Lemmy's userbase is heavily "Reddit users who were outraged enough to leave a private platform over entitlement towards free API access and come here" then it's going to skew heavily "easily outraged".

I don't see a huge issue really - the whole point of the fediverse is there are other instances to go to. Some of them will lean more towards covering their asses, some will pop up (and get c&d and taken down and repeat) for the illegal stuff. Some will tell bigots to go fuck themselves and outrage racists, "gender critical"s, etc about free speech (this instance literally says it's not a free speech zone so what are you doing here?). Others will happily accommodate it. Pick your poison.

Ridiculous and lame movement.

Those are discussing communities only, not even hosted at Lemmy.world, in case something goes bad it is going to be against them not this instance.

Are you sure this is not a campaign to spread the load of the server?

Y'all harped on me last time accusing this shit hole of becoming Reddit 2.0. Guess I was right, although even Reddit allows those communities to exist. Lemmy.world is a censor-friendly waste of electricity.

You guys shit the bed. Shiess the bed. Whatever you sourkraut fuckers want to call it. It would have been easier to set yourselves on fire in a bunker. Fascism is as fascism does. Tell us "it's for the greater good". You're just cutting away the undesirables. You admins do so much for our own good and we should be grateful you know so much better than we do. That's why you have all those updoots

Lemmy blocked his users like that.

Reddit saved her users.
https://torrentfreak.com/reddit-defeats-filmmakers-second-attempt-at-unmasking-anonymous-users-230731/

Lemmy devs said "Just an instance did. Lemmy is not evil!" as it were someone else's issue, and blamed Reddit somehow.

Please kill yourselves, Lemmy.

Literally 1984

Wow, a lot of angry people in the thread.

I unironically support your decision admins. Piracy is illegal and therefore unethical. There is nothing wrong with blocking piracy communities and people don't understand the legal ramifications of allowing illegal piracy communities.

Wish you luck, chadmins! 😘

Fuck you. Cunts.

Back to Reddit we go! Arrrrr