Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

1y ago

What happened to the main Piracy community

It's gone. Wanted to ask over here before I went to check on Reddit.

159 comments

lemmy.world deleted their copy of it (due to site rules, and prompted by a concerned Internet citizen)
It's probably the biggest Community in all of Lemmy, so the ramifications will be interesting.
- lemmy.world has been acting very weird lately. Almost like they are the one and the only authority of Lemmy.
  
  Almost like LW admins don't want to end up in jail.
  
  I moved to lemm.ee from lemmy.world after that whole hack thing a few weeks ago and it seems like lemmy.world has been going through some weird shit ever sense.
  
  Yea… it’s time to boogie off this instance for a while before they turn into Reddit Jr.
  
  It's their instance, they are free to do as they wish to comply with their local regulations
  
  More like PEOPLE are acting like they're the only authority of Lemmy.
  The whole point of Lemmy is that unlike Reddit, you can give middle fingers akimbo to the server and still participate.
  It's not that difficult to jump ship.
  
  Hexbear drove them mad.
  
  I am starting to get frustrated with lemmy.world. The downtime and stability was one thing but now they cloudf****ed it, the stability has not significantly improved and cloud flare can now see everything we do here. Once there is account migration I plan on self hosting an instance.
  
  I'd mind less if their own instance wasn't so broken.
  
  Ye I think I need to start my own instance, That's the only way I can get away from bullshit like this
- That "concerned internet citizen" was a 10 hour old account whose only post was complaining about piracy. It was a troll out for some good ol manipulation.
  
  Hey, that's not true. They also had posts complaining about trans people existing and Star Trek fans being nerds. Still, it's admirable - in a way - the effect they had: I ask the lemmy.world admins for updates on fixing their technical issues, and get no reply. This guy makes one post, and they all leap into action.
- oh well better late than never to migrate i spose
  ~~EDIT: nvm looks like dbzer0 has like 0 moderation (users just uploading gore to random subs and other shit) so can't blame lemmy world admin from having to defed. Shame.~~
  EDIT EDIT: oh its just anti piracy, i thought it was a defed !
  
  lemmy.world hasn't defedered from lemmy.dbzer0.com entirely, they've just blocked the piracy community.
  
  Such is the beauty of lemmy
- Deleted how? I can see it here while logged in (though there are only a few posts):
  https://lemmy.world/c/piracy
  
  That's not a copy of the main piracy community, that's another piracy community that's hosted on lemmy.world
  The community people are talking about is !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com, which is no longer accessible via lemmy.world
  It appears !piracy@lemmy.ml is also blocked.
  
  Not that one, their copy of the massive one at dbzer0

Official statement
- Making official statements on Discord, and not Lemmy is WILD
- Welp, hopefully more people simply move instances.
- Yeah, it sucks but it makes sense, there is no one to defend those volunteer individuals if anyone wants to go after them.
  
  How does it make sense? Did Comcast have to/did they block my access to RARBG while it still existed? No. I get removing piracy content on their own instance, but blocking other instances is not necessary.
- Is allowing access to piracy resources the same as hosting piracy resources? Is Comcast at risk of being shut down because they didn't block everyone's access to RARBG? This is largely rhetorical; the answer is "no". lemmy.world's admins are not being honest.
  
  Comcast has money to defend itself. That's a huge difference.
- Can someone transcribe this for those of us using screen readers? As a server in Canada, We're also worried about the hosting risk of the piracy community and considering blocking it. I'd love to read the LW statement.
  
  They made a announcement here on Lemmy https://lemmy.world/post/3234363
  The original was posted on discord. It was:
  Removal of Piracy Communities
  Earlier today, after review, we blocked and removed several communities that were providing assistance to access copyrighted/pirated material, which is currently not allowed per Rule #1 of our Code of Conduct.
  The communities that were removed due to this decision were: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com, !piracy@lemmy.ml, !steamdeckpirates@lemmy.dbzer0.com.
  We took this action to protect lemmy.world, lemmy.world's users, and lemmy.world staff as the material posted in those communities could be problematic for us, because of potential legal issues around copyrighted material and services that provide access to or assitance in obtaining it.
  
  Here's the original announcement in text: https://lemmy.world/post/3234363
  Thanks for the reminder that screenshots aren't accessible for everyone.
- Glad to see Lemmy.world doing their part to keep the Fediverse safe and legal for all users here.
  
  The contents are still hosted by respective instances.
  World achieves nothing, they dont even host the contents. This is pure power trip or irrational fear, or both.

Lots of folks here with strong opinions that have never dealt with legal proceedings, or an itemized bill calculated in 6-minute increments.
- Would it have to be hosted in a matter similar to VPNs/some mail clients and others?
  LMK if anyone knows more, thank you!
  
  Likely a jurisdiction issue moreso anything else.
  It's also hard to keep a hosting location wholly confidential.

They did what? How are they suppose to tell me which communities I can check and which I am not allowed to see?
Time to move to a new instance, good riddance
- Behold, federation in motion
  
  Federation does not by definition require giving admins the ability to censor content. The Fediverse implementation unfortunately does, but it sure didn't need to.
- I'm gonna start my own personal instance actually.
  
  With blackjack and hookers lmfao
  
  Awesome!
- How are they suppose to tell me which communities I can check and which I am not allowed to see?
  Time to move to a new instance, good riddance
- My instance is waiting for you

Huh? The Piracy community on dbzer0 is still up, just checked.
- People on LW can't see it anymore apparently
  
  Another reason to create an account on a smaller instance rather than .world
  
  Good thing I moved to a different instance.
  
  Do you happen to know why?
- Please link me to it because its no longer in my subscriptions and I can't find it in a search at all.
  
  !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
  It's blocked from lemmy.world. I'd recommend using LASIM and migrating to another instance like https://lemm.ee/ (note: you will need to manually resubscribe to !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com on your new account, since LASIM won't be able to see it).

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
- I don't really get it though, it's not like they're trying to court advertisers.
  Or are they?
  
  They’re trying to avoid law enforcement and lawyers at their doors.
  Even if you prevail, either can be a very expensive and/or destructive process.
  Make no mistake, Reddit’s recent refusal to provide details surrounding users that were discussing piracy is highly unlikely to happen in the fediverse. Admins are going to get hit with a subpoena and comply because they can’t afford not to.
  
  They don't want to be arrested lmao. I am pro-piracy, but I would never want to host pirated content from my own servers. You can absolutely be jailed for that.
  
  [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
- Exactly. I don't get why people are freaking out so much when it's easy to create a new account and clients support multiple accounts anyways. Big instances are a big target so they need to protect themselves. On Reddit the piracy subs are neutered because they can't link to anything. What's good about the fediverse is you can have sub verses within it. It's dumb to have your piracy account linked to your main account anyways.
  
  Having multiple accounts is an inconvenience that shouldn’t be required

Not sure why nobody in the comments is distinguishing between blocking a community on an instance (removing /c/piracy) and defederating instances (saying your users can’t subscribe to otherinstance.com/c/piracy). They are very different things. We should be very skeptical of defederation.
Removing a community because it violates the rules of your instance is A-OK and every instance should do this. Anybody can run an instance, and anybody can set their own rules, that’s the whole idea of federation.
De-federating other instances because you find their content objectionable is less ok. Lemmy is like e-mail. Everybody registers at gmail or office365 or myfavoriteemail.com. Every email host runs their own servers, but they all talk to each other through an open protocol. You would be pissed to find out that gmail just suddenly decided to stop accepting mail from someothermailprovider.com because a bunch of their users are pirates or tankies. Or blocked your favourite email newsletter from reaching your inbox because it had inflammatory political content.
Allowing your users to receive e-mail, or content from subcommunities on other lemmy instances is not a legal risk like hosting the content yourself is (IANAL etc). Same way Gmail is not liable if somebody on some other e-mail server does something illegal by emailing a gmail user. That’s why you can register at torrentwebsite.com and get a user confirmation email successfully delivered to your inbox. Gmail is federated with all other e-mail services without needing to endorse them or accept legal liability for them.
Lemmy’s strength, value, and future comes from being the largest federated space for link-sharing and other forms of communication.
Defederation is bad.
- It’s not really apt to compare email to Lemmy. Email is a one-to-one communication method, it’s like sending a letter in the mail. In the same way a mail carrier isn’t culpable if they deliver a package of drugs, Google isn’t responsible for delivering illegal emails. On Lemmy though, you’re hosting a copy of the post locally on your instance. It’s accessible to users as well as people who aren’t signed in.
  
  More like Usenet than email.
  
  Hmm, that's a good point, it might make a legal difference in some places. I think it should be treated like email.

LW turned into a shit show pretty fast...
- What's LW?
  
  Abbreviation for Lemmy.World
- LW?

lemmy.world blocked it. I guess it is their right to do so, if you want to keep access to it move to another instance (it is not healthy that so many people are on LW).

Great, time to change instance. At least it will have > 10% uptime

If anyone's looking for a new instance, feel free to join mine! https://lemmings.world

Its not gone. Its just blocked by lemmy.world...
Its hosted on dbzer0

Lmao these idiots are on a power trip already. Running the biggest instance in the ground is a great way to start it all off. Fucking idiots.
- Not sure that their monthly running budget would even cover a consultation with a lawyer. There's no reason that they should accept this risk. Just move to a different instance or host your own instead of causing drama.
  
  It one guy financing it with donations and some volunteer admins. Seems very unlikely that federating with a piracy community could cause any legal problems, but if I personally owned the servers running Lemmy.world like ruud does I might be a little careful. My wife would kill me if I got arrested for hosting a Lemmy instance, man. Is it worth the risk?
- I don't think they are idiots more centralization means more regulation weather one likes it or not, regulators somewhere will notice you more popular you become. Piracy is illegal and media publishers will use law whenever they can to target whatever they notice. It's now LW's fault. Problem is it grew too big too fast. All these FOSS apps they were showing LW as default option to sign up instead of randomised one. So a big mass gathered at LW and bada-boom-bada-bam piracy banned. Register on smaller instances or run your own.
  
  That would be true if piracy was hosted on their instance, which isn't the case. They just defederated the main hub because they're a bunch of white knight cry babies. Also piracy isn't illegal in the majority of the world. I don't live in the US and don't give a shit about the bottom line of some giant media corporation that would destroy literal lives in the pursuit of greed. Just the fact that so many people jump to the defense of these corporations is very telling about the current state of the fediverse.
- Way to misunderstand federation + legal issues... Go cry foul on reddit, they share your "outrage" mindset
  Just make an account on another server that is federated with them.
- LMAO you think an Instance enfocing their rules is a power trip? You sound like the dumbasses I banned from r/PS2 and r/3dshacks who would ask how to pirate games against our rules and then whine and complain that we were power tripping because we banned them using our own authority as mods in our own subreddit.
  
  Of course you're a reddit mod...
  
  Lol, ejoy your ban dumbass

They removed it because it facilitates the sharing of illegal pirated content.

Based chadmins of lemmy.world blocking biggest piracy community
- How is that based?
  It is more akin to what other social media sites are doing...
  
  Pirating stuff you can pay for is the opposite of based lol
  Nobody likes a thief

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