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.
I would argue that it’s certainly not clear. That’s probably part of the problem.
How is this not clear?
From https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
If 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.
The sign up page literally asks people to write "I agree to the TOS” in the form, with a link to the ToS
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
https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy
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).
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
But my initial comment was the one you took umbridge to. And that original comment involved it being confusing for new users. So regardless of whether there were alternatives at the time I signed up or not, and regardless of whether people will move or would choose another instance if they knew, the point that it is confusing still stands and you haven’t really successfully argued that it’s not confusing.
Also, there are other fediverse projects besides Lemmy. Perhaps I would have gone to one of those before coming to Lemmy.
If you don’t think that people naturally assume that their Internet usage will be subject to their local laws, you’re missing the point entirely. People don’t think that using the internet and making statements that are legal where they live will get them in trouble with law enforcement entities the world over and they definitely don’t think that they will get other people in trouble with local authorities in some other country. They don’t think about this at all. There is an inherent assumption being made and it’s not that the website itself is American or German or Chinese. It’s that they will be more likely to make the assumption that their conduct will be viewed through the lens they are familiar with.
If the intention is clarity then more clarity up front is always a plus.
In the meantime, here is a community that could interest you: !AskUSA@discuss.online
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.