Hello World!
We’ve made some changes today, and we’d like to announce that our Code of Conduct is no longer in effect. We now have a new Terms of Service, in effect starting from today(October 19, 2023).
The “LAST REVISION DATE:” on the page also signifies when the page was last edited, and it is updated automatically. Details of specific edits may be viewed by following the “Page History” reference at the bottom of the page. All significant edits will also be announced to our users.
The new Terms of Service can be found at https://legal.lemmy.world/
In this post our community mods and users may express their questions, concerns, requests and issues regarding the Terms of Service, and content moderation in Lemmy.World. We hope to discuss and inform constructively and in good faith.
I think that community guidelines/ code or conduct should still exist at a top level, in a digestible form, and not nested within a legal document.
They can still be part of the legal document, but should be made more accessible if said guidelines are cared about.
Otherwise you’ll find that it’s a set of expectations that no one reads (And likely cannot find even if they where looking for them), when those expectations are critically important to community health.
They will be a part of our support page along with other helpful content, we expect to share it widely very soon! :)
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The best way to fuck a democratic process up is making votes public. No one should feel like there’s a “deterrent” to voting. All that does is create incentive to reward/punish people for how they vote.
Voting is what fuels the content aggregation, too. It is a very bad idea to deter people from voting how they please because it strangles the algorithm of the data it needs to sort the content. You want people voting, a lot. That’s what makes the whole thing work.
Edit: which is to say nothing of how bad it will get when people make tools that help automate retaliation for downvotes. You can potentially state an opinion in a comment and set up a bot to auto block every downvoter, then share that list publicly. You may think that sounds like a great system for weeding out hate but I promise you it’s going to be far messier than that, and more importantly, this kind of retaliatory shit hurts the aggregation even more.
Votes on lemmy are inherently public, due to how federation works.
The US is based on Federalism and we don’t make our votes public
Votes are public on Lemmy, in the sense that if you have admin access to an instance that is federated you will be able to find who upvoted which posts/comments in the database.
That should really be changed so that you can only see the cumulative votes from any given instance and only a user’s specific instance will have records of their individual upvotes and downvotes.
That would make pushing posts to the top via botting way too easy, and far harder to detect. Federation is intentionally set up so that instances do not trust each other.
so less than 1000 people can see up/downvote data. not exactly “public”
You can see upvote info by viewing from kbin. Upvotes are displayed as favorites there.
IIRC
Kbin recently removed the abilityto show who faved/unfavved a post for Lemmy instances.Edit: guess they did not 🤦
It is quite easily accessible. Here
I swear there was discussion about hiding faves coming from lemmy… guess they decided not to. At least you can still follow people and see who else is following them… 🤦
It’s pretty easy to spin up a temporary instance in a VM.
Since upvoting is most of what I do, I think it’s great that people can see it was me who upvoted them.
I don’t mind the accountability of a downvote at all. If I didn’t craft a specific reply, it lets people know who to ask if they genuinely don’t understand why their content was problematic.
You can potentially state an opinion in a comment and set up a bot to auto block every downvoter, then share that list publicly.
Shhh dont give them ideas
No one should feel like there’s a “deterrent” to voting.
. . . It is a very bad idea to deter people from voting
You misread. What I wrote:
deterrent against weaponizing downvotes
Voting and weaponizing downvotes are two very different things.
To be clear, I used the phrase “weaponizing downvotes” to paraphrase the intent behind the written policy I quoted in full. Here it is again:
Do not engage in content manipulation such as posting spam content, vote manipulation through using several user accounts or consistently down-voting a user. Vote for the content, not for the person.
Seems like you have a problem with the policy then, because it is requiring you to self-regulate your own voting, and to specifically NOT vote as you please, but in a way that is best for the community as a whole.
I’ve had a user disagree with me and then go through my entire post history and downvote every single one of my comments. I don’t get why someone would do that but I can see why Lemmy.world would put it against their terms of service.
Why is it necessary to count votes cast an unlimited time after posting. The best policy is to register votes in the UI for the user but silently ignore votes after max duration. So they can feel like they stuck it to you while not having an unreasonable effect. You could even detect and silently discard downvotes that matched that pattern or rate limit the downvotes against one party silently.
It happened to me, and it was the She-Ra fans who did it. They were angry that I called them monarchists.
“Not my previous updoots😭”
If you were to turn that on for lemmy.world as well I think it would get you better voting behavior from users all around.
I don’t think so. I think the more likely scenario is this would lead to people weaponizing other’s downvote history, and then very quickly people would stop downvoting completely. You’d have less downvotes overall, which is not always a good thing. At that point they should just remove the ability to downvote altogether, they’ll be accomplishing the same thing.
proofs of idiocy and/or bad faith they offer
Then a downvote is justified, same user or not.
I think that if you access Lemmy via api, you can see who downvoted you specifically. I’d prefer it’d be turned off as I think people feel better about participation when they don’t have to go on the record to other users officially.
Just for clarity: it’s not viewable through the API. As others have said, you need to spin up an instance. In contrast to the API, this means it’s not free (due to server hosting and domain name costs), and it’s not necessarily easy (for the non-techies).
So you’re saying a motivated individual can still quasi weaponize it.
Imagine getting blackmailed because someone knows you upvoted that kink content or whatever
Multiple accounts. It’s somewhat unfortunate, but in a public ecosystem like the fediverse, it’s pretty much a requirement to compartmentalize separate aspects of your personality. Particularly if you dare to hold different opinions on different things that don’t align with majority social groups of people.
Honestly, not writing this from some dedicated “introspection” account, already makes me slightly uncomfortable 😐
That sounds like an awful complicated way to say you care about what other people think too much
Or maybe I’ve met too many people who care too much about what I think 🤷
If you were to turn that on for lemmy.world as well I think it would get you better voting behavior from users all around.
Is it possible on Lemmy interface ? I thought that data required to have a look at the database
Not through the Lemmy webUI, but if you spin up an instance and subscribe to communities, the posts and comments will start getting federated to your database.
That’s what I had in mind, thanks
5.0.6: No visual content depicting executions, murder, suicide, dismemberment, visible innards, excessive gore, or charred bodies. No content depicting, promoting or enabling animal abuse.
This rule needs an exception for war reporting, and posting evidence of criminal activity or police misconduct.
Not really tbh. We don’t need to personally see that stuff — it can cause lasting trauma. Knowing it exists and who did it is enough for war reporting.
We don’t need to personally see that stuff
I find it difficult to understand that something should be banned because some people “don’t need” to see it. Then don’t look at it? And I’m talking specifically for war reporting now. I’m not talking for generic gore. It is war reporting. It is something that happens. By hiding it it only helps to enlarge our safe bubble and live in it. Sorry, this is not the world. If you want to live in your safe bubble it is up to you, but making it sound like the “correct way to handle reality” is wrong imo
Citizens of free and democratic societies have a fundamental need to be informed of what is going on in the world and their communities, free of bias or censorship, so they can make informed, reality based decisions and instruct their representatives in government on how to carry out the will of the people. When you start filtering and curating peoples’ perception of reality to fit an agenda or narrative you’re talking away their agency (you tankies wouldn’t understand what that word means), and interfering with their duties as a citizen.
I have to agree with Astrealix on this. Information should be free. But information and snuff videos are two different things. I want information. I don’t need or want to be constantly exposed to gore content. And I don’t consider myself badly informed because I didn’t see one guy chopping another guy’s head in 4K-HD.
I don’t need or want to be constantly exposed to gore content.
A simple blurred image until clicked would prevent that, like it currently does with NSFW content.
I don’t need you deciding what level of gore that I am allowed to see
More importantly, we don’t need to be limiting the discussion of incredibly important political issues such as was just because the imagery is ugly. War is ugly, and reminding everyone of that is vitally important in preventing future wars. When we forget how ugly war truly is, we begin to allow for its glamorization. Much better for me to see the atrocities of war than for my children to experience them firsthand.
But they aren’t. You’re free to go to an instance that hosts those images.
Conversely if lemmy.world hosted gore, you’d be free to go to an instance that bans it. What a non statement.
I’m complaining about the policy. Saying I’m not allowed to complain about the policy, because that’s not what the policy says, is dumb.
Let me make it clearer: I don’t like this section of the terms and I’d like to hear their reasoning for why they made that policy decision.
Your reason for liking the gore ban makes no sense so I’m dismissing that as a possible reason for the admins’ decision.
This is a private instance, not a government. This is so dramatic lol. You clearly disagree with the tankies and you aren’t on their instance, right? So if you disagree with lemmy.world policies, you can just do the same.
I agree that it’s fine to make a rule against it on a privately funded instance but definitely do not agree with your line of thinking. Sometimes you can’t understand the gravity of horror without seeing it, and sometimes you must understand it to be motivated to do something about it. A little trauma of is sometimes necessary to be an informed citizen of the world.
Get traumatized by gore for “thoughts and prayers” on
FacebookLemmydeleted by creator
Good thing these people weren’t on the internet in the early 2000’s with sites like rotten.com or toxic.com. much simpler days
Idk, I preferred meatspin and lemonparty.
Bluewaffle?
then don’t look at it
It’s easier not to look at when you know where it’s prohibited from being posted.
We could just make it opt-in. Then it’s impossible to accidentally click on it.
You can opt in by visiting a community on another instance that allows it.
That’s not how opting in works, at all.
Yes we do. Gore and mutilation are part of life. It should be shown on public television and kid’s shows so maybe we can finally understand the consequences of senseless warfare in future generations.
The people downvoting you better be as consistent when it comes to Australias tobacco packaging.
They aren’t Reddit, they’re an instance. There’s no reason they need to allow that. That content can be for other instances.
That is bad logic and no justification.
They’re an instance, they can put a rule requiring every comment to include the text “I’m a little teapot”.
That doesn’t imply it would be a good rule which is what we are disagreeing about. Pointing out they CAN have a rule is irrelevant.
what we are disagreeing about
In a federated system, the relevant part is each instance CAN have different rules. If you don’t like one set, or consider it “not good”, then go to an instance with a different set, or start your own.
“start your own”
“start you own!”
“Start you own start your own”
There should be a rule that allows for violence against people who say that
There should be a rule that allows for violence against people who say that
Are you suggesting to… “start your own”, violence? 😛
And people can criticize that choice.
Sure, they can. And people can point out it’s the instance owner’s choice.
Libertarianism is a garbage ideology.
And hobbyist
That’s what lemmy.ml is for. This instance is too big for its own good.
I like what I see. Everything looks like a set of conditions I can support. I am not sure about the gore part, but I can understand why people wouldn’t want that can of worms.
4.1: No one under 16 years of age is allowed to use or access the website.
Someone’s going to need a stretcher for the roblox mods.
I’m not sure if I should be angry at yet another attempt to exclude young people when the internet is already practically the last refuge in which they are allowed to exist at all…
… or laugh my ass off that literally anyone thinks this rule will be obeyed.
It’s about legal liability. The admins don’t want to have to worry about dealing with all sorts of EU and US regulation for minors so they can have an official policy that minors can’t use the site.
Nobody really cares if kids participate but it’s not the admin’s responsibility to bend over backwards for regulations to accommodate them.
Sir, I just need you to confirm you date of birth is indeed: Jan 01 1999
But have no fear. It’s not the rule people should worry about, its the punishment!
Clause 66, section 6: All ages 16 of less will be sentenced to 15 days in the meme mines. And possibly made mandatory mod of Boomer Memes for an hour. May the odds be ever in your favor.
No one wants kids shitting things up dude
I want young people being able to express themselves equally and without fear.
Remember Lemmy does not only have safe content and communities, and this includes our federated network. If you think kids should be able to view some of those, then you are free to disagree. We are happily following obligations.
An instance doesn’t have to follow, or show, the content from all the instances it’s federated with. If you chose to do so, that’s your choice, there is likely another “kids friendly” Lemmy federation split on the horizon.
And the admins (and myself, for that matter) want to exist without the risk of doing a perp walk because Little Timmy saw a peen.
I’m on an NSFW Lemmy instance. I have multiple NSFW accounts spread over the various platforms, and my single biggest fear is that some shithead kid is going to ignore the giant “18+ only” warnings because they’re so MATURE for their age, they’re going to find adult content (or worse yet, try and message me and pretend they’re over 18 so I don’t block them), and one of their relatives find out and call the police. Intentionally done or not, I’ve seen exactly that scenario play out, ruining the lives of multiple people through no fault of their own.
The Lemmy admins all have to worry about this exact same thing too, except they have to worry about every kid and every NSFW account/community, unless they decide to either play whack-a-mole with the various NSFW instances, or move to default deny federation and only federate with known-SFW communities. And that’s on top of the existing CSAM spam concerns that they appear to have only recently gotten under control.
I don’t give a single solitary flying fuck about whether children can express themselves equally. They’re NOT equal to an adult, because I don’t risk jail time by showing off my [REDACTED] to them.
Let’s take a look at what comments look like when you encourage kids to sign up
Broo 💀💀
bro woke up and chose violence
And who could forget this classic
🔥🔥🔥
Age limits are entirely self-selected. If you’re dumb enough to out yourself as breaking them, you were probably not contributing to the community in the first place
I don’t necessarily. I remember when I was young, and hanging around on BBS’es and forums all the time. I was a little shit.
I remember when I was young and the Internet was the only place I felt like I wasn’t constantly being talked down to. It was the only emotionally safe space I had.
This sure as hell ain’t the place for them.
Said of essentially everywhere.
And then old people wonder why young people are so anxious and depressed these days…
I don’t wonder. I know. It’s because they’re on the internet instead of going.the.fuck.outside.
There is zero wrong with putting age limits in place.
News flash, kids exist and adults already have their safe spaces.
Agreed but the puritans that have to give it up before we can expect sites like this to overexpose themselves to legal action.
I’d like to see rules for moderators, for instance they cannot ban users based on participation in other groups
Great idea indeed. The rules for moderators have been in the works for a while, and will hopefully be published very soon.
This was something that caught me off guard on Reddit. I saw some edgelord in the comments of a shitpost sub roleplaying as a third reich Nazi. I commented „Halt die Fresse.“ which is German for STFU. I immediately got banned from the main BLM sub.
And it happened over and over again. Some Mods on Reddit are just full of themselves.
5.0.4: Do not post illegal content of any type. Do not engage in any activity that may encourage, facilitate or provide access to illegal transactions. Do not share or encourage the sharing of abusive or sexually suggestive content involving minors. Any violent or otherwise inappropriate behavior involving a minor will also always be strictly prohibited.
5.0.4 seems to be in conflict with the existence of !piracy. I’m not complaining about its existence, just mentioning that it seems to be a conflict.
“Illegal content of any type” is an incredibly thorny concept. Illegal where? Where the poster is? Where lemmy.world is hosted? Within some nebulous consensus of Western nations? Only the US states that matter, excluding Wyoming and Montana?
It’s illegal to be gay in Saudi Arabia or Uganda. Is gay content not allowed? Switchblades are illegal in California but not in neighboring Oregon. Am I not allowed to talk about switchblades? It’s illegal to export strong encryption technologies from the US. Am I not allowed to talk about encryption? Etc., etc., etc.
I’d argue “transaction” implies an exchange… If you pirate content you either are giving something freely, and receiving nothing, or are receiving something while giving nothing.
If you’re not a leeching piece of shit (like I am) then technically torrenting IS a transaction
like I am
Machine… I will cut you down, break you apart, splay the gore of your profane form across the STARS! I will grind you down until the very SPARKS CRY FOR MERCY! My hands shall RELISH ENDING YOU… HERE! AND! NOW!
*
It was hard to decide whether to post this copy-pasta or just ‘you fuck’
This whole comment is /j, I don’t care that much
Heh, wait until you remember that if you block outcoming traffic it will be hard to download something at a decent speed (unless there are a lot of peers)
Does !piracy@lemmy.world exist? If it does I can’t find it.
Technically exists, but has been inactive for months. The active piracy communities are !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com and !piracy@lemmy.ml - neither of which are hosted by lemmy.world.
Yes, it does. Click that link again now.
Those communities aren’t hosted on lemmy.world and therefore not subject to its terms.
edit: if I’m not mistaken, those communities (or the instances they’re hosted on) have been banned from lemmy.world, so if you’re logged in as a lemmy.world user, you cannot see them anyway.
I think they were recently refederated.
Correct.
huh, interesting
in my country only uploading is illegal, not downloading so not necessarily.
This seems to bring LW closer to Reddit. /s
But seriously, what is the point of all of this? It only seems to overcomplicate things. Now a user will have to:
- Follow the ToS
- Follow the CoC
- Follow whatever rules a community’s sidebar states
- Match whichever mod’s interpretation of all the above
In that order, or any other order? I see nothing about protesting the breach of the ToS by either the CoC or some community, or some community’s mod… so which supersedes which?
How is this going to be communicated to users commenting/posting from other instances? Or is this only applicable to users registered on this instance? In which case, what is going to be applicable to federated users?
What are the user’s rights?
- Users Responsibilities: 4.x
- Our Rights: 6.x
- Users Rights: none?
If you want to establish this as a legal document, then you’re missing at least a section.
If this is about giving as many reasons as possible to remove/ban content/users, it’s all unnecessary, just say “mods can remove/ban whatever”; it’s a private instance, you can do that.
If this is about having a ruleset that protects the users from arbitrary mod decisions… I see none of that in there.
Ultimately it’s just “we’re gonna act like how reddit admins act”.
Simplified version: Dont be an asshole.
FIN
Using a free service is not a right, it’s a privilege. Which can be revoked at any time for any reason. Grow up.
It seems like simply reading the post and having an understanding of how federation works would address most of the points you’ve made.
The remaining:
- What are user rights?
Anything that’s not restricted? That’s why we have rules and not an allowances list.
And if you have an issue with humans moderating, oh well, good luck.
I know perfectly well how federation works. The core of my questions have nothing to do with federation, they’re about people and how they’ll #### rules to death.
But since you brought it up: you may want to also consider the implications of mods from federated instances making decisions about content on LW communities.
What are user rights?
Anything that’s not restricted?
As I said, if you want to establish this as a legal document (often called “Terms of Service”)… then you may really want to check with a lawyer on that.
And if you have an issue with humans moderating, oh well, good luck.
Maybe I wasn’t clear; this isn’t about me having an issue, this is about you missing a few issues. Take it or leave it, I have no stake in this.
Allowances? They’re talking about guarantees.
You really expect me, your average idiot, to read a legal document to learn the rules and abide by them?
It’s not hard to read and it’s pretty clear. IMHO it’s better than most ELUA text I’ve seen.
Besides with the scale at which this site is growing it would be STUPID of them NOT to put up something like this. At the bare minimum it’s protecting their asses from liability if/when someone decides to sue them. They can’t point to that text and say this is what/why we took the actions we did.
Thanks for being upfront and clear about things. I know it’s not easy.
If you don’t have anyone on the team who has great soft skills I’d suggest you put out a call for “community managers.” Mostly for things like this.
Keep up the great work! I’m glad to see how everything is coming together. 🍻
Thank you! But funny you bring this up…
Because that’s exactly what we are working on. Community Management and Engagement Management teams are being formed. Community managers will be checking up on moderation and are about keeping communities healthy. Community Engagement team will be responsible to help provide content, putting community’s in the spotlight and more.
Formation of these teams is ongoing, if anyone reads this and is interested contact me or @clueless_stoner@lemmy.world
Anyway, more on that in a different thread soon!
Oh, does that mean there will be a place to appeal moderation? The only issue I’ve had so far is on lemmy.ml, but it’d be nice to know there’s some recourse to mods pushing an agenda or propaganda.
Yes, it will be possible to report abusive moderation with your own input, hopefully very soon.
7.0: The website and the agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Republic of Finland Suomen.
oh ok, some operational details make more sense now
How does a TOS work with federation??? I have no intention of breaking rules to be clear, and I assume if I did I would just get banned? I’m just curious what the legal implications are.
I can see and interact with content on lemmy.world without ever visiting it, which feels like a grey area on the “accessing or using” part right at the beginning of the TOS. Maybe include a definition for what “accessing” is and can include in the context of the fediverse?
Then again it might not matter, idk.
Lemmy.World’s Content Policy would apply to all content that is hosted by or served by us. “Served” in this case also means showing federated posts to our local users, which can indeed be moderated on our side.
When a cross-instance user posts to a lemmy.world community, or participates in a LW-hosted post, then the Terms of Service keeps its enforce-ability. You may be able to see Lemmy.World’s federated content without visiting the site, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be moderated by Lemmy.World’s admins and community moderators. We were previously having software issues where removals did not federate, but that seems to be in the past now.
tl;dr: If it is visible on Lemmy.World, then it is subject to the ToS
When a cross-instance user posts to a lemmy.world community, or participates in a LW-hosted post, then the Terms of Service keeps its enforce-ability.
Since we both know how federation works, and asking for a boost from an LW’s community user (“posting to a Lemmy.world community”) involves an active use of LW (does it?)… broadcasting up/down votes or boosts to LW, does also constitute “active use of lemmy.world”, or doesn’t constitute “access to and active use of lemmy.world”?
Can a federated user get banned for up/down voting or boosting the wrong content on LW? Can it be for interacting with wrong content hosted on a federated instance that actively forwards the interaction to LW because some other LW user happens to be subscribed to the federated community?
By accessing or using the website, you and the entity you are authorized to represent (“user” “you” or “your”) signify your agreement to be bound by the Terms of Service.
BTW, many legislations require an explicit acceptance of the Terms of Use as a “legal document”, making that part either meaningless or illegal. How is it in the case of LW’s “Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Republic of Finland Suomen”?
The without ever visiting is the grey area. Federated instances provide the interface to the underlying instances, so yeah you kind of are “visiting” it if you interact. But you’re right, the mods of any given instance that host the content source get to decide what happens after the fact.
But the other federated instance is essentially mirroring it. Another instances users are not using Lemmy.world directly, they are viewing mirrored content, and then if they reply, they are doing it elsewhere, and it is getting passed on to L.W.
How was this handled for Usenet? I think it was just assumed that if you were propagating Usenet Content, you knew that implied diversity positive and negative.
IANAL, but probably not, any more than reading and sending email on Gmail visits Hotmail or Proton or has to follow their terms of service. I’m using sopuli.xyz, all the content I interact comes from and goes to there, what it and lemmy.world do after that doesn’t have anything to do with me.
#todo: Privacy policy
Feels kind of wrong that that isn’t done in tandem with this.
I assume the privacy policy is under construction?
It is private
Yes!
Minor correction, “4.0.3” is used twice:
4.0.3: You are responsible for your own experience on the website. While we are looking to provide an entertaining platform, we are not responsible for your individual experience. 4.0.3: The reporting function may not be used without good reason. Only report content that violates the rules defined in the Terms of Service, or content that violates the rules of the community it was posted to. Personal messages may be reported if they violate any of the terms defined in this document. User profiles may be reported by messaging any of the admins listed in the website’s sidebar, or by sending an e-mail to info@lemmy.world.
In miscellaneous:
In this event, the laws applicable to us, which were mentioned in Section 12
Which section is this referring to exactly?
Not on the same page?Oops, that’s supposed to be referencing to section 7. Fixed, haha.
