Lemmy.world seems to have banned the largest piracy community on Lemmy.

Submitted ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨satxdude@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/16742571

This has happened once before and they reversed it. But they said this last time too:

The discussions that have happened in various threads on Lemmy make it very clear that removing the communites before we announced our intent to remove them is not the level of transparency the community expects, and that as stewards of this community we need to be extremely transparent before we do this again in the future as well as make sure that we get feedback around what the planned changes are, because lemmy.world is yours as much as it is ours.

lemmy.world/post/3234363

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Comments

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ptz@dubvee.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lemmy world:

Runs the largest Lemmy instance, for free, for your enjoyment.

Accepts all liability for content

Posts a transparent TOS

Lists which countries’ governing laws apply to it

Gave a valid reason for the removal of those communities in the modlog

Users, not even on Lemmy World:

Surprised Pikachu

I’m not in the loop, but I would imagine there was a letter or email to them or their service provider that prompted that.

Remember: Pretty much every Lemmy instance is run by volunteers that don’t have legal departments.
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- Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  “The cloud is just other people’s computers” - it’s an inconvenient fact that those computers are real, physical objects subject to oversight from real, physical law enforcement.
  
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  - scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    “but it’s not my computer, so you should be willing to host any of it”
    
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- wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Remember: Pretty much every Lemmy instance is run by volunteers that don’t have legal departments
  
  One lawsuit can shut them down.
  
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  - Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Never understood people who don’t get this.
    
    As a person who is part of open source communities, on various chairs and donates, the money is extremely slim, and the people involved just want to build cool things.
    
    We are busy trying to keep the lights on for hundreds of thousands of people can enjoy this service. And if a small group of troublemakers force us to get a strong legal threat, we aren’t risking the the project’s survival.
    
    Especially when we don’t know the troublemakers, don’t have any connection with them, they don’t contribute to the platform, etc.
    
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- VinesNFluff@pawb.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah like.
  
  This isn’t reddit dot com opaquely purging your favourite subreddit for some unspecific corporate reason.
  
  The admins stated quite clearly why they are blocking it (“we don’t want trouble, and our TOS lay out that we’ll defed from illegal shit”), and it is their instance. And unlike Reddit – The community is still THERE in its home server. It has not been burninated. – You can just. Make an account elsewhere. It’s free. It takes less than 5 minutes. You can even KEEP your LW account for other communities.
  
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  - Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Did the admins state anything? I thought the issue here is that LW previously did something without an announcement, undid it and promised to communicate before doing something like that again, and now people are saying they haven’t communicated this time.
    
    That’s the real issue, not the fact that it was defederated.
    
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- antidote101@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Are you telling me Reddit is free to have a Piracy sub, but Lemmy isn’t?
  
  What’s the point of Lemmy if Reddit is more free?
  
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  - ptz@dubvee.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Reddit is a company that has a legal department (e.g. has lawyers on retainer). Lemmy World is run by volunteers and donations.
    
    What’s the point of Lemmy if Reddit is more free?
    
    That’s such a broad question that I’m not even going to bother. Instead, I’ll answer with the same question as when “states’ rights” are brought up:
    
    “Free to do what, exactly?”
    
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  - imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You seem to be confusing Lemmy.world with Lemmy as a whole. Lemmy is free to be used for anything by anyone.
    
    Lemmy.world is the largest and most mainstream Lemmy server, so they need to be especially careful about legal issues. If lemmy.world gets taken down due to mirroring content hosted on lemmy.dbzer0.com, the whole network would partially collapse because of how many users and communities are hosted on lemmy.world.
    
    It’s not even close to worth the risk. This is how federation is supposed to work.
    
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  - bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    the dbzer0 piracy community has been around much longer than most of the users here. they spun up when they saw the writing on the wall, and they permit things that would not be permitted on reddit. and, it seems, they permit things that are not permitted on .world.
    but the instance is still there. the community is still there.
    and you can leave .world, join an instance that hasn't banned !piracy, and keep right on going.
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  - Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Reddit’s piracy community doesn’t discuss the practical stuff like dbzero’s does
    
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  - assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Reddit has corporate lawyers. Lemmy does not.
    
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  - Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You know the meme where Bender goes, “I’ll do my own thing, with Blackjack and hookers!”
    
    Lemme provides that. Servers are managed by different groups and you can absolutely make your own, with blackjacks and hookers.
    
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- GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is precisely it.
  One other point is, some instance want to focus on certain things, and take the risks, where others don’t.
  Our community (feddit.uk)[feddit.uk] doesn’t do nsfw, because it’s not worth the headache for what our main focus is.
  The guy running lemmynsfw on the other hand, is enthusiastically embracing the challenges involved, and more power to him!
  
  And in the end, it works. We handle Mr. Brains Pork Balls, they can handle…other balls.
  
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  - ptz@dubvee.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Our community feddit.uk doesn’t do nsfw, because it’s not worth the headache for what our main focus is.
    
    Same for my instance and for the same reasons. We have nothing against that, just, like you said, not our focus nor worth the headache.
    
    And in the end, it works. We handle Mr. Brains Pork Balls, they can handle…other balls.
    
    🤣
    
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- SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I would imagine there was a letter or email to them or their service provider that prompted that and likely named those communities specifically
  
  What I’m curious about is, why haven’t lemmy.dbzer0.com received those takedown messages? Wouldn’t it make more sense to go to the source instead of just another instance hosting the content but not actually “responsible” for the content, so to speak? Or maybe they have?
  
  Also curious why lemmy.world has still not made a statement about this or even acknowledged it (at least I haven’t seen any acknowledgement so far). Removing the communities from their instance is of course totally within their power and right, but this isn’t exactly the most transparent way to do it.
  
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  - ptz@dubvee.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    What I’m curious about is, why haven’t lemmy.dbzer0.com received those takedown messages? Wouldn’t it make more sense to go to the source instead of just another instance hosting the content but not actually “responsible” for the content, so to speak? Or maybe they have?
    
    So many unknowns. Until LW makes an announcement, it’s all speculation. I haven’t seen any mention from db0 about takedowns, etc, but those may just be background noise for him. lol
    
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  - ben_dover@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    regarding your first question - they usually go after the big fish first. dbzer0 might still be flying under the radar, and also might be ina different jurisdiction where the specific plaintiff can’t go after them, or where it’s harder for them to do so
    
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- satxdude@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The thing that gets me is the quote in the OP from last time this happened. It has been +12 hours of silence when you said last time you’d have this discussion BEFORE. Maybe it’s for legal reasons but you’d think they’d have said well, something.
  
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- sramder@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The point was transparency, don’t try to distract from the issue.
  
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TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Great thing about the fediverse is that you have options when admin/moderation actions occur that you don’t agree with. If Reddit were to remove /r/piracy then we’d have no recourse

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- deweydecibel@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Very true…as long as the federation of servers remains as it is now, but I’m increasingly worried it won’t.
  
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  - db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I mean, yes, Dbzer0 still exists, and yes, you can access it from other instances, but Lemmy.world is the biggest one and users here being cut off from it from here will strangle the amount of activity it gets. Visibility is important for the health of other instances and their communities. There’s a good reason why alternative subreddits never outgrow the main ones.
    
    Yes and no. While it’s true that piracy might not get “drive-by” traffic from l.w. users, those users who become aware of it, or who want to access it will be forced to create an account elsewhere than l.w. which will also help with redistributing users to smaller instances.
    
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scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
ITT: People who think lemmy.world is equal to Lemmy.

Go join another instance folks.

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- ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yep, this is why I have multiple Lemmy accounts. That’s even one of the biggest strengths of Lemmy.
  
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- I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This will be the third time I will have lost all my comment history and have to recreate my large block list. It’s not just a flip of the switch.
  
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  - AtmaJnana@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Lemmy now has export/import for settings, including blocklist.
    
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  - Blaze@dormi.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Suscriptions and block liste are transferred in two clicks via the settings. For jour history just mention the other account in jour bio.
    
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- fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For sure! It’s just sad seeing corporate cucks win out, again. Lol.
  
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  - DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    OP has the answer, come to the place that is being banned: Lemmy.dbzer0.com ! I came here last time .world got all banney.
    
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  - Blaze@dormi.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Lemm.ee or sh.itjust.works
    
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  - uhmbah@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m seeing some balance at lemmy.ca.
    
    Then again, at times I can be pretty clueless. I’m just happy here.
    
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  - anarchy79@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I feel like all we’re doing is speedrunning Reddit.
    
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  - laughterlaughter@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The trumpers ruined that c-word for me.
    
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- SpaceCadet@feddit.nl ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It is the most popular lemmy instance though, so them banning a community like this is quite impactful.
  
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ExcursionInversion@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Stop crying about it and just join a new instance, pretty simple.

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- VinesNFluff@pawb.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah that.
  
  Do people just not get that this is the entire point?
  
  Hop accounts, you lil’ bitch.
  
  And if your priority is the piracy community? Make the server that hosts that your homeserver.
  
  Or just have more than one account and use an app instead of the default webpage.
  
  It’s not rocket science. People’s brains are poisoned by centralization. Back in my day everything was its own separate forum with its own separate account and to be honest, it was miles better like that.
  
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  - Grimy@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The problem with this is that it isn’t really decentralized equally. Lemmy.world has most of the users and getting federated from them is essentially a death sentence.
    
    I think it’s a good idea to make new accounts on other instances, I plan to buy without a proper amount of people, lemmy.world is working the same way reddit did.
    
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- Lemonparty@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Reddit syndrome still affects a lot of users here, who view having multiple accounts on different answers as an inconvenience instead of a feature of the platform design. The irony is that tons of users on Reddit had lots of accounts without batting an eye, but that extra step of having to lick a new instance is just SO complicated.
  
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  - Maalus@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It is an inconvenience. Having to track which account can view which communities, with all the drama and defederation happening each week isn’t easy.
    
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  - BURN@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s a major inconvenience and I’ll stick to one. If it can’t be accessed from Lemmy.world it’s not really my problem tbh and I’ll just act like it doesn’t exist.
    
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- kratoz29@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I did that the last time and moved here ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
  
  Better management, no censorship, better uptimes and quicker upgrades, no need to look back (I moved “momentarily”).
  
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  - Blaze@dormi.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    quicker upgrades
    
    That’s an important one, especially with how long it took LW to upgrade. I completely get why it’s more challenging for them due to their number of users, but that could be an argument for enthusiastic users to move elsewhere.
    
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  - Megabazos@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Here being where exactly?
    
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- Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  [deleted]
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  - Crackhappy@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You… Got a refund on a donation? Wow…
    
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  - Ashe@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If I may ask, why still use .world then?
    
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halm@leminal.space ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is why you don’t sign up with the biggest possible instances, eventually they will become the biggest possible bottleneck in a network. Anything dot world admins do will affect all of their users, that shouldn’t be surprising 🤷

As for dbzer0, this might affect users in the short term but eventually people will figure out how to access the sub from more friendly instances.

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moon@lemmy.cafe ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This isn’t reddit. There’s a clear solution here: decentralization. Aka, like the entire point why we’re on Lemmy in the first place. Join another instance lol.

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- VinesNFluff@pawb.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  “No! I refuse to open more than one site! If it’s not on this one site that I have decided amounts to the entire threadiverse then it doesn’t exist, how dare people make me think? The absurdity of it all!”
  
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  - Ashe@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    .world users doing their thing. It’s fine for a starter but not someplace to stay
    
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- fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Absolutely! Does anyone have any suggestions for general instances that don’t censor as much as lemmy.world?
  
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  - moon@lemmy.cafe ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    This is a great site to find instances:
    
    join-lemmy.org
    
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- half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  cum
  
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skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m surprised the major Lemmy servers even permit piracy related content in the first place. Half the Fediverse seems to be hosted in Germany, probably one of the worst countries to host piracy related content.

The .world team should definitely make a statement before banning stuff just to avoid this kind of drama, but piracy communities are not worth the moderation hassle and legal risk for a silly side project like Lemmy.

If I were you, I wouldn’t expect the same privacy protections Reddit provides for their users when copyright owners start sending legal threats. These instances barely collect enough donations to cover server costs, nobody is going to pay an expensive lawyer to protect your IP address if your server gets sued.

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- Socsa@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah people are really weird about this. They want a free distributed forum hosted by small admins, but don’t want those individuals to take basic legal precautions? Piracy might be moral, but it’s a liability which will absolutely impact the viability of servers in many places. Grow up.
  
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- Adanisi@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I mean, it’s not on their server. It’s hosted on dbzer0.
  
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  - skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Lemmy makes local copies of everything when federation occurs. It’s 100% on their server. The only exceptions are images posted as part of the comments, those are loaded directly. Then again, that adds the ability to add tracking pixels, so that’s not exactly great for a piracy community either.
    
    Image loading example
    Image I turned off all the logging for this proof of concept but this could’ve been a transparent PNG pixel that tracks every bit of information your browser will give it.
    
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  - can@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    But of they federated they’ll be hosting a copy.
    
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- nutsack@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Then let me instance doesn’t actually host any pirated content, does it? It’s just information about pirated content and where to find it, right? Who the fuck cares about this
  
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- anarchy79@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, we should run this shit through Somalia, they don’t give a f u c k.
  
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DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
That’s why I moved!

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tobogganablaze@lemmus.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
… again.

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PiratePanPan@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What a bunch of fucking clowns.

Anyways… !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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- Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That returns an error.
  
  Is there another instance you’d recommend?
  
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Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Did they really do it again, fucking hell. I came here for a better experience then Reddit and I feel like it’s starting to be a worse experience then Reddit. Transparency from admin my ass.

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- glimse@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  …if your metric is admin transparency, how the hell do you figure that Lemmy is worse than Reddit…?
  
  I feel like Lemmy falls short in a lot of ways but transparency is not one of them
  
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- Blaze@dormi.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Feel free to join any other instance from that list: github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances?tab=…
  
  You can export and import your settings (including subscriptions and block lists) in two clicks from your account settings.
  
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- Rentlar@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Transparency is there in the sense that the modlog makes clear that a lemmy.world admin blocked the community. If it were Reddit we’d never know how, just that it is blocked.
  
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- Edgarallenpwn@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  …you can just change instances. World did this before and I that’s how I ended up on this account/instance.
  
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lorty@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
When “reddit outside of reddit” does reddit things 🫨

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daniskarma@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Sad that antipiracy laws are in place.

But understandable that lemmy.world protect themselves against those unfair laws.

The sailing will continue, but, as always, we should be wary of the “navy” and sail with precaution.

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PoliticallyIncorrect@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Can confirm, moved out of lemmy.world by this bullshit.

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fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Gross. Useful idiots are the worst.

I’ll be looking for a new instance, pronto!

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RandomStickman@kbin.run ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Does removing mean defederate?

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DABDA@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I updated my post after another user stated that it wasn’t lemmy.world admins that performed the ban but the db0 team that did. I can’t say with certainty that’s actually the case since the modlog is pretty opaque and I don’t have full knowledge of how [federated] actions are propagated & displayed.

I (incorrectly?) assumed since those communities had existed for so long on the dbzer0 instance they had at least tacit approval from the admins there and were in communication with them enough that a full ban wouldn’t occur – when I saw the removal in the modlog I didn’t even consider that possibility.

Sorry for kicking up drama here if the Lemmy.World team had no part in this :(

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Carlo@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Oh, noes! There’s only like a billion other instances you can access it from.

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alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
PSA: Lemmy.ml has a piracy community and federates with most everyone so you can have the same experience.

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NutWrench@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The pirates will simply move to another Lemmy Instance and re-create the group there. This is the advantage of having a decentralized platform: so one person or small group of people can’t ruin things for the rest of us.

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Iapar@feddit.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Spin up a piracy instance on a server in China or Russia and be done with it.

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Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A lot of people are saying “just connect to another instance”, but it would be nice if the client could connect to multiple instances at once, and merge things internally, maybe even spreading the load a bit.

Probably a bit tricky for the web and linking, but maybe something for the mobile apps to consider?

Ideally the only time I’d need to swap accounts is to post.

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ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They should defederate from Lemmy.ml for having admins complicit in violating Strafgesetzbuch section 86a instead of this crap.

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Sandbag@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The question we should all be asking is why did the defederate?

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SpaceCadet@feddit.nl ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
IIRC they banned piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com months ago. Not sure why it pops up again in the modlog. It was the reason I left lemmy.world.

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muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Alright what instance do i jump ship to?

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anarchy79@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lemmy.world is a fucking shithole. It’s teenage life crisis tumblr in here.

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khepri@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Linking to or posting content that’s illegal or in violation of copyright should not be allowed, but you don’t have to ban an entire community to do that, you just have to enforce the same rules that are in place for every other community on here. Maybe someone can explain this to me, but this seems equivalent to banning a cybersecurity community because encryption get used by bad actors sometimes, so discussion of staying anonymous online needs to be banned since information about staying anonymous online is “sharing the tools and techniques” that could be used in assisting criminal activity. I understand the need to draw the line at actually sharing copyrighted content, but discussion of lockpicks or linking to sites that sell lockpicks is not equivalent to going around illegally picking locks, except it seems that is exactly the case when it comes to piracy.

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Gork@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Is lemmy.world trying to appeal to advertisers? Kinda sounds like it. Banning discussion oriented piracy subs, outlawing paywall bypassing in news@lemmy.world, etc.

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Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Sounds like Lemmy has a tragic flaw. Not decentralized enough.

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Lemmy.world seems to have banned the largest piracy community on Lemmy.

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