Removal of piracy communities

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.

kn98 ,
@kn98@feddit.nl avatar

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.

aldalire ,

grabs popcorn

  • me, a lemmy.dbzer0.com native
Jackthelad ,

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.

zikk_transport2 ,

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.

DharkStare ,
@DharkStare@lemmy.world avatar

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.

crag ,
@crag@lemmy.world avatar

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

I guess it's time to leave.

Underwear ,

Same here. Guess I've got to go to a new instance.

objectionist ,
@objectionist@lemmy.world avatar

that's the magic of the fediverse ;)

joe ,
@joe@lemmy.world avatar

Uh, @lwadmin .. 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.

gabe ,
@gabe@literature.cafe avatar

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

joe ,
@joe@lemmy.world avatar

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.

gabe ,
@gabe@literature.cafe avatar

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.

ricdeh ,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

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.

pankuleczkapl ,
@pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

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 ,
@OverfedRaccoon@lemm.ee avatar

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 OP Mod ,
@lwadmin@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Maalus ,

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.

GBU_28 ,

It's their house, you're just visiting. If they are concerned, there's no one else to help. If they get in trouble, will you be stepping in to help them? No.

gabe ,
@gabe@literature.cafe avatar

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

lwadmin OP Mod ,
@lwadmin@lemmy.world avatar

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,

remotelove ,

Speaking of removed communities, can an admin respond to this please: https://lemmy.world/post/3165787

Martineski ,

Aged like milk.

Nobilmantis ,
@Nobilmantis@feddit.it avatar

Just another misunderstanding bro

FlihpFlorp ,

Are we raising posts from the dead?

Squizzy ,

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.

Holyginz ,

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.

lwadmin OP Mod ,
@lwadmin@lemmy.world avatar

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.

snake ,

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.

assassin_aragorn ,

to an entity with greater legal capabilities?

Someone who has the necessary legal capabilities is going to be a corporation. And that's exactly why we left Reddit.

void_wanderer ,

No. In Germany we have something called gGmbH. It's basically a non-profit Limited. But IANAL, no idea if and how this would be able to protect the admins.

Tenthrow ,
@Tenthrow@lemmy.world avatar

So this nonprofit is going to run the largest Lemmy instance?

void_wanderer ,

I don't see any reason why it couldn't.

Tenthrow ,
@Tenthrow@lemmy.world avatar

I guess I don't see any reason why it would.

void_wanderer ,

Why wouldn't it work? It's just being a legal entity that rents the servers and hosts the instance, instead of a naturla person.

sfantu ,

Lololo

That's a corporation imbecile

EVERYONE HAS THEM !

LOLOLOLOLO

Let me tell you a secret ... THE GOVERNMENT is a corporation ... the church... IS A corporation ....

Lolololololo

xXxBigJeffreyxXx ,

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.

NOT_RICK ,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

The music community could be an issue for the same reason, this logic is problematic

ladicius ,

I support your decision. Want to see the new instances that will pop up now hosted by your critics 😄

CaptainEffort ,

Smart, might as well shut down this whole thread then as we’re discussing piracy here too, right?

kratoz29 ,

I love Piracy!

WarmSoda ,

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.

Actually, Reddit was far worse with huge ass lists of links to games and sites.

AlmightySnoo ,
@AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file. I’ve never even seen anyone link to a website.

You ignored the "assistance in obtaining it" part, because members of !piracy have been doing that. Also:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b1645823-ae50-4611-869c-38b0de32bb10.png

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.

WarmSoda ,

Are you trying to say I'm a shill? Lol wat.
I chimed in with my experience. You chimed in with one example expecting it to be the end all of the discussion.

If you really want to talk about who does what, look at yourself asking for links to alternate apps for online services so you don't have to pay for them. Someone's been asking for assistance in obtaining things alright.

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