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.
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.
Absolutely, literally just swap instances. Hopefully instance migration comes in a similar way that mastodon offers.
I guess with LASIM as a current fix, it can work.
Mod tools are higher priority as far as I am concerned
people confuse defederation and community blocking (in this case, it’s the latter)
This seems to be a big one. LW admins were actually fairly light-handed on this one. This isn’t a discussion of defederation but people are acting like it is one.
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
It means there is now a healthy spectrum of feelings. Nice and happy all the time isn’t healthy.
Let’s just say respectful
Where appropriate.
Let’s agree to disagree
Image a large ascii made emoji of shaking hands. Whatever you just imagined is probably way better than the one I’ve been trying to copy and paste in here. :)
Lemmy ultimately can’t serve as a reddit replacement, but not because of the people. It’s the technology that won’t scale. If we took all the slapfighting that reddit had to offer, every instance would crumble trying to replicate a million snide and argumentative comments.
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.
OP certainly feels free to, ironically.
I don’t mind people voicing their complaints… it’s just the making a mountain out of very mole hill that I have a problem with.
💯
I’d just rather them have an actual point than just complaints .Like how in their understanding are the instance runners in the clear when it comes to copyright laws. Like an actual point. Or how are they going to help the instance if there were to be legal trouble.
If you don’t like it… don’t read it. :)
Everyone vocal on “your side” seem to have really limited world view and generally just bad attitude. No one seems to be willing to even explain the logic behind why this is wrong or at least show some understanding of the problem.
Edit. And by “you” I don’t mean pirates, do what you want, but the people complaining about an instance protecting themselves from possible legal trouble.
Imo it’s fine if they want to block the community - it’s their instance. Whatever. But the logic is kind of twisted.
Discussing piracy isn’t illegal, full stop. They don’t host pirated content, they don’t link to pirated content, hell they don’t even link to websites that link to torrents. It’s literally just discussion.
The owner of Lemmy.world is allowed to block them out of fear, that’s their right. But it’s still a complete overreaction ignited by a transphobic troll account.
Now this makes a lot more sense than what I’ve read here! I can understand the ire.
I was the guy that originally posted the announcement to c/mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world that hit the front page. Posted it from my lemmy.world account that I’ve since migrated from.
The guy you replied to has the same opinion as me. I shared it because I disagreed with the decision and thought that it deserved to be spread to inform others - and since it’s only mildly infuriating that seemed like the best community for it.
Everyone vocal on “your side” seem to have really limited world view and generally just bad attitude
It’s funny that you wrote this because I genuinely couldn’t tell which side you were talking about at first. When I made my post I was shocked by how many people who didn’t care about the community block felt the need to be dismissive, talk about overreaction, said that people were whining and should shut up, etc. Shocked because it was a big tonal assumption. I wasn’t whining or complaining, just discussing. And if we should shut up over a single post about it, how would we ever get the word out so that those who disagreed could leave. “Their side” seemed really bull-headed with bad attitudes to me. It felt like we were being told to just quietly leave without making any noise - but how would we know to if we didn’t make any posts or comments?
Anyway, this isn’t to accuse you or “your side” of actually being that way. More so it’s just highlighting how when we’re only dealing with text, it can be very easy to assume a certain tone, especially when it’s someone you disagree with. We could probably all benefit from questioning our assumptions a little more often. I know there are people on “my side” who get far too vehement about it. But overall, we just want freer access to information
That comment was made after exclusively arguing with folks who had nothing to say, expect that the decision was fascist/narcissistic/etc. No explanation beyond weird buzzwords.
I’m not complaining about them protecting themselves. I switched, remember? I’m complaining about OP’s complaining of others complaining, and those like him. I get it, liability for the lemmy provider. Makes sense. But then to be like OP and kick those that just lost something they liked while they are down… kick him back.
Well, props for picking the right community for such a take.
Take your upvote.
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
I get where your argument stems from, and I do agree with it when it comes to actual file hosting. But lemmy instances don’t host any files other than images. People are only talking about piracy. There isn’t anything illegal going on, risking liability by letting people discuss shit.
I find it far more compelling to focus on the argument against the whiny people that the community was in violation of the rules established by the instance the entire time it existed. The instance didn’t change the rules all of sudden, it just decided to enforce them.
It’s not the end of the world. Make a new instance. An instance specifically devoted to piracy. Then you can do whatever the hell you want because a pirate is free.
Correct.
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.
Why does LW even use discord? It’s a good chance to get people to use matrix
Yeah I don’t get the discord thing.
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.
I’m still consistently surprised that so few people seem to have realized that you can just make an alt on another instance that federates with blahaj (or the instance itself) if you feel like it.
And as to the server owner: they’re doing this with donations and out of the goodness of their hearts. That kinda gives them the right to run their server as they see fit. If you don’t like it… either find another instance, make your own, or shut the fuck up.
Not super user friendly to have to be constantly switching instances if an admin does something you don’t like, but totally agree that these are just the trade-offs that are made when you choose to use a free and open source software
But like, it’s a fundamental characteristic of the fediverse.
This place isn’t for everyone. If someone can’t eventually wrap their head around the concept of separate instances with distinct and sometimes drastically different administrative standards, and that alts are a reasonable and correct solution to (de)federation/network fragmentation… well, this probably isn’t the right place for that person.
For sure, but still not user friendly in practice by nature. Admins can switch, you might be happy in an instance today and unhappy tomorrow and the only option is to blow up your account and make a new one somewhere else.
And that’s the attitude that makes sure this platform never grows.
The reality is that most people don’t want to manage multiple accounts or even know what instance they’re on. That kind of stuff only matters to tech people. The average user wants one account that does everything, not a bunch of seemingly identical accounts.
I’m still not sold on the fediverse anyways. Federation often seems to hold things back more than it helps tbh.
You’re assuming that lemmy users and instance owners want monotonic growth, and I do not at all think that that can be safely assumed in the fediverse. In fact, I’d bet good money that a lot of users and instance owners would love to keep their own instance sizes relatively small, and furthermore don’t want to grow their userbases too fast.
And I find that defeats the whole point of the platform. If there’s no growth there’s no point in continuing to stay here. The communities I care about are so small over here that they’re barely worth having, let alone participating in.
If they didn’t want to be seen as a Reddit replacement then it shouldn’t have been advertised as one. If growth isn’t wanted then there’s no point to the platform and it’ll never gain any more users.
This is also why it’s good to have large instances such as LW. Most users can go to the one big instance and then the ones who want to stay small can without harming the growth of the platform.
The fact that you say that makes me think you’re someone who wasn’t around for bulletin board forums in the 90s and early 2000s. They were perfectly sustainable, and generally extremely long-lived. There are more than a few of them out there from that era that are still kicking around and going strong, and they don’t have massive, unsustainable growth.
It’s 100% possible to have a relatively static, moderately sized userbase, and to still have a vibrant, nuanced, productive community. You just either haven’t interacted with any, or your expectations have been so deeply skewed by the Facebook/Twitter/Reddit meta of “constant OC all the time no matter what” that you don’t understand that in many contexts a firehose spraying greywater isn’t really “better” than a gently burbling mountain spring.
I dabbled in them, but never saw a point in a community that small.
When niche communities have less than 10 active users there’s no point in continuing it. When a community can only get a few hundred people active at any given time on Reddit it has 0 chance of survival here without growth.
I’d rather a stream of crappy content to a trickle of ok content any day without a single bit of hesitation.
They are free to defederate but prople have the right to voice their opinions.
That is not spoiled teenagers.
You may not have much experience with spoiled teenagers.
Voicing ones opinion without regard for the people involved, just because they’re allowed to have one, is pretty much the spoiled teenager MO. Just like not realizing this goes both ways.
I said voicing opinion, not voicing opinion without regard.
you can voice your opinion but don’t be an asshole about it
dbzer0 hasn’t been defederated. Only the communities inside dbzer0 that actively engage in piracy support have been blocked.
“I’m DELETING my lemmyworld account!” To me sounds teenagery because it seems like the person doesn’t understand how anything works…legally, financially, etc
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.
Not sure where LW is hosted, but successful lawsuit absolutely doesn’t matter, just the existence of one. You spin up a server, host your instance, and any corp with their army of lawyers decide to sue. Just stop and think about what a pure hassle and the cost of even responding to the suit is. You’re probably in for a few grand and dozens of hours just on having a suit leveled against you. They don’t have to be morally right, legally right, they don’t have to to win, these companies can ruin lives and it’s just a Tuesday for them.
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.
And again, they’re volunteers, they’re already doing a service and they shouldn’t be forced to take legal risks they don’t want to.
It’s really annoying how lazy people are, the solution is to just have multiple accounts. It’s two clicks to change accounts but those lazy mfs have no response to that except that they don’t want to.
On top of that, they’ve been dealing with an ongoing DDOS for weeks. Is blocking piracy communities the response most of us want? No. Is it the best solution to get the most out of limited volunteer resources right now? I think the case for that is strong.
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.
Are they still hosting nsfw communities? Are mot those also a legal liability?
Some form (most forms?) of porn are legal in most places. Piracy isn’t legal in most places.
I’m not defending porn or saying piracy is bad, but legally I understand they don’t want to open themselves up to liability.
It’d be lovely if we could start codifying abandonware… or better yet, return copyright law to reasonable lengths (20 years)
But for a copyright pov they are even worse that piracy communities (I have nsfw turned off here, but in reddit it was full of people sharing copyrighted pictures).
That’s just in general the problem with the Internet. I’d love pics groups to be just user created pics. But unfortunately it seems like people think they can screen grab, download, or just link to any picture on the internet with no attribution or proof they have the rights to use it.
People seem to wake up when you post every picture from a comic book or manga but I wonder if someone took every photograph or painting by a famous artist and posted it. I imagine most people would highly upvotes that instead of calling it out for what it is.
Nah, user uploaded porn is a massive legal liability. Studio porn and amateur sites have procedures for verifying that performers are 18+, but that takes time and money to institute. Sometimes they do it wrong and have to wipe out entire back catalogues of content. A photo or video without documentation is not enough, since much of porn features people who look young.
Porn is lot more dangerous for the gov. Stepping in. CP is a huge issue when allowing porn.
The difference is that Id immediately switch instances if I thought the mods/admins would fight the govt for even a second on handing over the IP addresses of anyone suspected of CP.
Pirate or dont pirate. I dont care, but I expect the admins to narc hard and fast on anyone posting CP. Dont even wait for the cops to knock, email them yourselves, turn the cunts straight in.
The word was porn. Lemmy world already federated from at least one server in regards to CP. But fear of CP isn’t enough to block all porn. Piracy though is always illegal and that’s why it’s more strict than some titties and ass.
But discussion about piracy isn’t. As far as I know, linking to copyrighted material on those communities is forbidden.
Shhh! You trying to wake the bear?
I like this move from lemmy.world since too many users have seen it as the default instance to make communities. Was the reason why I was glad when Android from reddit came here and started their own instance. Communities being spread out so there isn’t a single point of failure is nice, and it’s only a few communities affected if you decide you don’t want anything to do with them for whatever reason. So this has led to good reflection.
Imo, if you really care that much to to another instance or host your own.
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)
lemmy.world is obviously WORSE than Reddit now. Reddit saved her users.
https://torrentfreak.com/reddit-defeats-filmmakers-second-attempt-at-unmasking-anonymous-users-230731/She punishes bad mods but does NOT block any communities with shitty reasons as Lemmy said.
Lemmy devs said “Just an instance did. Lemmy is not evil!” as it were someone else’s issue, and blamed Reddit somehow.
Then, did other lemmy instances de-federate lemmy.world? Did Lemmy devs blame lemmy.world? No, no, and no, they did not! This problem is not about an instance but Lemmy platform. They did not understand that SNS is not a playground for blocking-all-he-dislikes kids. This act will kill themselves as R*ssia is doing now.
