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.

  • @DarkCloud
    0•23 hours ago

    Haha, your post that’s “been up for a month” has been up for a week dude. Don’t just lie to me so overtly. Anyone can click your lemmy link and see it says 1w.

    Also, you’re comparing the OP which is for ALL OF Lemmy.world, to the post you linkedbon Reddit, which is for a single Popculture related subreddit? r/Popculture is just one sub my guy. You’re not being serious here. You’re being defensive and making argumentative mistakes.

    There is nothing forbidding you from talking positively about what happened or dunking on Thompson.

    ‘glorifying violence’, and hence against the ToS:

    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.

    As they say earlier, they’re not in the US they’re in Western Europea and so trying to pussy foot on free speech.

    The problem is they’re being mealy mouthed cowards still in writing this long verbose post. So it’s obscuratan managereal talk still.

    Just say either: “we are going based on least harm so are allowing for the idea/posts that say killing CEOs doing mass-harm is allowed as long as it’s not written with specific instructions on how to do that”, or “we are against any positive talk of violence to beings/creatures” (which is what they say in part above).

    You know if you’re going to run a platform you should just go read the speech codes of the laws where it is located, then interpret them broadly in proportion to the profits or net value of the site (which is generally how courts approach such things, eg. “you are a small site, with not many users we accept you may have trouble with moderation”). Especially if you’re a user/volunteer run, and distributed site/app, that’s not profit driven. General that means there’s no just and proportional reason or target organization for fines.

    The problem with Lemmy is that they aren’t aiming for anything Reddit hasn’t already. If you’re going to take this “we’re Federated and distributed” approach, you have to consider these things, and even have some plans on changing server locations as soon as you receive a legal threat.

    You want to be something different to Reddit via being Federated? Learn to duck and weave systems of controlbas per your structure. Don’t just become a blander version of Reddit. That’s sad… and for goodness sakes, don’t beat around the bush like this. Make stark definitions so we all know what ball game we’re playing and why.

    • @Syrc
      2•23 hours ago

      Haha, your post that’s “been up for a month” has been up for a week dude. Don’t just lie to me, it’s silly.

      …are you able to read? “one of the top posts on .world for the past month” means that, among what has been posted in the past month, that post is one of the most upvoted. I never referred to how long it’s been up, I’m just saying that being an extremely popular post, it’s impossible for admins to not have seen it. And yet it’s still up, with comments full of insults for the CEO. Which means those comments are perfectly okay.

      Also, you’re comparing the OP which is for ALL OF Lemmy.world, to the post you linkedbon Reddit, which is for a single Popculture related subreddit? r/Popculture is just one sub my guy.

      The r/popculture mods are acting after being specifically notified by Reddit Admins about it. Which means they explicitly told them they’re not okay with those things.

      Do I have to highlight what YOU quoted?

      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.

      It literally says that it’s allowed.

      and for goodness sakes, don’t beat around the bush like this. Make stark definitions so we all know what ball game we’re playing and why.

      There is a stark definition. Don’t talk about killing people that are currently alive. That’s it.