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2w ago

Lemmy.World ToS and the murder of the UHC CEO

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.

804 comments

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.
- People also seem to somehow believe that free speech in the US means that private instances can't deplatform you for the things you say.
  I have no idea why anyone thinks that extends to anyone besides the government censoring speech or why they think free speech means freedom from the consequences of that speech.
  
  Many Americans have a weak grasp on even the most basic details of their constitution. During my stay there, I heard "free speech" improperly being used as a defense by people of many different backgrounds.
  
  Exactly right.
  Free speech means that the government can't prosecute you for what you say (except in certain specific circumstances).
  Free speech doesn't mean that I can't kick you out of my house for what you say.
  What we need is a government-operated fediverse instance to serve as a public forum.
  
  Free speech is a principle (like free trade) in addition to a fundamental right enumerated in the 1A enforceable against the government. People are making policy arguments when they discuss it in the context of private entities deplatforming advocating for private implementation of the principle into business practices.
  
  Usually bc they are trying to see if they can get away with that argument. And sometimes it works so they continue to try.
  
  Legally you're right. But I think it sort of ignores the spirit of what that free speech should be and the reality it actually exists in. There are corporations that have reached a level of size and power comparable to governments. Plus the government in general is an arm of the capitalist class it represents. Most of the speech that happens today is on these privately owned services. To allow those large corporations to act as censors, it makes the protections on speech from government interference largely moot. Generalizing more, the way I put it is in America, you have freedom... if you can afford it. Sure, nobody is able to stop you from saying what you want to say. But you get to say it to a handful of people you know while a rich person gets to say it to millions of people through media channels and advertising. Sure everyone gets one vote, but if you're rich you can influence a lot more than one vote (and you can probably buy more than one vote of influence with whoever wins.) You may have the right to an abortion, but if you're poor you might not have the means to actually do it. People have the legal right to due process, but despite that, tons of cases end in plea deals or settlements because people don't have the means to be adequately represented in a legal case. When the US legally abolished (most) slavery, many of the freed slaves ended up as share croppers, not much better off or free than they were before because they didn't have the material means to exercise that freedom. Later, the US passed anti-discrimination laws. No more barring black people from living in some towns/neighborhoods. But despite that, the area I grew up in was still heavily segregated. Legal freedoms don't mean much if you don't have the economic freedom to exercise them.
  Now, there's clearly a line. It seems obvious that say, if you had some private chat room it would be fine to kick people out of it for whatever reason. And at the extreme end we have these massive platforms acting which perform the role of a public service but in the hands of private interests. There I think there should be limits on what censorship they should be able to do. So where do you make the cutoff along that spectrum? Idk. I feel like a Lemmy instance is probably closer to a private chatroom than a social media corporation. They're small, they're not run for profit, and they're not engaged in any anti-competitive behavior. There's not that much stopping someone from moving to another instance or even making their own.
  
  A huge number of Americans are dumbfucks. I deal with that every day.
  911 = life or limb emergency.
  I can assure you that 98% of Americans can't even grasp that simple concept.
- I think the issue is, there IS NO major Lemmy instance that IS us based. So Americans just sort of clump where the other Americans are. Then, that sets the tone for where we are. Everybody has a us centric experience, and so it becomes well known that Lemmy.World is a us based instance.....even if it's not true.
  So now all of it's users are behaving in a manner which lines up with their own local culture, in this case America, and have no clue which other nations laws apply, or what those laws even are.
  You could tell me that Germany has a law that every 300th meal has to be sausage and schnitzel. I would be doubtful that you're telling the truth, but I'd have no leg to stand on to dispute.
  So you say "Go to the american instance then!!!" And to that I say "It doesn't exist. Or if it does exist it's too small to notice."
  
  https://lemmy.world/post/21754967
- I'm confused, what does free speech have to do with where the instance is based? This is the internet, what country is going to extradite a US citizen for making a comment on a defederated social platform?
  The overreach is insane.
  
  I don’t know anything about Dutch or Finnish laws, but I’ve seen many recent articles about people arrested in Germany for their social media posts that were considered hateful or violent (which is frankly a culture shock to me as an American), so I can see why some of the posts on Lemmy in the past week would be concerning.
  https://lemmy.world/comment/13870047
  https://feddit.org/post/5497724/3547575
  https://feddit.org/post/5497724/3544318
  If you are a US citizen and would prefer a US-based instance, there is
  https://discuss.online/ which blocks hexbear and lemmygrad
  https://lemmy.today/ which does not block any instance
- I would argue that it's certainly not clear. That's probably part of the problem.
  
  How is this not clear?
  From https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
  Our Governing Laws
  The website and the agreement will be governed by and construed per the laws of the following countries and/or states:
  The Netherlands
  Republic of Finland
  Federal Republic of Germany
  If people are looking for US-based instances, there is https://discuss.online/
  
  Why would you assume “.world” would mean the USA…? It’s obviously NOT USA, so why assume USA instead of the other 99.99% countries? Thats why you read the shit dude. This whole idea that the USA is “the world” is only in Americans head and it’s hilarious to see from the outside in this frequency.
  There’s even a term for it since it’s so common “Americentrism”

I think this is a good time to remind everyone that the strength of federated social media (and a big reason why we're all here) is that no private company or country's laws can have total control over the fediverse.
Everyone who runs an instance is going to have a different risk-tolerance for legal issues however, and I can't fault anyone for making a judgment call that they feel best protects the server and their users. I don't know anything about Dutch or Finnish laws, but I've seen many recent articles about people arrested in Germany for their social media posts that were considered hateful or violent (which is frankly a culture shock to me as an American), so I can see why some of the posts on Lemmy in the past week would be concerning.
In my interactions with the .World admins, I've seen nothing but people trying to run an instance in the most fair and neutral way they can, and I personally trust them to make the hard calls when they come up. That being said, if you're frustrated with the legal concerns of a host's country or have had a run-in with a mod that upset you, it only strengthens the fediverse if you spread out or create similar communities elsewhere.
- people arrested in Germany for their social media posts that were considered hateful or violent (which is frankly a culture shock to me as an American)
  Might want to get used to the idea come 2025...
- Midwest.social is located in the US and is also a leftist instance. However, we don’t host many large comms ourselves.
  
  Well, your instance also doesn't, as of my last check in mid August, accept new accounts, sooo...
  
  FYI https://lemmy.cafe/post/10511187
- Yeah, if you run an instance, and you decide this is a hobby for you not your main job and you're also not a lawyer and hence you just go "Sorry, all denied" then honestly, more power to you. It's a hobby, not a job. If anybody disagrees, they have just volunteered to be the named person of legal representation for this instance, tbh.
- Germany is honestly still a fascist country. People argue that they aren't but they absolutely are, they just try and cope and say they aren't fascist semantically by banning Nazi symbols.

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.
- Specifically where it relates to violent crime.
  Essentially it is supposed to make statements like the following a rule violation:
  "If someone murdered [fictional person] they would totally get acquitted because any jury would just nullify the charges."
  While the following sentence would not be a violation of TOS:
  "The murderer of UHC CEO Brian Thompson should get acquitted via Jury Nullification because [reasons] and this is super dope."
  The first example could be read as a call to violence, while the 2nd is not calling for a crime.
  As I understand it "All future jurors in money laundring cases should nullify, because tax evasion is... like... super cool" would also be legal, because money laundring is not a violent crime.
  
  Mods could still remove it though, not for instance ToS but community rules.
  
  money laundring is not a violent crime.
  So it sounds like the laws prohibit advocating blue collar crime, but advocating white collar crime is fine.
- suggesting ‘crimes that have not yet happened’ - itself is not a violation
  this was already covered. this is not a new change. if you write "someone should kill person XYZ" this is clearly a call for murder that we do not tolerate here. discussing jury nullification in the same context where murder or other violent crimes are suggested is what was clarified to be subject for moderator action.
  
  It's generally better to use generalized statements
  Like "Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives"
  That's just a historical fact

This shit is exhausting and incoherent to read. Also, jury nullification is in no way, shape or form ‘advocating for violence’.
- Not with a lack of context but, if you read it all, in combination with discussing a crime that has not yet happened, by definition in this situation and context.
  
  Couldn't have expressed it any clearer!

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.
- You’re not wrong it being a genocide of undesirables.
- One might argue that it’s a silent genocide of the underprivileged.
  Please don't give centrists another reason to root for CEO's.
  
  Fucking burnnnnn
- Okay, but to be clear: the admins panicked against the very real possibility of police shutting them down, and took a moment to make certain that Lemmy.World can continue to exist to serve this or any needs of people across the world. The bans have already expired, the mod who did it apologized and said that no new ones would be forthcoming, the ToS have been clarified, etc. Yes there was "suppression", but for like 1-3 days, and it's already over?
  Unless you mean that people should be free to advocate for future murders, and I would argue that there are other (e.g. anarchy) instances for that, but Lemmy.World is free to do as they please, and to restrict such on their own hardware.
  I am saying that "suppression" seems too harsh a word here imho, when the ToS now clearly delineates the line between what is or is not allowed on the LW instance and thereby communities located on it. Isn't that a success then, to define the parameters within which the instance is allowed to discuss these matters (again, by police, a very real external factor that definitely truly does exist - and can come down HARD on those who would want to FAAFO), so kinda the opposite of "suppression" then? Well, according to some manner of using the term at any rate - not everything is allowed, but definitely not nothing along these lines is either.
  Like, surely you've seen the veritable FLOOD of posts and comments in just about every community imaginable across the entire Fediverse lately, alternately either promoting this guy as a hero or decrying him as a terrorist? That's not "suppression" in my book - again, the jury nullification matter was, days ago, but that's already over? The nuances here are important, b/c we cannot have true freedom without being responsible to keep this place alive & kicking & not shut down.
  
  the very real possibility of police shutting them down
  Has this "very real possibility" happened to any social media platform in America?
- This is not TikTok, btw.

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.
- 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.
  Was that from a mod or an admin? From what I understood, the ToS explained here would allow a comment like that, but mods could still decide to remove it according to community rules.

Anyone who wants The Adjuster to be imprisoned is supporting violence against him. Imprisonment is a violent act. Drag thinks the Lemmy.world admins should make sure to remove any comments advocating imprisonment.
- Drag sounds like a hoopy frood, as does The Adjuster. Ford agrees
  
  Drag would like to share a pan galactic gargle blaster with Ford sometime.
- Zerg sides with Drag on this.
  Just because something is legal, it's not necessarily ethical and vice versa.
  "Adjustment" is creating accountability by other means.
- Did you refer to yourself in the third person?
  
  If you read drag's profile, it says that drag's pronoun in all grammatical persons is "drag" so technically, even using the word "you" to address drag is incorrect, you should be saying "Did drag refer to dragself in the thidr person?"
  Whether you want to go along with it is up to you
  
  No. Drag has first person neopronouns.
  
  5th
- Imprisonment is meant to be a means of reducing possible harm and a means of reform, but if you disagree with that then you should take it up with the legislators in the USA and not the website admins.
  
  Oh, sorry, are you saying the use of guns is justified and nonviolent if the intention is to reduce further violence?
  Drag wonders if this principle could be applied to any recent events...
  
  Deposing healthcare CEOs is harm reduction that’s far more useful than prison.
  
  and a means of reform
  In the USA? Lmao

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.

If Jury Nullification is legal and allowed, then frankly covering that exact thing up is an abomination and y'all should be utterly ashamed of yourselves. Since when is Lemmy in the habit of backing an establishment while not allowing people involved to know the full picture? Genuinely shameful and disgusting behavior.
Yeah, I'm not going to ever remove anything from my communities relating to that or to the violence against the CEO. There is no difference between Brian Thompson and any other mass murderer on the planet. Are you asking me to protect Hitler or Pol Pot as well from criticisim and glee over their death? No? Then I am sure as fuck not going to do it for this guy.

Really? Jury nullification???
Glad I didn't join your instance because that is fucking insane.
- this post kinda makes me sad I'm in this instance now. 😔
  
  You could always move to a better instance, one of the advantages of the fediverse.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- What's fucking insane is the way people were practically making a checklist of people to kill
  This place was turning into thedonald, where abuse was upvoted
  You know it's bad when even 4chan people were acting normal in comparison
  
  Tell me you were born with a silver spoon without telling me....
  We are fighting for our lives. Literally
  Violent begets violence. Do you expect people to bend over and take it?
  Class war is here, and it sounds like you're picking the wrong side.
  
  the way people were practically making a checklist of people to kill
  No they are not, you are making this up to derail the discussion.

Translation: move instances
Its a good idea to give them competitors anyways.
- Which one to go to?
  
  Sopuli.xyz is a solid general instance, as is discuss.online.
- 💯

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.
- I haven't seen a single comment actually advocating for violence
  Probably because they've been removed by the mods.
  
  Man/Ma'am, I've seen dozens lately. Most were fun actually, but I side with the admins here. You can actually get prosecuted, and badly, in Europe, for this.
- I doubt that's true, but if it is, you can see plenty of them in the Lemmy.world modlog over the past few days. It is a public modlog.
- I haven’t seen a single comment actually advocating for violence
  It's almost as if the mods are doing their jobs...
- There's posts all over with CEO faces and names and pretty transparent text related to the "adjuster" finding them.
  I get the motivation but it is pretty clear they are saying "hey go kill these specific people"
  And countless comments, even in this post saying "all X deserve to die"
  Now before people assume me an apologist, my preferred solution would be letting Bernie, AOC, and Warren off the leash to criminalize the profiteering rampant in our society, while nationalizing all basics such as basic shelter, healthcare, education, advocacy, and nutrition.
  A society is measured by it's poorest/weakest.
- I haven’t seen a single comment actually advocating for violence
  Re-read the OP, particularly the third paragraph but also definitely the sixth - it covers exactly this topic.
- Agree. And I’d we can get more free speech I think it’s time to relocate things.

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.
- many communities would be happy to have more mods. many of these cases come from the lack of people volunteering to moderate a community. this is already being considered when people are promoted as moderators in communities by our admin or community team if a community doesn't have active moderators. we already try to find people that aren't already moderating as many communities in those cases.
  
  I 100% get it.
  I mod one sub because it was vacant and someone asked me, and another because I was going to post there but it was vacant so I requested it.
  We 100% need more people to step up.
  But even if those subs just opened the door, the same ones will still be above everyone in the chain.
  Especially with communities where the top couple mods gave up on their account and it's a zombie. Someone could be 3rd or 4th and defacto head mod.
  Just a suggestion though, it would have prevented the appearance in this situation from being "lemmy.world's official stance" because one person misunderstood something.
  Misunderstandings are going to happen, it's unavoidable. If you want a way to mitigate the damage, it's limit how much reach each person has. Pruning is a natural part of growth, and any mod that gets their feelings hurt about it...
  Well, that's the type of person we would be doing this to protect against. Someone who lets their feelings get in the way of moderation.
- 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.
- Then step up to volunteer your services as a mod? Reportedly the tools are terrible and the reason why there are so few mods is that so few are willing to do the job. If a limit were to be placed, without having such volunteers, then how would all those empty positions be filled?
- The one who “misinterpreted” the rules is a mod of pretty much all the main subs on world.
  That's because few want to. I've been asked myself whether I want to mod multiple communities because the current mod isn't active, and some of those aren't even small.
  (edit: Fair enough, did not even know it's public what somebody mods - in that case however you should be inherently aware of how naturally moderating communities is something extremely few people would want to do, and how this naturally results in very few users moderating vast swathes of communities)
  
  If you look at someone's profile, you can see what communities they mod...
  Or you can just keep wildly assuming things and hoping you're right.
  Or just read the existing reply chain before making your own reply?
  You had lots of options bruh. But you've also made over 5% of the comments in this thread, and you didn't do that in any of them either.
  Just randomly telling everyone what your uninformed opinion is about stuff...
  I'm glad you haven't taken up anyone's offers to mod anything. And I truly mean that.
- I think diversifying mods is a good idea.
  Great, so then every post gets 10 chances to be incorrectly identified and culled? We don't need diversity of opinion here, we need quite the opposite. We need a unification of opinion so that rules can be solidified around that.
  
  No way, get this outta here. Last thing we need is the same mod on every community on every instance going wild with power. This line of thinking allows and empowered that sort of behavior.
  
  We need a unification of opinion so that rules can be solidified around that.
  No one says we wouldn't. That would still have to come from the admins...
  The point is one rogue mod can't "misinterpret" something and enforce it in:
  News, Politics, World News, and World News Politics.
  If they limited a single mods crossover, then it would mitigate the damage done by "misinterpreting".
  Like, this is basic compartmentalization, it has nothing to do specifically with the fediverse or even social media...
  You just don't set up an organization where a handful of people have day to day control, especially when it's all volunteers. You got to spread it around for a multitude of reasons.

Is your opinion that advocating for jury nullification would constitute some violation of Dutch, Finnish or German law based on legal advice?
- Admins, please answer this.
  In the United States, the right to trial by jury is absolute. Once of the consequences of that right is that juries can choose to follow the law, or not, a they see fit to ethically administer justice. "Should a jury nullify if..." regarding hypothetical future crimes is a completely legitimate topic of conversation, to explore the ethical issues of nullification.
- No, they said jury nullification for future violent crimes, not violent crimes that have already happened.
  i.e "Hey guys, do you think a jury would let me off for killing Scrooge McDuck?" or "I think juries should nullify if someone decides to drop a piano on Scrooge's head" and such.
  
  I wanted to address the LW admins. I can see how it may seems I am asking for everyone's opinion.
  I did not exclude future crimes from my question.
- Advocating to commit a crime probably is a violation of dutch law. Jury nullification does not exist. Edit: no expert, but the other jurisdictions linked to this instance probably similar.
  
  You are not answering the question.
  You are taking for granted that that advocating for jury nullification is advocating for the actual crime to be committed. But you are not a legal expert.
  Is advocating for lower sentences for some crimes illegal? Would calling for legalization of drug use constitute a crime?
  That jury nullification does not exist in Dutch law is not in favor of it being interpreted as advocacy t commit a crime.

Delay deny depose :3

My takeaway? It seems like the admins tried making it a banned topic, but the pushback was so great that they eventually said "Ok, ok, murder is bad. Going forward, no murder.....but just this once."
- That's kind of what happened in Politics when Kissinger died... "No celebrating death... but it IS Kissinger..."
  
  Thank you for reminding me that Kissinger is dead
  
  That was a good day.
  Fuck Kissinger.
  
  Well...... was kissinger.
- Not according to the very mod who did the action, which you can read about here. The admins panicked over the (very real imho) threat of police repercussions, so they told her to stop such posts and comments (in retrospect, she wished that she had preemptively locked the post so as to be able to hand out fewer bans while still muting the topic for awhile), and then later the admins said to reverse course so she apologized, reversed the bans, and told people to wait on this updated ToS, which took time to draft and get consensus for. It was all extremely quick, including her apology mere hours after the event?
  So yes the ToS itself took a few days to arrive, but the decision to stop handing out bans for the topic happened days before that, long before most of this upswell of resistance even had time to propagate much.
  
  You call that an apology? Fuck that mod.

7 paragraphs of water. Did you want to convey your point or just to write something?
- I skimmed it, and it went from something about ToS to moderators rule to something about jury nullification(?). The whole thing probably could have been done with some strategic bullet points.
  Unless it has changed, the lemmy.world ToS is about as broad and obscure as it gets. I can sum it up though: Admins are gonna do admin things, moderators are gonna do mod things and users are subject to whatever rules get applied to them in the moment.
- The point is that this instance operates in a country with stricter laws and if we wanna celebrate dead CEOs we should leave. I plan on leaving. Sorry the Europeans don’t understand what America is going through right now.
  
  That's a summary. Thank you.
  
  We can we do it then
- Imagine being unable to read, and wanting to still take part in a text-based platform. Are you that one user who swipes images in card view all day they had in the stats the other day?
  
  I'm mostly here to look at funny pictures, yes. If you take pride at wasting your time reading every bullcrap posted here, good for you. But this post could be reduced to two sentences. There was no need to waste everyone's time with this generic PR message.

Lame. Jury nullification is good and necessary in this case. Saving people's lives shouldn't get you punished, regardless of your motives.

At what point is supporting the prosecution of this assassin advocating for violence? The social murder done by the CEO is so many orders of magnitude greater, and the state will do violence to the killer to defend the industry's right to do social violence.
Nobody was having this conversation when people rightly cheered the deposing of Assad. Guess what? That involved violence, a lot of it. That was state-backed violence too though, so I guess we're all just fine with it.
The state calls its own violence "law" and that of the people "crime".
I guess lemmy.world is happy to just go along with whatever the state wants. It's just insulting that you pretend it's about "violence" and you expect people to believe you.

This seems like a double standard: Should any defense of the US healthcare system also be banned because it barbarically leads patients to die waiting for care in an intentional way?

Personally my big takeaway from the comments here is that either many people think administrating a large internet platform is a joke and happens on its own and you don't find 10+ legal notices in the PO box every week, or that - and I've read about this before - reading comprehension in the english-speaking world has fallen dramatically in recent years and people are genuinely unable to read paragraphs of text of non-trivial content and/or shifting subjects within same sentences, something you learn around 6th grade in school but sadly rarely need after school in modern times.
- TOS's usually have a legal team go over them to prevent such eventualities. Lemmy as a whole does not really necessarily have this option and that's at least part of the problem here. The owners and administrators have to cover the eventualities of user interaction with the site. Since this is the case, the owners and admins are using at best a layman's understanding of the law (potentially), to cover themselves and at the same time not taking into account other factors (such as jury nullification not being a part of the laws of those jurisdictions at all).
  While it is their right to do so as owners of the site, they may be in violation of the rights of other people and since they operate a site with multiple jurisdictions and that may be used by users in other countries, it is perfectly okay for the users to be upset about these changes and do with that information what they will, including making complaints about changes and discussions of changes.
  Do things get better without discussion? Is that something you've experienced?
- I would not be too surprised to find that there were... "sources" promoting the recent uptick in violent rhetoric. Not that the underlying current of resentment did not already exist, mind you, but pushing it forward more strongly in order to sow FUD?
  Either way, I expect that if such is not here already, it at least will be on its way. The excuse that this will give Trump to shut down avenues of free speech is just too perfect for me to not at least suspect some kind of involvement beyond mere coincidence.
  
  Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. I think you’re spot on. The more you sow hate and get people to react violently, the more unstable the country is. That creates a conflict where military may be needed at home rather than abroad and allows other actors to do the things they want.
  On the other hand, we do kind of need what happened because we’re slowly, methodically getting our ways to fight back stripped or we’re in such a different class that we just have to take it because we can’t compete.
  It’s all fucked up.

Wow I wasn't even planning to leave but this nonsense just convinced me. Thanks!

I don't even believe in the death penalty for most murderers.
But when your murder count would make any serial killer that did it with their bare hands instead of an email in all of history blush, with the cold calculation of a sociopath, there's really nothing more to say.
That doesn't even feel like murder, that feels like an ongoing mass slaughter.
I can empathize with murders of passion, even misguided, ignorant hatred as that was usually something impressed into them, and can relate to the very human secondary emotion of anger even if felt in ignorance, but murders of "Well if I murder these thousands of people on this newly discovered loophole, I can increase quarterly profits by 2.4%! Score!" then it becomes impossible. It's like trying to empathize with a computer devoid of any humanity.
- There's also the point that he was continuing to kill thousands of people, on an ongoing basis.
  Vigilante justice for someone who killed in the past, bad.
  Someone taking down a killer mid-rampage? Hero.
- This is just supporting the death penalty with extra steps. Which is fine, just own it.
  
  In a perfect world he would be institutionalized, not murdered.
  But society would need to correctly see the insatiably, sociopathically greedy as severely mentally ill and a harm to others, which they are, and not role models, which they are considered in this broken culture.
  With our culture as it is, people like him are a threat that can't be otherwise contained, because they're of use to the economy that works against most of us.
  
  Some people are better off dead, I just don't trust the state to make that decision. If things were normal I wouldn't trust a vigilante either, but I think it's fair to say these are extraordinary times. There are mountains of evidence against all these c suite psychopaths, and if the justice system is just going to keep carving out exceptions for them - well then they're doing it to themselves.
  
  The problem is, "owning it" would mean saying something like "I support the death penalty, but only for billionaires and cops who break the law," which would get my comment removed and possibly get me banned

Goodbye, LW, parts of this have been nice but this is where I draw the line. The administration has been clear as mud on this subject with very subjective justification for the nullification of reasonable discourse. I'm going to keep my account for a brief amount of time but I fully intend to delete it in the next week. This is the last thing I'm commenting, upvoting, etc. All of my engagement ceases now beyond this comment.

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.
This is the Central Scrutinizer / It is my responsibility to enforce all the laws / That haven't been passed yet. / It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of you / To the potential consequences / Of various ordinary everyday activities / You might be performing which could eventually lead to / The death penalty - or affect your parents' credit rating. / Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you / Who do wrong things…
- I’m one of the lucky people who was introduced to this song today.
  
  The whole album is a treat. It's best enjoyed knowing the history of frank zappa's various run-ins with the police due to his music

I have read it all, and i genuinely still don't know how or what is applied to the dead CEO.
- From what I understood, nothing is specifically related to him, it’s more about the discussion that comes from that.
  Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I grasped the tl;dr is “CEO dead? Great!” = ok / “CEO dead? Great, they should kill more of them!” = not ok

Lol we left reddit for this? Now this is quite an unexpected nullification of jury duties of internet mods. I reject your reality and inject my own ya buncha bozos.

tl;dr (if I am getting this right):
Sometimes moderators don't get if something is forbidden under the TOS, or believe something should be forbidden but isn't. Ask an admin if uncertain.
Moderators can further restrict content beyond the bare minimum of the TOS. Please don't complain to the admins if a moderator does this (in good faith, obviously).
Conversely, moderators, please read the TOS and don't tell someone something is forbidden under it if it actually isn't.
Previously, admins told mods to remove content re: Jury nullification when discussing violent crimes.
Currently, this has been limited only to discussion of jury nullification of future violent crimes, as it could imply someone should actually perform said violent action because they would be acquitted via jury nullification. As far as I can tell, this is the only actual change of any rule in this post.
Summary over, personal thoughts follow: That one specific change, I don't actually have any issue with. Reasonable enough. Obviously the devil is in the details of what is forbidden under "advocating violence"; that is a monstrously complex discussion beyond the scope of this particular announcement. Furthermore, the value of some of the clarifications in this post are dependent on admins actually holding an open dialogue with users, the track record of which is... variable. (I am still waiting on a response from months ago, which I was then told would be available in a few weeks.)
Additionally, since lemmy.world remains federated with other instances which tolerate unpleasant behavior and I see no indication on this post that this will change, this functionally changes little of users' ability to access that content and contribute to it anyhow.
- Additionally, since lemmy.world remains federated with other instances which tolerate unpleasant behavior and I see no indication on this post that this will change
  There is nobody in this world who can act in a way that isn't unpleasant for someone. This is such an unachievable bar as to be laughable.
- Hi,
  could you send me a link to the comment where you wanted a response from us. Sorry if we forgot to respond.
  
  Hey,
  I actually reached out via email and was in contact with someone at Info@lemmy.world. I can respond again and see if there is progress this time.
- I have a question. Why not just specifically forbid talk involving deliberate jury nullification for the purposes of essentially helping to plan or otherwise be an accessory to a crime? Or just leave it as enacting/planning/otherwise officially endorsing criminal activity is prohibited under TOS and clarify that this type of talk about deliberately planning jury nullification for crimes committed is against TOS under this rule. That's simple enough and wouldn't have taken such a meandering and lengthy post. Additionally, the statement about what jurisdiction and laws this instance is subject to can be added to the TOS and the laws clarified with links to official documentation accordingly. This post is a mess.
  
  endorsing criminal activity
  Because now that wording, means anyone advocating for legalization of Marijuana falls under this umbrella.
  As people we need to be able to voice our opinions on the legality and/or morality of certain laws. It's a tricky thing to word correctly, while toeing the line of what is acceptable and what is not.
- It gets better. If you ask in a thread why something was removed they'll just ban you for having content shown in the mod log

Everyone who opposes the assassination of one CEO is glorifying the thousands of murders he committed. It's one or the other.
- I’m a Canadian. I want Americans to have a proper health care system. I just don’t think a campaign of assassinations is going to get you there. I think it’s far more likely to backfire and turn the US into a Robocop-style dystopian hellscape where all the big companies have their own private armies working security and regular people aren’t even allowed into their city’s business district without going through security checkpoints.
  Why not nationalize all of the health insurance companies, fire all the executives, and turn it all into a public health insurance agency?
  
  Why not nationalize all of the health insurance companies, fire all the executives, and turn it all into a public health insurance agency?
  Why not just have Russia end the war in Ukraine and Putin steps down and allows a real democracy to happen?
  ... Yeah, do you see the issue with your statements now?
  
  But that other company already walked back the policy to not cover anaesthesia for the whole duration of surgeries.
- Uh...that's not how it works at all. You should get past that logic in 5th or 6th grade.
  
  Classic "angry teenager" argument. Not cool.
  
  Drag disagrees, but drag thought of a better and more fun argument anyway.
  Imprisonment is a violent act. Anyone saying the police should imprison The Adjuster is advocating violence, and the admins should remove their comments.

Divisive topic and comment section, but IMO that feels like a fair change. No stance on this topic will ever not be divisive, but I think this is probably the most impartial stance that could be taken

Aight, guess I'll start looking for a better instance

So is the manifesto allowed to be posted on .world?

In the TOS, I would appreciate it if you would make it clear to users signing up for Lemmy.world which legal jurisdiction the site at large falls under and that the content here must abide by because this is not made clear on the sign up page or in the TOS (it should be front and center, not several scrolls down the page, at the bottom, because it is the basis for everything else in the TOS). At the time of this comment this information also isn't listed on any sidebar, or about page for the site itself or the Lemmy.world community/sign up pages so far as I have been able to tell.
The TOS is a legal document and as such, changes should also probably be dated to reflect to existing users what has changed or been updated since their initial sign up and the fact that it is less likely for them to review the TOS at a later date unless you notify them (by email or similar) or they run afoul of the document. This adds important context both for the users and for the legal jurisdiction.
This is also important for moderators who may or may not live or otherwise be subject to the laws of the legal jurisdiction of the site, because naturally moderators will default to and be swayed by what is legal (or illegal) in the jurisdiction where they operate, and will more than likely also not be well acquainted with the laws and regulations outside of where they operate.

Reddit ahh Lemmy instance

How do I change instances? I think I'm on this one and I want off.

There is genuinely only 1 thing that matters. People are desperate for change, while Democrats are viciously protecting the status quo, and Republicans are actively making it worse, and enriching themselves. Healthcare, inflation, over charging for milk, literally everything down to the fact they can't even time stop lights well enough to curb traffic jams so cars break down faster and you pay more to fix it. I do not envy your position being forced to exist by their laws. The day is coming when sides will be required to be chosen. Probably by them. How many ip's have you already turned over? Keep this in mind. They are the ones that get eaten, no matter how powerful they may posture to be now. They are weak without the people they are enslaving, and the people they need to maintain control are starting to starve.

Doesn’t the very concept of jury nullification only apply to cases where a crime has already been committed and then a jury is called upon to reach a verdict on said crime? This honestly reads as mental gymnastics. Or perhaps it could be worded better. Do you mean to say that jury nullification will be fine going forward, no matter what the crime, but you still must forbid calls to violence against named or otherwise identifiable individuals or specific groups or people and/or the glorification of violence in general? This would be better wording I think, though still hard to distinguish and enforce consistently. I find the concept of “jury nullification for future crimes” hard to grasp.
- Sounds like what they mean is that they don't want the topic of jury nullification to factor into a decision to commit a crime. If the crime is already committed, the topic can not affect that decision since it was already made. Before a crime, they take the discussion to be an incentive to commit a crime. Essentially, "don't be too worried about being prosecuted, the jury can just find you effectively innocent." It can come off as encouraging crime.
  
  Yes it can come off as encouraging crime. So what is the outcome now? Jury nullification ok or not ok? You cannot enforce a rule based on conditional future outcomes. If one wants to eliminate the chance of potentially encouraging future crimes, one needs to ban any and all forms of jury nullification. Was this the decision made? I am unclear on this.

I know people want to celebrate the perish of a bad guy (me included) but if that endangers existance of lemmy.world then I think it's fair to take this celebration somewhere else.
On the ehtics pov I'm not quite conviced that celebrating death is entirely unethical. Some people are bad and society is better without them and these Dutch, Finnish and German laws might make sense locally but definitely don't make much sense in a global context.
- Yeah it also makes sense logically because the law as written assumes death to be inherently negative (see also assisted-suicide issues in many countries). But of course it makes sense for the law to assume this, as otherwise people would find loopholes.
  
  I think many of european restriction laws make sense in local context to protect order. With so many countries and cultures squeezed into one area there's incredible propaganda potential as we can see today. Europe definitely needs these laws but it should not extend to global spaces which are entirely different thing.
- It doesn't matter whether the laws make sense or not, they are the context the instance has to operate. Unfortunately many counties in Europe do not have robust freedom of speech provisions.
  
  "Freedom of Speech" as glorified in the US means hate speech, racism, and discrimination. Be happy that your don't have US style free speech. I am as a Canadian.
  
  You mean fortunately, considering what a joke they are in the US? 😂

A very weak response, and several days late. Not impressed.
- It's their computers, their network storage, their internet hosting costs - they can do as they please. So too can you, e.g. move elsewhere, or even spin up your own instance. This shit gets expensive though, and people have irl jobs as well - this is VOLUNTEER efforts on their part!?!?
  Be the change that you want to see in the world. And then watch as others are similarly not impressed.
  Fwiw, I for one am impressed though, at the speed with which they got all of this done. I am not advocating that people use Lemmy.World - in fact I think they should not, but for other reasons of decentralization rather than this - but I do appreciate their efforts on behalf of keeping the entire Fediverse alive and going (as opposed to e.g. the police being able to shut the server down, which may or may not have happened but anyway it's a legit fear that they were reacting against imho), which enriches us all.
  
  It’s their computers, their network storage, their internet hosting costs - they can do as they please. So too can you, e.g. move elsewhere, or even spin up your own instance. This shit gets expensive though, and people have irl jobs as well - this is VOLUNTEER efforts on their part!?!?
  This is a weak ass excuse to cover for them, they opened their doors to the internet. They've very deserving of the criticism, and anything else they get as a result. That card is only justified if it were their computer at home. Arguing for private property rights elsewhere is corpo simping.
  Be the change that you want to see in the world. And then watch as others are similarly not impressed.
  Direct actions against them are also fair too. Don't just boycott, bring them down. We don't need people to make new servers to combat idiots like these, we need them to take down or sabotage the bad servers to limit the pool to ones that are decent.
  I for one do not believe any person should be just allowed to operate a business without consequence, same goes for server hosting. If someone chooses to rip them out from under you, you probably deserve it.
- What would you prefer then?
  
  A response when the topic was first blowing up and something that either better justifies the mods' actions or justifies actions taken to address mods.

Why not have lemmy.usa where americans can freely discuss the american solution to every american problem aka guns?

Common lemmy.world L

Does anyone know of a "(US) free speech instance"?

So i can talk about a case of jury nullification that happened last year, but not talk aboit how that should happen every time. Unless the crime was non violent then im ok to say "that should happen all the time".

Wow what a crock of shit

This seems reasonable on the whole.

"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." Ok that is utter bullshit regardless of country, and I'm no American saying that. You though, whoever wrote that, have completely revealed yourself as an utter statist monkey begging to be dominated

So does this mean that lemmy.ml is taking over as the biggest instance?

🤡

So discussion of jury nullification is ok as a general topic. If someone mentions JN in the context of a crime that has not yet been committed then that’s not ok. If the crime has already been committed then that’s ok. If the crime is not violent in nature then we can discuss JN, and if we are just having a general conversation about JN that’s ok too.
Specifically, the concern is that talking about JN in the context of some hypothetical violent crime that has not yet been committed could be interpreted as advocating for violence.
This sounds pretty stupid so far, but my question is then, why wrap the ToS around specifically jury nullification? Why not just reiterate the ‘no advocating for violence’ policy.
If someone is advocating for violence, then adding on some point about jury nullification is irrelevant, they are already breaking the rule.

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