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.
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.
Those are the idiots, the real users of the first amendment are the assholes who allowed corporations to have free speech.
This is what led to to the Citizens United decision that has pumped billions into our election cycle (which now never ends). It has created a media that is dependent on those billions in ad revenue, YouTube included. And along with the Super PAC rules, allows unlimited bribing of our “elected” officials.
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.
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It’s still unethical to bar speech that you don’t agree with
Sure, but not if that speech is incitement to violence. Then it’s a legal responsibility to shut it down.
No, there’s no legal responsibility to shut down violent speech in any country, including the Netherlands. If there was, then speaking in support of capitalism would be illegal. If there’s a law on the books that says it prohibits violent speech, it’s not enforced consistently.
Sure Dragonfucker.
Netherlands Criminal Code
Part V. Serious Offences against Public Order
Section 131
- Any person who in public, either verbally or in writing or through images, incites another or others to commit any criminal offence or act of violence against the authorities, shall be liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine of the fourth category.
Thank you for your detailed legal analysis.
Please remove the personal attack. Thanks, MGMT.
It’s their handle.
They changed it to match.
Brian Thompson isn’t a Dutch authority, so it’s not illegal to incite violence against him, as per your quote.
Ouch
Try Germany:
§111 (1) StGB:
Anyone who publicly, in a meeting or by disseminating content (Section 11 (3)) incites an unlawful act shall be punished as an instigator (Section 26).
§130 StGB:
(1) Anyone who, in a manner likely to disturb the public peace,
- incites hatred against a national, racial, religious or ethnic group, against parts of the population or against an individual because of his membership of a designated group or part of the population, or incites violence or arbitrary measures, or
- attacks the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously denigrating or defaming a designated group, parts of the population or an individual because of their membership of a designated group or part of the population, shall be liable to a custodial sentence of three months to five years.
(2) A custodial sentence not exceeding three years or a monetary penalty shall be imposed on anyone who
- disseminates or makes available to the public content (Section 11 (3)) or offers, provides or makes available to a person under the age of eighteen content (Section 11 (3)) that a) incites hatred against a group referred to in paragraph 1 number 1, against sections of the population or against an individual because of his or her membership of a group referred to in paragraph 1 number 1 or of a section of the population, b) incites violence or arbitrary measures against persons or groups of persons referred to in letter a), or c) violates the human dignity of persons or groups of persons referred to in letter a) by insulting, maliciously denigrating or defaming them, or
- produces, obtains, supplies, keeps in stock, offers, advertises or undertakes to import or export content referred to in number 1 letters a to c (§ 11 paragraph 3) in order to use it in the sense of number 1 or to enable another person to make such use of it.
I’m fairly certain CEOs could fall under the “designated group” label but I’m not a lawyer. If that is the case, lemmy.world can be held accountable for the spread of content promoting their death.
CEOs aren’t a designated group, they’re a voluntary group. And 111 only prohibits advocating unlawful violence. It’s perfectly legal in Germany to say that criminals should be locked up. Imprisonment is a violent act, and it’s completely legal to advocate it. And criminals, just like CEOs, are not a designated group.
According to the 2nd highest court in Germany that can only be overruled by the constitutional court:
A section of the population - the only one to be considered in the present case - is a group of persons who are distinguishable from the rest of the population on the basis of common external or internal characteristics of a political, national, ethnic, racial, religious, ideological, social, economic, professional or other nature, who are numerically of some significance and thus no longer individually distinguishable.
BGH 3 StR 602/14, decision from 2015-04-14
As a layman, CEOs seem to fit that definition due to their economic and professional characteristic.
This Wikipedia article has an extensive number of court cases and resulting applocations and limitations listed, in case you’re interested in learning more. The English version is far less detailed, so try translating the whole site, i.e. through Firefox Translate:
If criminals are a designated group, and advocating violence against designated groups is illegal in Germany, does that mean it’s illegal for Germans to say criminals should be locked up?
Cowabunga!
CEOs aren’t a designated group, they’re a voluntary group.
Oh don’t pretend you know what you are talking about. The German text says “vorbezeichneten Gruppe”, for which an alternative translation is “aforementioned group”. So the designated groups are “national, racial, religious or ethnic group[s]”. So yeah, CEOs aren’t a designated group, but not for the reason you pulled out of your ass.
Does that also mean it’s legal to advocate violent acts against criminals, such as imprisonment?
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There will never be a country that prohibits violent speech because it’s impossible.
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That case ruling was concerned with “lawless” action, not violent action. It’s perfectly legal to advocate forms of violence that align with the law, such as imprisonment and capital punishment.
While you and I may give a shit about ethics you can’t expect everyone to hold themselves to the same standards unless you want your heart broken every day for the rest of your life.
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.
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.
Misinformation.
Many places here in the states don’t operate a separate, non-emergency line and calling 911 is appropriate even when it isn’t an emergency.
You should let them know that it’s an non-emergency upon calling.
911 = life or limb emergency.
But have you considered that my neighbors are being pretty loud, and I would really like some police to go knock on their door and tell them to be quiet?
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.”
I’ve posting this a lot lately but
If you want a US based-instance
- https://discuss.online blocks hexbear and lemmygrad
- https://lemmy.today does not block anyone
See also this post: https://discuss.online/post/14151634
How dead is the .today Instance?
The stats are in the sidebar
I would argue that it’s certainly not clear. That’s probably part of the problem.
Why would you assume “.world” would mean the USA…? It’s obviously NOT USA, so why assume USA instead of the other 99.99% countries? Thats why you read the shit dude. This whole idea that the USA is “the world” is only in Americans head and it’s hilarious to see from the outside in this frequency.
There’s even a term for it since it’s so common “Americentrism”
That’s not what I’m assuming. The assumption isn’t that it’s the USA or any country at all. The assumption most people make is that they and their actions are covered under the laws of their locality.
The assumption most people make is that they and their actions are covered under the laws of their locality.
Yes, which means that the site owners have to deal with the laws of their locality, and may be held accountable under their laws for allowing the content on their instance.
Maybe unlikely to happen, but given the potential consequences, I can’t blame a small group of volunteers not wanting to take the risk.
More importantly: nobody has a right to assume LW is a democracy. Their instance, their rules.
Again. I’m going to stipulate that I do understand that the site owners have to deal with the fallout of that, in the event that they are private citizens and not business entities.
Section 230 in the US gives certain immunity in regards to content that is posted for social media platforms.
Provides immunity to online platforms from civil liability based on third-party content and for the removal of content in certain circumstances. <<
Meaning you can’t be held civilly liable for the actions of your users if you run a social media platform as a business. It specifically doesn’t consider social media to be a publisher and therefore not subject to the same legal restrictions as a publisher would be.
But, if the business is not US based, even if the majority of its users are American, it may or may not be decided that such an entity is subject to it (or that even if that business is subject to the laws of its locality, the US can and often has considered that immunity to hold which was not the intention (it was not intended to be used for global immunity)).
So if we flip that around, and take into consideration the natural assumptions of most users who may or may not be from the locality in question, they 1. Do not give any thought whatsoever to the owner of the social media platforms they use, and 2. Assume that any such legal action taken as a result of their personal statements or actions will only be considered in their own locality. This is human nature. I’m not defending it.
This thread and the original post are about adding clarity for users, moderators and admins of this instance. If clarity is the goal, users should be made aware of the locality under which the platform legally falls. Since we also know the average user is unlikely to have read the complete TOS, we know that having that information there at the very bottom and nowhere else means most users will not ever come across it.
Now, can we stop assuming this is just Americans messing it up for the rest, and leave the mentality behind and focus on the assumptions of anyone who might sign up here (from any country) that is not the locality of where the website is hosted or where it’s owners reside?
Nobody is asking anyone to take any risks here. I’m literally saying that the problem is that people make natural assumptions that most people are prone to, and as a result, a better way to inform them could potentially be implemented. I’m not even arguing that the owners don’t get to make the rules. I’m not sure where you got that from. That’s why I asked (not demanded).
If a mod (from say South American or Zimbabwe) was operating under the laws in their country and banned someone for content that they felt was against the law, but it was not against the law in the locality of the site or the offender, would that mod be in the right? There’s at least one comment I’ve seen on this post from a mod who felt a comment not in a community they moderate was breaking the rules and they admit their initial reaction was to ban the person before they realized that they are not the entity that should be undertaking that duty.
If clarity is important, maybe this should be considered.
You make some valid points. My take is that it is up to the users to comply with their local laws (EU citizens have been convicted in court for social media posts that broke local laws but not necessarily the site rules), and the TOS are not there to address that. It’s up to the instance owners to comply with the laws applicable to them, and for that they need to guide and educate the moderators, not the users (some of whom are going to ignore the rules anyway). So perhaps mods need detailed rules on what is and is not allowed on the site, but sharing that level of detail with the users is just sparking pointless discussions.
How is this not clear?
From https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
Our Governing Laws
The website and the agreement will be governed by and construed per the laws of the following countries and/or states:
The Netherlands
Republic of Finland
Federal Republic of GermanyIf people are looking for US-based instances, there is https://discuss.online/
That’s at pretty much the very bottom of the TOS and given the number of people who skim or don’t even read TOS and EULA’s (and the number of jurisdictions that have ruled they aren’t a binding agreement), I’d say something directly on the sign up page is warranted. Additionally this information is not anywhere that I can find on any sidebar or about section.
People don’t often “look” for instances specific to their locale when joining Lemmy. That’s a lot of the reason this instance is so large. I would wager that most people who are users of this instance do not know that this instance is based in Scandinavia (and Germany). I bet most of them are also unfamiliar with the laws and regulations of those countries as well.
something directly on the sign up page is warranted.
The sign up page literally asks people to write "I agree to the TOS” in the form, with a link to the ToS
People don’t often “look” for instances specific to their locale when joining Lemmy.
Not so sure, lemmy.ca, feddit.org, sopuli.xyz, aussie.zone and midwest.social are in the top 20 of most active instances. If you go top 30, you find feddit.nl, feddit.uk and jlai.lu
Don’t skip the bit about how many people often do not read the TOS or EULA. That’s important to what I am saying. I was literally told when asking about Lemmy instances that lemmy.world was THE recommendation for instances specifically because it was so large and active as a result. Just because there are other instances where the users are local to the locale of the instance doesn’t necessarily undermine my point since what we’re talking about is lemmy.world specifically.
And anything with a .uk or similar is more likely to be identified at first glance as being for that locale which means more of the users would naturally gravitate towards it. Like it or not lemmy.world is a jumping off point for lots of users, plenty of whom move on to other instances (some of which may be an instance more local to them).
Don’t skip the bit about how many people often do not read the TOS or EULA. That’s important to what I am saying.
The vast majority of the people on LW probably do not care. We see a lot of people announcing they are changing instances in this thread, but I would be surprised to see more than a few dozens actually do it, inertia is a thing, and a good portion of the people seem to think the changes are reasonable.
I was literally told when asking about Lemmy instances that lemmy.world was THE recommendation for instances specifically because it was so large and active as a result.
You created your account in 2023, when LW was a few weeks old, as well as most of the other instances. There was no way for people to know that this kind of issues would arise, at the time the ToS probably didn’t even exist.
Recommendations nowadays usually suggest Lemm.ee or discuss.online, as LW has become too large, and every decision they make have an impact on Lemmy as a whole, such as this one.
Like it or not lemmy.world is a jumping off point for lots of users, plenty of whom move on to other instances (some of which may be an instance more local to them).
But if they move to another instance, then the LW rules don’t apply to them anymore, so no need to change the sign up page?
But if they move to another instance, then the LW rules don’t apply to them anymore, so no need to change the sign up page?<<
You said it yourself. Inertia is a thing. Some people move on. Some people don’t and probably won’t.
Clarity is important if we’re talking about enforcing a TOS to comply with the law. Especially when the average Lemmy instance owner doesn’t just have a team of lawyers on retainer.
The point I’m making though is a lot of people (perhaps myself included) wouldn’t have come to lemmy.world at all if they had known that they’d be beholden to laws they had never even heard of and aren’t normally subject to in their daily lives.
I don’t think what I’m suggesting (I’m not pushing to enact the stuff I suggested) is all that unreasonable. But of course it’s not up to me, and probably not even up to the majority of Lemmy.world users.
But the .world part of the name is something of a misnomer if you consider how confusing it may be to new users, especially if this is their first foray into the fediverse.
I haven’t decided it’s worth the time to vet another instance to move to and transfer everything I have set up over to that new instance.
Though this wasn’t handled the way I would have personally handled it, I’m largely not too bothered about the changes because I’m unlikely to ever run afoul of them.
Even though I absolutely believe that karma is a thing, and you get out of the world what you put into it, at the end of the day I’m not on Lemmy (or any other platforms) to advocate for the death of people. Probably the closest I have ever gotten is saying something like “eat the rich” and that’s meant to be taken as having a healthy dose of sarcasm.
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In the meantime, here is a community that could interest you: !AskUSA@discuss.online
The point I’m making though is a lot of people (perhaps myself included) wouldn’t have come to lemmy.world at all if they had known that they’d be beholden to laws they had never even heard of and aren’t normally subject to in their daily lives.
Where would you have gone? Discuss.online and lemmy.today did not exist in August 2023. Also, do you always assume that every website on the Internet is hosted in the USA?
Also, LW is by far the biggest instance, both in terms of users and communities, are people really going to go to another instance just to avoid European laws?
Though this wasn’t handled the way I would have personally handled it, I’m largely not too bothered about the changes because I’m unlikely to ever run afoul of them.
Indeed, and that’s probably the case of the vast majority of the LW users.
For people wanting to move instances, making the ToS more explicit about the laws applicable is not going to change their minds, they are going to move anyway.
That’s why I don’t see who this change would impact.
I’m confused, what does free speech have to do with where the instance is based? This is the internet, what country is going to extradite a US citizen for making a comment on a defederated social platform?
The overreach is insane.
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.
https://lemmy.world/comment/13870047
If you are a US citizen and would prefer a US-based instance, there is
- https://discuss.online/ which blocks hexbear and lemmygrad
- https://lemmy.today/ which does not block any instance
Will check them out, just want to make sure they’re not like what the askthedonald became where it’s another echo chamber. I like perspective, but I loathe the virtue padded safe spaces.
They are only instances, you would still visit your usual communities. Their might be a change should anyone want to create a “AskUS” community there, but that’s not the case yet
