Humans who run instances are real people who have jobs and mortgages and kids. I also like having piracy communities around to balance the greedy ass corporations trying to control media and copyright…I’m glad to know they are there if I need them or feel like screwing around with it. I just wonder if the people ranting all indignantly acting like instances are competing for their usership would feel the same if the most active instance was on a server physically sitting in their basement, or paid for by money tied to them in the real world. Yes it seems pretty unlikely that you’re ever going to run into issues with law enforcement, copyright claims, lawsuits…but how much would you risk for a fucking hobby you do for free? Would you risk your house? Your job? I would not. Grow up. No one cares what instance you use.
I agree with your unpopular opinion but also think the people should feel free to bitch if they want to. I’m just happy to be here not giving dollars to Reddit.
💯
A bit of looking makes me think the admins have a legitimate concern here. Platform immunity in the EU isn’t quite as strong as it is in the US in general, and it’s specifically weaker with regard to copyright.
A successful copyright lawsuit (maybe even an unsuccessful one) could bring down the whole .world network, which hosts multiple federated services for many people. There could be personal liability for the admins as well. The admins should try to protect against outcomes like that, and the EU should probably strengthen its platform immunity laws.
I think this is the right take. Americans have Section 230 (for now) that quite broadly protects communications platforms from liability over what 3rd parties (users) post to their platform about Piracy. We also have the 1st Amendment which more or less protects anything you say short of direct, specific calls to commit crimes and some types of slander/libel. It’s why we can say goofy shit like “now I’m not saying you should do this or encouraging anyone to do this, but if you were going to anyway here’s how:…” and then talk about how to commit crimes, and get away with it. Because we’re just talking about it right? No one is saying “now go do these things at my direction” we’re just sharing information, innocently, not telling anyone to act a certain way…
In the EU, not so much. They have “methods and means” rules that can get platform owners in trouble for 3rd parties just posting about BitTorrent clients or providing advice like “Google X if you want to find Y” on their platform if it’s smells of possible piracy. We’re so used in the US to just being able to disclaim everything we say that this is a bit shocking. But talking about tools and techniques, even if you preamble with “now don’t ever use these for piracy bros, ok, I don’t advocate for using this advice in that way” is not going to save the user or even the platform owners from trouble. It is not just about posting direct links to pirated content or hosting/torrent sites. Maybe a point that is little-understood in the threads I’ve been reading on here about this.
You basically said what I meant by this post without being an asshole like I was
If I ran an instance and there was even a fraction of a percent of a chance I could get ruined financially by some media company whose lawyers have a slow day…I might either shut it down, turn it over to someone else, or take some possibly overly cautious steps such as…what we’re talking about. We wanted social media that isn’t controlled by corporations. We got it except uh oh that means we don’t have lawyers like Spez, Zuck, Elmo have piles of.
I’m glad the LW admins have the foresight to consider things like this and other areas of concern. It’s good to see LW admin admit when they don’t know enough about something and are being cautious. I don’t think Discord should be the place for any announcements though. Hopefully LW can get the legal protections or assurances necessary to host all of the content people want to see.
LW already came out and said announcing on Discord was a mistake (as in, they didn’t mean to do it in the first place, rather than meaning in hindsight it was regretful) and it won’t happen again.
Yeah I don’t get the discord thing.
Humans who run instances are real people
This is the main problem here - the site is explicitly and legally run by a specific set of humans. Not by LemmyWorld Corp. Not by LemmyWorld LLC, but by “Jelloeater” et al. TBH this is a dumb idea. I don’t even run my own personal website as myself, let alone a forum with third-party content.
Having the admins and operators spend $50 for an LLC filing would shield the operators from most of this personal liability, even if the site itself would still be at risk of action.
An LLC registered with what government…Finland? Maybe a non profit would serve this purpose but then you have to have a board and meetings. Sounds like a lot of work.
Since the domain is registered in Finland, presumably it’d be created there. If an LLC has a single owner, you don’t need to have board meetings or anything. The sole owner would be whoever owns the website registration.
Gotcha.
I get what you’re saying, but calling people spoiled teenagers won’t change anyone’s mind. Attacking people is never a path to changing their mind.
You’re probably right. I was venting. Didn’t mean to offend anyone but people were getting silly with their outrage and felt like lots was misplaced, immature, short sighted
Absolutely agree with this.
The issue I have is with the mods spite-banning users who expressed negative sentiments over it.
Did that happen?
Check the general modlog from site sidebar so you can see what was done along with removed comments. You’d see all three of the mentioned users were unbanned minutes after, upon a quick team chat.
Oof. Luckily wiser heads prevailed
The internet is a silly place.
Let’s not go to Camelot.
The biggest thing is simply. "Lemmy.world "…
If someone really is that upset, create your own instance. Find an instance that agrees with you and swap it. I’m not anti-piracy, but this seems like a fundamental difference between you and Lemmy World, that essentially means you should find a different instance.
(or go create an account on a piracy server and here if that’s what it takes)
This needs to be upvoted to the top.
All those entitled kids need to read this classic also: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run-the-content-moderation-learning-curve/
Wow, Elon’s nearly to 4 already!
That was a really good read. It explains why the internet since “Web 2.0” is getting so controlled by a handful of large corporations. It’s basically impossible for small organisations to moderate and comply with all laws in all countries. Especially when a significant subset of their users are intentionally making it difficult.
I’m just grateful to see that just when folks were beginning to doubt if Lemmy could actually serve as a Reddit alternative, we’ve been able to prove that we’re equally if not more adept at insular slapfighting over petty bullshit and assuming the worst about others’ intentions.
Yes, the “everyone is nice, everyone is happy” days are over, at least for the coming days.
I guess that means we reached a large enough userbase
I’m pretty sure someone was being a dickbag to me like, the day I joined, so it was basically a seamless transition from reddit. Though honestly, the last time I was on any kind of public site without anyone being a shit was when I moderated a forum a decade ago, at least up until we passed maybe 200 users. I’m pretty sure that’s about the limit before someone has to act up.
Right around Dunbar’s number
Curious to see how this thread will go, as it seems this opinion is indeed unpopular.
I agree with you 100%
A few points I’ve noted in the previous threads
- people confuse defederation and community blocking (in this case, it’s the latter)
- people assume that Lemmy.world is hosted in the US while it’s EU based
- people just feel like they need to announce they are leaving while this is not Reddit, most of the users open an alt and move on with their lives.
People upset lemmy.world blocked piracy instances mad🤬 People hite with a lawsuit from the mpaa 😭
Well, props for picking the right community for such a take.
Take your upvote.
Correct.
