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.
Yeah it’s not a situation I can see an easy solution for, especially because, as you say, people randomly going out and shooting CEOs isn’t going to solve the problem either, but at the same time other attempts have also failed leaving people desperate and willing to do desperate acts.
Society is breaking down, thereby leaving us open to someone claiming to offer to restore “order & authority” and “the rule of law”.
Exactly how the conservative Alt-Right used “bUt ThE eCoNoMy ThO” and the situation in Gaza where “BoTh SiDeS sAmE” to win the recent USA election. It worked then, why wouldn’t it work again now, to make “free speech” illegal?
Well, huge caveat: I have no idea if this will happen, I only worried about the possibility that it might, hence starting my comment with “I would not be too surprised to find that…”
And to break out into a meta-discussion: damnit, now I’m hedging my words again, reiterating over & over again the caveats and bounds outside of which I did not mean to extend my words into territory that I never said, yet I seem to feel that others will undoubtedly accuse me of having stated (almost as if I had done so directly?) nonetheless - just like I used to have to do with Reddit. I really hate how one cannot seem to say anything genuine on the internet without being accused of all sorts of crap. I think it’s b/c you cannot have adult discussions with children (of whatever physical age) around. Meh, it is what it is. This is “social media” and meant just for fun & casual conversations - we will never solve anything of substance here though:-).