Earlier, after review, we blocked and removed several communities that were providing assistance to access copyrighted/pirated material, which is currently not allowed per Rule #1 of our Code of Conduct. The communities that were removed due to this decision were:

We took this action to protect lemmy.world, lemmy.world’s users, and lemmy.world staff as the material posted in those communities could be problematic for us, because of potential legal issues around copyrighted material and services that provide access to or assistance in obtaining it.

This decision is about liability and does not mean we are otherwise hostile to any of these communities or their users. As the Lemmyverse grows and instances get big, precautions may happen. We will keep monitoring the situation closely, and if in the future we deem it safe, we would gladly reallow these communities.

The discussions that have happened in various threads on Lemmy make it very clear that removing the communites before we announced our intent to remove them is not the level of transparency the community expects, and that as stewards of this community we need to be extremely transparent before we do this again in the future as well as make sure that we get feedback around what the planned changes are, because lemmy.world is yours as much as it is ours.

  • pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 years ago

    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.

    • TurboLag@lemmings.world
      0·
      2 years ago

      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?

      • OverfedRaccoon 🦝@lemm.ee
        0·
        2 years ago

        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.

    • lwadmin@lemmy.worldOPM
      0·
      2 years ago

      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.

      • comfortablyglum@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        2 years ago

        “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.

      • nfh@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 years ago

        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.

  • DharkStare@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    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.

  • joe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    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.

      • joe@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 years ago

        There are worse, imo.

        user @snake posted:

        Did you ever consider ceding ownership of the instance to an entity with greater legal capabilities?

        In the end, it will not make sense to try to keep this instance running if the owners are unable to provide adequate service to its users.

        and was banned for:

        reason: Go get your service somewhere else

        Definitely not a great look.

        • sramder@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 years ago

          Ehhhh… the other two comment/bans seem a tad vindictive. This on the other had seems to have a different tone to me. It’s thinly veiled criticism and almost feels like a threat, especially if someone has been DDOSing your server for weeks.

          • joe@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 years ago

            In context of the admin post they responded to, it just seems like a logical suggestion (not demand). I don’t agree that the admins should hand over control, but I also don’t see how suggesting it warrants a ban.

        • gabe [he/him]@literature.cafe
          0·
          2 years ago

          Lemmy.world admins, I am truly asking you to please reflect on how bad this looks. It honestly makes you seem like you can’t handle criticism and if people get that vibe they will use it to absolutely fuck with you. I know from my own personal experience. I understand that you’re volunteers but this is a step in a very bad direction that will only serve to cause more issues.

          • foggy@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 years ago

            Agree.

            This decisions seems emotionally driven. That will not work on the internet.

            You created rules. Use your rules to make your decisions. Don’t use your emotions.

            It won’t only bring the site into disarray, it will bring you moderators and your emotional states into disarray.

            Make your rules as black and white as poasible. where grayness raises, create new rules.

          • mods_mum@lemmy.today
            0·
            7 months ago

            FFFUUUUU! I just deleted my reddit account because lemmy doesn’t have a power-tripping hostile mod problem so it’s better to just permanently move here. I’m so naive…

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.todayEnglish
              0·
              2 months ago

              Lemmy.world is analogous to gmail.com. Lemmy is analogous to email. Just because google sucks doesn’t mean that you get rid of email in general. You go find a different email provider. It’s a pain in the butt, but you can even build your own, if you like.

              The communities censored by power tripping mods are regularly slicing their own throats.

        • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 years ago

          How fuckin childish.

          Are you paying anything for this service? No. It has costs to maintain while they’re shouldering that on their own and giving you this service for free.

          Get over yourself. The entire point of the fediverse is that anyone can host an instance. You can spin up a little free instance yourself and federate or defederate/block anything you see fit.

          Why don’t you? I’m gonna guess because you want a low effort, free service to get your scrolling fix. In which case, they’re right. Go to a different instance that suits your values more. If you want an instance that won’t defederate or block others unless absolutely necessary, go join Lemm.ee. They federate with basically everyone and don’t block hardly anything.

          And, Lemmy world is federated with them. So you won’t lose a single thing here if you move there.

          • zabil@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 years ago

            Is it really childish to quote what someone else said and question it? Seems like quite an overreaction on your behalf to be honest.

    • Weslee@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 years ago

      The next Reddit/Lemmy is going to be ran by AI lol, us humans are too easily corrupted by power

  • gabe [he/him]@literature.cafe
    0·
    2 years ago

    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