VLemmy .net's defederation and disappearance

Note: It would be best not to visit the instance for the time being until the issue is resolved.

At some point in the last 24-48 hours (approx. July 7-8, 2023) the instance vlemmy.net went down without a clear explanation, and at certain times redirected to a parked domain.

This comes after a notice from vlemmy admin pyarra announcing it was forced to de-federate with another instance due to content that is considered CSAM under Irish law (link to legal definition) syncing with vlemmy, hosted in Ireland. The original post link disappeared with the server but here is a link to a cached version from lemmy.world. There is no official confirmation whether there is any connection between this event and its disappearance.

This post on lemmy@Lemmy.ml has a screenshot of the redirected domain name.

An investigation by a user on Fediverse@lemmy.world is underway... their findings were as follows:

• [Information from 1AM EST Jul 9th] vlemmy is still “up” and intermittently accessible. It is running "slow as hell"
• Stripe, Librepay, and Github accounts are all closed. Closure date unknown
• Reddit account still exists and has been messaged
• No mentions of the instance in Element.io chats but still searching
• They have almost certainly NOT lost their domain. Who.is historical records show no ownership or nameserver changes.
• The user updated the post stating "I’m working through about 40 different potential leads right now"
• The user is requesting help from the community finding an image from the kerbalspaceprogram community on vlemmy potentially left in someone's browser cache.

Please be careful in ensuring content on lemmy.ca follows the site rules and Canadian law, so as not to get this wonderful server in trouble either!