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The Lemmy.World Terms of Service now in effect (legal.lemmy.world)

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

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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We've made some changes today, and we'd like to announce that our Code of Conduct is no longer in effect.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.

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[-] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 190 points 1 year ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

deleted by creator

[-] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 118 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] TheGreatFox@lemm.ee 40 points 1 year ago

Votes on lemmy are inherently public, due to how federation works.

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[-] mp3@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] Spyd3r@lemmy.world 127 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Shard@lemmy.world 60 points 1 year ago

Not just war reporting. There are legitmate medical discussions that can be aided by such depictions. There should be an exception made for legitimate educational images. Otherwise technically a biological textbook on dissection runs afoul of this rule.

[-] Astrealix@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Spyd3r@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] needthosepylons@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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[-] mojo@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago

They aren't Reddit, they're an instance. There's no reason they need to allow that. That content can be for other instances.

[-] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

That is bad logic and no justification.

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[-] HuddaBudda@kbin.social 78 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Xariphon@kbin.social 50 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 71 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] HuddaBudda@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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[-] PurpleReign@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

"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.

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[-] subtext@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago

Regarding Section 1.0, the portion “lemmy.world (“Lemmy.World,” “we,” “us,” or “LW”).” You may need to include the term “our” since it’s used quite frequently throughout the document.

[-] jarfil@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] SchizoDenji@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago

Ultimately it's just "we're gonna act like how reddit admins act".

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[-] m3t00@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago

trusting you to fairly enforce these rules since they are beyond my willingness to parse. IANAL That said, golden rule always applies. If a suspension or ban is warranted, please require a clear reference to the violation so behavior can be modified in the future. Hate getting banned with no reason or hope of avoiding future violations.

[-] AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In this regard, this is pretty damning: https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/554307/Just-wanted-a-warning-Lemmy-World-is-perhaps-worse-than-reddit

Also, adding having to agree to the Terms of Service when a new user creates an account is good, but does nothing when they create the user from another instance. Lemmy instances that want to implement this might want to consider forcing users coming from other instances to have to agree to general Terms of Service before they can fully participate.

[-] antik@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

That thread filled with people who got banned from Lemmy World. You think everyone there is arguing in good faith?

And some of the reactions to the new ToS have been quite aggressive towards the admin team, even though there is nothing there that changed how people can use our site. Be a decent person and you are welcome, that is the document's purpose.

We had reactions telling us "fuck off corporate shills" and "suck my balls" and publicly stating they will be a problem and then it's Shocked Pikachu when they get banned and start threads everywhere.

As you pointed out, people who sign up on Lemmy World have to agree to these terms by typing "I agree" in the sign-up form. We're looking into other options for existing users.

[-] AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Part of what you are saying may be true, but what the OP is claiming definitely isn't. The Internet Wayback Machine links to the "offending" comment, which they couldn't have manipulated, and the modlog reason on lemmy.world isn't lying. Worse, it was a comment in this thread where "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." that got him banned with the claim that he was "disagreeing with the Terms of Service" because of it, and it does not seem that any apology or acknowledgement has been sent.

Speaking of which, you can go through OP's history in their kbin.social account and find out how he was defending your admin team from the reactions you are complaining about until he had his comment history completely deleted and his account banned on lemmy.world.

The problem isn't just with existing users, the problem is with new and existing users from other Lemmy instances who aren't going to have the same Terms of Service as you. You are basically going to have to come up with a way to get them to agree with it before they can participate in it, and given that this server seems to be within the EU, that probably also means some additional GDPR concerns when obtaining if you are trying to cover yourselves legally.

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[-] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 37 points 1 year ago

You really expect me, your average idiot, to read a legal document to learn the rules and abide by them?

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[-] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

I see you removed the rules against transphobia and clarified that content can't be reported if it's not against the new rules. That sucks

[+] clueless_stoner@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago

For what I expect are similar reasons the list of forbidden image and text content gets so detailed:

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. No erotic or otherwise suggestive media or text content featuring depictions of rape, sexual assault, or non-consensual violence. All other violent content requires a NSFW tag.

I now know from this list that posting Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" would be problematic even though it wouldn't occur to me that medieval illustrations of fictional torture would break the rules. And I now no longer know whether this instance considers the usage of variously themed slurs as against the rules, especially in contexts where they're not direct personal user attacks.

What is socially acceptable obviously varies widely from culture to culture, and definitely instance to instance. The brief list from the previous version helped me to identify the overall culture of the instance to figure out if I would be welcome here. Now instead I'm just not sure if a sweet Aztec decorated human skull from c. 1350CE is allowed because it is half literal human remains, half turquoise, haematite and gold mosaic.

I appreciate that finding the balance here is very difficult. It may just be because it's late and I'm tired, but I feel less certain about what the expectations are with this version than I did the previous. I hope you will consider returning a bit more detail to section 5.

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[-] ninekeysdown@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

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. 🍻

[-] antik@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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!

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[-] mateomaui@reddthat.com 22 points 1 year ago

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

[-] slushiedrinker@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 year ago

As I said before, lemmy.world is now a corporate whore. They deleted my account instantly when I said so from my lemmy.world account. Now I can say so and it’s more difficult. Go suck my balls, lemmy world. Having a code of conduct was good. Having a terms of service is corporate shill terrritory and you’ll suck my balls forever.

[-] GONADS125@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

They deleted your account because you said you were going to cause trouble for them.

Man, can you believe I got expelled for spitting in the dean's face and threatening to wreck the place??

Well, yeah..

What did you expect to happen? Maybe you should read the terms again haha.

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[-] Stoneykins@mander.xyz 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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[-] CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago

Lemmy.world getting increasingly like Beehaw on steroids. Ironically, for their anti-authoritarian editorial policies, they're increasingly stomping down what is and isn't acceptable. Most people who like to be treated like adults fortunately have lemm.ee or Lemmy.ml

Signed, former Lemmy.world resident

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[-] oleorun@real.lemmy.fan 19 points 1 year ago

#todo: Privacy policy

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[-] SaakoPaahtaa@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago