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.
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This shit is exhausting and incoherent to read. Also, jury nullification is in no way, shape or form ‘advocating for violence’.
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.
Jury nullification should not be a banned topic. It’s perfectly legal and is the only direct way citizens can object to interpretations of the law. The very fact that the courts and government don’t want people to know of it is a testament to its effectiveness in cases where the public will opposes the government in matters of law. Particularly when public opinion differs drastically from a strict interpretation of the law, but most especially when citizens find a law, its often limited proponents, or its execution to be objectionable, unconscionable, cruel, or unwilling to take circumstances into consideration. It’s crucial for us to all understand our limited power over the government, especially when it’s acting in an oppressive manner, violating human rights, ignoring the principle of justice in favor of a literal interpretation, or is otherwise objectionable by the majority of citizens as opposed to the minority of lawmakers.
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.
?? So, discussing jury nullification by itself, or suggesting ‘crimes that have not yet happened’ - itself is not a violation (i.e. someone should disturb the peace) but suggesting that “someone should disturb the peace and everyone on the jury, should they be prosecuted, should advocate for jury nullification” is a violation of the ToS?
I’m not understanding that part.
Broseph, I can’t have sympathy. The income inequality won’t let me. People aren’t cheering the unaliving necessarily, but the fact that one of these people actually answered for their crimes, in whatever form that took. Because courts weren’t gonna make him.
Reddit was the free speech instance all along? Honestly, with the mods clarifying this I’m asking myself - why the fuck am I on Lemmy again?
Woah, I get not allowing advocating for violence, but restricting people from discussing the topic of jury nullification is pretty messed up regardless of how you feel about the killing.
People in the US have justifiable revulsion to its rapacious healthcare system leading to outright un-aliving of a large segment of the population. One might argue that it’s a silent genocide of the underprivileged. This incident has highlighted that sentiment in a way that may effect real change and in a way his untimely demise may lead to positive health outcomes. Suppressing the expression of that anger could have the opposite outcome.
I can understand (though not agree) with banning clear advocation for violence of CEOs, but the “I haven’t had a reason to smile this much in a while” message that got the user banned was too far.
We will still consider suggestions of jury nullification for crimes that have not (yet) happened as advocation for violence
I see jury nullification as similar to self defense, just at a larger scale. I take this message as “You’re not allowed to talk about defending yourself for future occasions, only ones that have already happened.”
I guess talking about owning a gun for self defense can be seen as “advocating for violence” but that’s a narrow minded view, where nullification is only used when the ethics are on the greater good, like thousands of deaths vs the one.Hmm, maybe a change of scenery is needed. .this place is getting stupid. I haven’t seen a single comment actually advocating for violence, mostly just people who aren’t sad that this happened. Your mods have also demonstrated a lack of impartial judgemental in the past, and it’s starting to show.
Agree. And I’d we can get more free speech I think it’s time to relocate things.
Too late, I’m already out the door. You assume no one understands the nuances of hosting in a country without free speech laws as liberal as the US.
The truth is most people do. Your moderators’ histrionic response was so obviously from a place of emotion, and can recall numerous times your mods have allowed speech that was similar but didn’t act because they weren’t personally offended.
I think you fail to understand that your audience is international. That you let your moderators power trip not from an abundance of caution but because it’s more convenient for you.
I think you fail to understand that your audience is international.
I think you fail to understand that being international means that your American-centric views take a backseat for once in your life.
The USDefaultism is already strong back in reddit, but sadly it seems to be worse on Lemmy. Tired of seeing folks from US acting like they’re the main characters, kinda puts me off using this platform
Really? Jury nullification???
Glad I didn’t join your instance because that is fucking insane.
What does this mean
If I am understanding your question correctly: It means I am not on lemmy.world, I’m on sh.itjust.works, which is federated with lemmy.world but our users are not hosted on your website. I am reading this and posting from a different website.
So you can post to other instances of lemmy like sopuli.xyz or startrek.website as well as your own home instances, as long as they are federated (connected). If you find you don’t like how one instances is being run, you can always stop using it and register with a different instance (website) while still being able to post to various Lemmy instances.
Sorry I was asking about jury nullification and what that means and what the mod meant since you seemed to get it.
Thanks for explaining that though. Do you prefer your instance?
Aah, sorry, so jury nullification is a legal concept that basically says if a jury thinks someone should not be punished for a crime, even if they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt as proven by the evidence presented, they are still technically allowed to rule not guilty. This might be because they think the law itself is unjust, the circumstances of the crime still warrant a not guilty verdict, or some other reason entirely.
Not surprisingly, it’s a controversial subject, but it is an established legal concept in the United States and, even if certain people try to quash discussion of it or spread awareness of it, it is 100% lawful. In my opinion, censoring legal discussions in this way is a step too far and claims of liability are very overblown.
Thanks for explaining it! I had googled it but it seemed so harmless I didn’t get it. That’s kind of insane to ban discussion of a standard law….
What would lemmy admins have to gain?
A false sense of security I guess?
Honestly its sort of fair and just basic ass-covering. If some dummy out there gets the bright idea that they can kill someone because they’ll get a jury nullification anyway, and it turns out they discussed that here, it’s not great legally. No one wants to end up like 8chan.
That is such a terrible defense of banning speech about perfectly legal actions.
Is telling criminals they are allowed to hire shady criminal defense lawyers also banned? It makes them more comfortable committing crimes, right?
Read what you wrote in a few hours and see if it still holds up in your own mind. Simple talking about a legal action should always be allowed
Why do some people have such an insatiable urge to lick on boots?
No one is saying we should allow child porn and allow mass murderers to celebrate their kills. Trying to compare this to 8chan is disingenuous at best.
Elderly grandmothers are celebrating the murder of Brian Thompson. Think about that for a moment.
Hold on, think this one through.
The admins aren’t worried about jury nullification per se. They’re worried about what regulatory authority can do - shut down the instance, hold admins personally accountable etc - if the instance is classified as a media source + has content which could influence a jury.
This is no different from the advice given to other media outlets globally.
Maybe spin it this way. If the very act of having articles celebrating his actions on lemmy.world means his defense is compromised would you be OK with that?
I don’t buy that argument: Almost nobody knows what lemmy.world even is and removing discussion of jury nullification (which is what they outright said) isn’t even something that sites that have actual significant user bases are doing. It’s a step too far.
Site size doesn’t matter; prosecution of the actual people who are associated with it still occurs.
There is practically zero risk for users of lemmy instances, but those who host the instance are identifiable through domain registration, hosting or similar.
I don’t blame the admins for acting in self interest - ultimately they’re putting in the effort and wear the risk.
If you don’t agree with it you’re welcome to host your own instance - with blackjack and hookers etc.
Prosecuted for discussing jury nullification?
No.
That is fucking ridiculous.
I don’t agree with it, and I am also not on their instance.
Enjoy your censorship though.
I think diversifying mods is a good idea.
The one who “misinterpreted” the rules is a mod of pretty much all the main subs on world.
There’s a handful of accounts like that. And they hold way too much sway on the instance as a whole. It’s what got reddit in trouble. Mods would add each other as mods in other subs, and it ended up with a whole bunch of super mods with way more influence then they should have had. Especially since that mainly happens when mods agree on things.
Make a limit, even 10 which feels huge would be better than nothing.
Otherwise a handful of people can chase away the entire userbase. Because when a big news story breaks, they control almost all the serious discussions. Which is what happened here. And it’ll happen again if things dont change.
Yea this became a huge part of why reddit got so shitty. There needs to be a cap implemented on how many subs a mod can manage.
