Apparently calling for the use of force to defend your country from invaders is "advocating violence". Also: being anti-American in general is against the rules

All from in this thread in !world@lemmy.world about a chant at a British music festival where an artist said "death, death to the IDF".

After other users were quoting that chant in the comments and had comments removed and banned, the hero of our story, @theacharnian@lemmy.ca (appearing as "acargitz") pointed out that under international law, fighting an occupying force is legitimate. But apparently not under world news rules, as their removed comments and the many explanations from mods make clear in the thread.

Equally against the rules is the call for the eradication of an organisation or business, even without an explicit call to violence against individual members of the business.

In the same thread: user @DeathToTheIDF@lemmings.world had comments removed for being anti-American "(again)", though I couldn't see the first time. It's not even clear to me how the removed comments were anti-American.

Bonus points for the "DC Comics" removal reason. Though this seems to be incompetence, rather than malice.

You're viewing part of a thread.

Show Context

413 comments

Oh, there's no doubt it's a radical position. I've had to explain to another mod why the classic dishonest question "When did you stop beating your wife?" is a rhetorical device and not actually endorsing spousal abuse. (I got that comment restored once people actually understood what was being said.)
But in the cases of the comments that started this whole blow up, there is absolutely no ambiguity. If your comment contains any variation on "DEATH TO..." yeah, that's going to get removed.
You ever see the movie "The Fisher King" with Robin Williams? GREAT flick. Jeff Bridges plays this radio DJ who goes off on a rant about Yuppies. (Ye olden term for "Young Urban Professionals". We'd call them "Tech Bros" now. Yeah, it's super old.) Saying "They must be stopped! It's us or them!"
Well, someone listening took a shotgun down to a yuppie bar and killed 7 people.
https://youtu.be/KJf4bRKQPHg
The movie isn't as dour as that makes it out to be, it's actually quite touching and funny. Peak Terry Gilliam.
But the point is, if a comment, even an offhand one, could inspire violence, it's got to go. Hopefully someone catches it.
- So no pro war positions, no adcocating for laws, no sport hunting, only strict anarchist pacifist ultra-veganism so extreme it would turn me off?
  
  Nope, for example, you can argue for shutting that shit down in Israel, I have no problem with that. As I've stated previously, Israel is not going to stop killing people until somebody invades and makes them stop. They have been engaging in war crimes for decades now and nobody is willing to stop them.
  But as soon as you cross that line into "Execute Netanyahu! Death to the IDF!" that crosses a line.
  Take them into custody and prosecute them in a War Crimes tribunal? Excellent, love to see it. Murder them in the streets? Well, now we're no better than they are.
  
  Okay so you're totaloy incapable of seeing yourself. Is that why the rule about not regarding mods is a thing?
  
  “Calling for the death of troops who are actively committing genocide is no better than committing actual genocide. The pen is just as guilty as the sword, and defending against genocide is no better than committing genocide.”
  You would’ve made a “Good German.”
  
  See now in my community, that comment would get removed, directed at any user. "Civility".
  It's a super simple rule... don't call for anyone to be killed. What is hard to understand about that?
  
  It’s a super simple rule… don’t call for anyone to be killed. What is hard to understand about that?
  It couldn’t be simpler. I don’t think anyone is questioning how to interpret the rule.
  Why didn’t you simply say that this is an instance-wide rule? https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#1-attacks-on-people-or-groups
  Then you wouldn’t have been expected to defend it, and most of this drama brought upon you could have been avoided. Instead it would have been deflected back to the drama about the world admins’ questionable interpretation & execution of German law regarding calls for violence or Volksverhetzung or whatever it is (IANAGL).
  
  Because it doesn't need to raise to the level of the instance wide rule. That would come in if we didn't already have a community rule against it.
  World doesn't technically have a rule against piracy, that's at the instance level. If someone posts pirated content it's going to get removed because of the lemmy.world guidelines, not our community guidelines.

413 comments