I don’t know the specifics behind why the communities were (re-)removed but the reasons given in the modlog seem vague enough to apply to anyone linking to Google or YouTube as they reference or indirectly link to piracy:
Removed Community [email protected]
reason: facilitating piracy, referencing websites used for the distribution of copyright infringing material in images
Removed Community Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com
reason: facilitating piracy, indirectly linking to websites used for the distribution of copyright infringing material
From the initial removal announcement post:
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.
EDITED multiple times due to confusion over origins of the ban.
Problem is, with an instance as huge as LW, it has some moderation obligations in many countries that may have opened them to be litigated for multiple millions €, considering its size. It is more a question of survival, not because of some power-hungry admin.
I can understand your point of view, but the TOS is clear about piracy and piracy discutions (see : https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#41-piracy), and thus they are required to remove those communities if they break those terms (they are legally binding).
Anyone who doesn’t want to comply with those TOS can, as you pointed out, move to another instance. It is one of the beauty of the Fediverse. In this case, the one who will be responsible in the case of a litigation is lemmy.ca, and not lemmy.world anymore.