Would darknet market discussion be allowed on Lemmy?
Hey guys,
Years and years ago, Reddit had a sub where you could discuss darknet markets. For those uninitiated, a darknet market is a Tor hidden service where you can buy contraband with cryptocurrency.
Unfortunately, several years ago, Reddit shut down this sub because it "violated new rules about the sale of illegal goods" and most of that discussion has moved elsewhere. But with the rules being looser on the fediverse, would anyone be interested in setting up a forum for such discussion here? Would the admins here even allow it?
I'm really excited about how Lemmy can bring back certain communities disallowed by Reddit.
So, personally, I don't want to be even close to that stuff, because I've seen the damages the undernet can do.
But, far from me to be the voice of censorship. I haven't pirated a single game or book in years, and yet, I actively follow scene news, and talked with others about stuff like Z-Library, clearly on the side in favor of the pirates.
So, exercising what empathy I think appropriate, I think the very last thing you want to do is ask for permission. Because others might not give it to you, no matter the legality of your intents. Specially if you openly say it revolves "contraband".
Go find an instance specifically made for people who do want to talk that stuff, and others will defederate from you when they notice it. The dream of a single platform that allows it like Reddit used to is gone, but multi-accounting is a thing. You shouldn't even be making this thread, you will just give the issue attention and spread the word to your peers that Lemmy isn't an option. Attention was how the gore and violent porn and the loli lemmies got so swiftly removed, which is a stark contrast to how reddit operated (something something spez and jailbait). But they're still there (probably). Just not searchable from here or lemmynsfw.
The most interesting part of this personally is the murky nature of "hosting" in the fediverse. This sort of thing could happen, bit I think it's likely to lead to defederation. Content is easily argued as being "hosted" on any instance where that content ends up getting viewed. As such, anything of dubious legality is a surefire way to have site admins refuse to associate with you.
Technically yes. Due to the way Lemmy works, there are no Lemmy-wide terms of service.
HOWEVER
You would need to find an instance whose admins are willing to host that discussion. Otherwise you'd find yourself banned fairly swiftly as J. Random Admin wouldn't want to touch it with a barge pole. You would also find that instance eventually gets defederated.
This makes me wonder: how could governments police the Fediverse? With Reddit they could just threaten the company, but what are they going to do with Lemmy? Threaten whoever hosts the instance?
I’m guessing that’s why people are recommending finding an instance that isn’t USA based.
It really depends on the instance and their own rules. Some might allow it, while others wouldn't. It would definetely need to be aggressively moderated to avoid promoting any illegal sales, etc.
Only admins of the various instances can really clarify this.