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.
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7 paragraphs of water. Did you want to convey your point or just to write something?
Awesome response. I do not hold any grudges against the early over-moderation that took place. It is truly a sensitive subject. However, I feel allowing free speech (within reason) in a situation like this is important for both sides (the Bourgeoisie and all of us poors) as it gives us a chance to vent some pent up steam and it hopefully gives them an insight into how close things are to getting out of control and give them a chance to correct some bad behaviors.
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If Jury Nullification is legal and allowed, then frankly covering that exact thing up is an abomination and y’all should be utterly ashamed of yourselves. Since when is Lemmy in the habit of backing an establishment while not allowing people involved to know the full picture? Genuinely shameful and disgusting behavior.
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Yeah, I’m not going to ever remove anything from my communities relating to that or to the violence against the CEO. There is no difference between Brian Thompson and any other mass murderer on the planet. Are you asking me to protect Hitler or Pol Pot as well from criticisim and glee over their death? No? Then I am sure as fuck not going to do it for this guy.
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Who made a death threat here?
deleted by creator
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.
Translation: move instances
Its a good idea to give them competitors anyways.
Jury nullification should not be a banned topic. It’s perfectly legal and is the only direct way citizens can object to interpretations of the law. The very fact that the courts and government don’t want people to know of it is a testament to its effectiveness in cases where the public will opposes the government in matters of law. Particularly when public opinion differs drastically from a strict interpretation of the law, but most especially when citizens find a law, its often limited proponents, or its execution to be objectionable, unconscionable, cruel, or unwilling to take circumstances into consideration. It’s crucial for us to all understand our limited power over the government, especially when it’s acting in an oppressive manner, violating human rights, ignoring the principle of justice in favor of a literal interpretation, or is otherwise objectionable by the majority of citizens as opposed to the minority of lawmakers.
Does anyone know of a “(US) free speech instance”?
I’m gonna have to switch instances because of all the terrible shit the US does, free speech is the one thing we truly get right.
And I just want to let you know what free speech is when it comes to violence:
• yelling fire in a crowded theatre when there is none: not protected
• celebrating the death of a CEO who deserved it: protected (the deserved it is irrelevant to speech, but fuck that guy)
• saying you wish other unnamed CEOs will be killed next: protected unless there’s evidence of planning and ability to carry out murdering a specific CEO
• saying you wish a specific famous person be killed, such as Elon musk: grey area, depends on if there’s evidence of planning and ability to carry out. Public figures are a higher bar to reach than the lay people.
• saying you wish to kill your neighbor John who’s not famous: not protected regardless of planning or ability, it’s assault
• saying you want to kill any person and having evidence of planning and a method to do so: not protected
• saying you wish for a whole group to die: protected if there’s no evidence of planning and ability to carry it out. One could theoretically march around with signs that say death to fags and that’s totally legal. Example: Westboro Baptist Church picketing funerals with signs such as that.
Edit: also jury nullification is not violence. You’re going with the assumption that the assassin is guilty of a crime. Is it really a crime to murder a mass social murderer? Clearly us Americans aren’t too bent out of shape that this CEO is now resting in piss.
Edit 2: would it be murder to kill Hitler after he started gassing Jews? Is it not because Hitler had an ideology that Jews were subhuman and to be exterminated? What’s different about this CEO? Sure he didn’t target specific groups like Hitler did. But his ideology is money above all, and he didn’t care how many lives he took to make that money. Why is this any different? This is the industrialization of death. This is a genocide against undesirables. Hitler killed disabled people (and LGBTQ) first before moving onto the Jews. Most of America is just numbers on a spreadsheet and when we become too expensive and cut into profits too much we become socially murdered. It’s not a crime when the rich do it to us (for profit!!!) but it’s a crime when we fight back? You Europeans are clueless!
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.
?? So, discussing jury nullification by itself, or suggesting ‘crimes that have not yet happened’ - itself is not a violation (i.e. someone should disturb the peace) but suggesting that “someone should disturb the peace and everyone on the jury, should they be prosecuted, should advocate for jury nullification” is a violation of the ToS?
I’m not understanding that part.
Specifically where it relates to violent crime.
Essentially it is supposed to make statements like the following a rule violation:
“If someone murdered [fictional person] they would totally get acquitted because any jury would just nullify the charges.”
While the following sentence would not be a violation of TOS:
“The murderer of UHC CEO Brian Thompson should get acquitted via Jury Nullification because [reasons] and this is super dope.”
The first example could be read as a call to violence, while the 2nd is not calling for a crime.
As I understand it “All future jurors in money laundring cases should nullify, because tax evasion is… like… super cool” would also be legal, because money laundring is not a violent crime.
Mods could still remove it though, not for instance ToS but community rules.
They could remove it by flip of a coin
True… then it could be appealed to admins I suppose. Someone could make an entire community dedicated to coin flipping, where that is the sole means of deciding whether posts get to stay or not. So long as no instance rules are violated, it’s all good.
Actually that would be funny, with like, a webcam of a little coin flipper bot.
Anyway I was highlighting a core feature of the fediverse…mods and especially admins are beholden to noone. All standards are a courtesy
Oh absolutely (and it wasn’t me who downvoted you btw, in fact I’m upvoting both here bc relevance). I would argue that there’s a social contract, regardless of money, to the people who contribute to making an instance what it truly is - e.g. spez did not “own” all of Reddit content. Though at the end of the day, don’t the admins have far more involvement in the matter than a mere lurker, and a mod perhaps the most of all, since they donate their blood sweat and tears into the thing that they build (or at least help build, as in curate) daily?
So if people don’t like an instance then move, and same with communities. I blocked !news@lemmy.world months ago and subscribed to !globalnews@lemmy.zip instead. The world is what we make it.
Not being combative but I actually believe there’s zero social contact… It’s an illusion of privilege. The fact that we even get to quibble about mod / admin behavior is at their whim. Now, sure, the ultimate conclusion could be that everyone leaves and they’re a mod of no one, but there’s a whole lot of sausage to be made between here and “server is empty”
removed by mod
Does this discussion really require ableist slurs?
Like, people are arguing about jury nullification when slurs are just flying around from .world users… What’s judicial process matter at that point?
money laundring is not a violent crime.
So it sounds like the laws prohibit advocating blue collar crime, but advocating white collar crime is fine.
That’s not what blue collar/white collar crime is
suggesting ‘crimes that have not yet happened’ - itself is not a violation
this was already covered. this is not a new change. if you write “someone should kill person XYZ” this is clearly a call for murder that we do not tolerate here. discussing jury nullification in the same context where murder or other violent crimes are suggested is what was clarified to be subject for moderator action.
It’s generally better to use generalized statements
Like “Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives”
That’s just a historical fact
How’s this one?
“Thousands of families are crying tears of joy thanks to The Adjuster, who was wrong to save all those lives and improve society.”
So discussion of jury nullification is ok as a general topic. If someone mentions JN in the context of a crime that has not yet been committed then that’s not ok. If the crime has already been committed then that’s ok. If the crime is not violent in nature then we can discuss JN, and if we are just having a general conversation about JN that’s ok too.
Specifically, the concern is that talking about JN in the context of some hypothetical violent crime that has not yet been committed could be interpreted as advocating for violence.
This sounds pretty stupid so far, but my question is then, why wrap the ToS around specifically jury nullification? Why not just reiterate the ‘no advocating for violence’ policy.
If someone is advocating for violence, then adding on some point about jury nullification is irrelevant, they are already breaking the rule.
I don’t even believe in the death penalty for most murderers.
But when your murder count would make any serial killer that did it with their bare hands instead of an email in all of history blush, with the cold calculation of a sociopath, there’s really nothing more to say.
That doesn’t even feel like murder, that feels like an ongoing mass slaughter.
I can empathize with murders of passion, even misguided, ignorant hatred as that was usually something impressed into them, and can relate to the very human secondary emotion of anger even if felt in ignorance, but murders of “Well if I murder these thousands of people on this newly discovered loophole, I can increase quarterly profits by 2.4%! Score!” then it becomes impossible. It’s like trying to empathize with a computer devoid of any humanity.
Wow what a crock of shit
People in the US have justifiable revulsion to its rapacious healthcare system leading to outright un-aliving of a large segment of the population. One might argue that it’s a silent genocide of the underprivileged. This incident has highlighted that sentiment in a way that may effect real change and in a way his untimely demise may lead to positive health outcomes. Suppressing the expression of that anger could have the opposite outcome.
