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Lemmy.world announces blocking communities via Discord [update] (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Machefi@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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This is in regard to Lemmy.world blocking piracy communities from other instances. This post is not about whether you agree with the decision. It's about how the admins informed their users.

A week ago Lemmy.world announced their Discord server. This wasn't very well received (about 25% downvotes, which is rather bad compared to other announcements). The comments on that post were turned off, presumably to avoid backlash.

Before that, announcements about the instance used to be posted to !lemmyworld@lemmy.world. This time, the information was posted on the Discord server instead.

I don't agree with this. Having to use a proprietary platform to participate in an open-source one goes against the very purpose for me, especially when the new solution isn't really an improvement (as before the information about the platform was closer to it).

Edit: Corrected the announcements community name.

Update: Lemmy.world finally released an announcement and promised they would inform about similar actions and gather feedback in advance in future.

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[-] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

A single community was blocked due to a legal issue. It can be unblocked once the legal ramifications are resolved.

[-] joe@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Legal ramifications in what way? And do we know that there was a dialog about this with the community mods? The one I looked at has rules against directly linking to infringing content, so it seem-- at least from where I'm sitting-- that blocking would not be an appropriate first step, instead opening a dialog with the mods/admins to moderate any offending content.

And, in case it needs saying-- US copyright law is not global copyright law, and discussing copyright infringement is not illegal.

Though, more to the point, this kind of poor communication-- if not the actions themselves-- makes me wonder if I should move to a new instance. I don't want to, but I also don't want admins making decisions without communicating them to the userbase, whether I personally agree with the decision or not. It certainly doesn't give the impression of transparency.

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

There wasn't any specific legal issue from what I know. This was triggered by a butthurt transphobic troll who got banned in lemmy.dbzer0.com and then opened the call to defed. Then lemmy.world preemptively blocked the pirate communities, just in case

[-] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

The image cache on the LW server is a likely reason for the legal issues.

[-] joe@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I truly don't mean to be dense, but I don't follow. We're talking about piracy, right? What images are of concern there, and why does the first step to resolving it have to be blocking instead of communication?

[-] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Federated servers are cached on other Federated servers. That is how you can see LW on another instance even when it is being DDOSed. It looks like LW removed the cache for that one community and blocked it from being saved on their server.

[-] joe@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I get that, but what images would be of concern in a piracy-focused community?

[-] Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Apparently this.

[-] scytale@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I believe it’s not images in particular but the overall cached content from the community on .world servers. Since lemmy works by caching content so you browse that content on your home instance instead of the actual source instance where the community resides, your instance may be liable for “hosting” that content. So anything posted there like direct torrent links or whatever will also be on .world servers. Of course the piracy communities have rules that forbid direct sharing of files and links, so maybe they’re just being overly cautious in case mods/admins aren’t quick with enforcing community rules.

I’m not defending them, just attempting to explain their (probable) rationale.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

For me, it's not that the community was blocked. That is the prerogative of lemmy.world admins. My problem is it wasn't announced here, it was only announced on Discord. That feels like they don't respect us as users of their community unless we're that deeply invested.