"calls for violence in any form against any living creature" are a violation of lemmy.world terms of service. Comments calling for or celebrating violence will be removed, and may result in additional moderation actions
thin line. many people got sent to jail in England for celebrating too enthusiastically online during the anti-immigrant riots. the internet today isn't the same as the internet 15 years ago
the rules aren't because the mods care very much. the rules are so than the website doesn't get taken down and/or the owners/maintainers aren't subject to serious legal penalties
thin line. many people got sent to jail in England for celebrating too enthusiastically online during the anti-immigrant riots.
The only thing I ever saw about people online being sent to jail were these two .
Parlour, of Seacroft, Leeds, who called for an attack on a hotel housing refugees and asylum seekers on Facebook, became the first person to be jailed for stirring up racial hatred during the disorder.
Kay was convicted after he used social media to call for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set alight.
So if you consider that 'too enthusiastic' I uh... have a different definition of that.
Ah, sorry about that, I figured that you would use some translator tool on it if you wanted to verify my source.
I ran it through a few different ones but DeepL seemed to handle it best:
Tap for full translation.
Court rules that likes on social media can already be a criminal offense
Social media has been nothing new for a long time, yet courts are still dealing with issues related to it. Or rather: hate speech is and remains a huge issue. Now comes a question: is a simple "like" already punishable?
Yes, at least according to the Meiningen Regional Court. In a recently published decision, the regional court found that even a like can be a punishable offense. Specifically, this is the case if the liked post contains punishable content.
The case in question is the double murder of a police officer in the district of Kusel at the beginning of the year. At the time, a hunter and poacher reacted to a vehicle stop with lethal force. The crime was also a major topic on social media, with an overwhelming majority of people expressing shock at this double murder.
But not exclusively: one Facebook user wrote in a post "Not a single second of silence for these creatures". At least one user liked this post and for the Meiningen public prosecutor's office this was already a criminal offense (it is not known whether and how the original author is being investigated, but it can be assumed).
According to the Berlin criminal and media lawyer Ehssan Khazaeli, who was commissioned by the accused, the Facebook user had "made himself liable to prosecution both for denigrating the memory of deceased persons under Section 189 StGB and for rewarding and approving criminal acts under Section 140 StGB", as the lawyer writes in a blog post (via Tarnkappe).
Is a "like" already "condoning"?
An extensive search was carried out against the person who pressed the "Like" button, and the authorities gained access to the accused's home, vehicle and cloud storage. Khazaeli criticized the decision: "By liking a post, it remains clear that it is the post of another person - there can be no question of 'taking ownership'," said the lawyer.
Khazaeli went on to say that a like is not a "personal mental statement", and certainly not an endorsement of a crime. "The post is linked to the culture of mourning and the funeral service for the two police officers, not to the murder as such. You can and should find that distasteful, but it is not relevant under criminal law," says Ehssan Khazaeli.
The lawyer intends to lodge a constitutional complaint against the decision in the coming months: "It's not about the individual case, but about the fundamental question of whether simply liking something on social media can be a criminal offense."
I don't speak German, but it sounds like what happened is that a lawyer pointed out that liking that post could be illegal under new laws, and is trying to get it struck down. So yes 'could' is carrying a lot of weight in this case.
And to be clear I'm as left as possible and anti-authoritarian, I just fail to see how being a massive racist and calling for people to be killed (and how to hide your identity, in posts following it) and then forwarding those messages to the police is somehow a Big Brother situation.
there were 6 arrests for social media crimes, including the one for the woman who actually kicked off the protests by sharing a fake name about the kid who attacked the concert
but that's beyond the point. let's look at the comment for Kay, one that you mentioned, that caught a sentence of 38 months
"Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it"
that's the portion that says he "called for hotels to be set alight"
see, to my interpretation he was saying "i would not care if they set fire to the hotels". in the US, this would be very strongly covered under free speech. why? because it's an opinion. in the US you can say "I believe that [xyz] should happen" and that is a belief. an opinion- something that cannot be censored. in the UK, not so much. but even in the US, you could be held legally responsible in some way depending on the interpretation of the law
and likewise, the platform hosting that controversial speech can face legal consequences. from serious fines to potentially even criminal charges depending on the enthusiasm of the government. (governments that are getting progressively more authoritarian and trigger-happy the world over)
the point I was trying to convey is that a website like this instance of Lemmy or any other must follow rules in order to stay out of legal hot water. how can you fault them for that?
if you believe this is not the correct thing to do, then you can pay money to host a website and then you can put your ass in front of the ringer to handle potential legal consequences for not doing your part to stop it. i don't fault the mods in the slightest.
just for reference though, let's compare and contrast the comment that got Kay arrested and put in jail and then some comments in this thread
a lot of comments in this thread are being deleted, let me see if i can catch some before they are deleted
"This bit of news does not bother me at all"
"I mean, I thought we were gonna eat the rich, but this will do."
"this will probably lead to the increased militarisation [sic] of ceo security teams. People can start going after their family"
using the same level of scrutiny, each one of these comments could justify a sentence in the ballpark of 38 months like what happened with Kay
this is what i mean. the internet today is changing and social media admins need to change with the times or the hammer of the law can screw them. users here spamming about mod abuse do not fully understand
He also said "every man and his dog should smash [the] f*** out of Britannia hotel (in Leeds)", then he took his posts and:
After being warned by another Twitter user that he could be jailed, Kay tweeted: “I can categorically tell you now, I will not be arrested by Northants Police.”
During the posts, Kay said he was a Reform voter, accused police of two-tier policing and told someone who said the screenshot and posts could land him in jail that they were delusional.
He also copied Northamptonshire Police into one of the messages after being warned he could face court action by another user.
He didn't just go to jail for a couple posts, he made a bunch of them and then after being warned they were illegal forwarded them to the police.
This guy is a dangerous if moronic racist, and really only has himself to blame.
You're talking about being 'silenced' as if it's being done by some monolithic organization; it's not a government action, they can make whatever rules they want. You are free to make your own instance with your own rules.
using the same level of scrutiny, each one of these comments could justify a sentence in the ballpark of 38 months like what happened with Kay
That is an assertion that I highly doubt and I while at first glance your comment seems well enough thought out, I actually don't see a lot to support the assertions made.
governments that are getting progressively more authoritarian and trigger-happy the world over
this is what i mean. the internet today is changing and social media admins need to change with the times or the hammer of the law can screw them.
You are advocating for literally "Obeying in advance" to authoritarian regimes on a left leaning decentralized social media network.
Name a lemmy instance that was taken down because people expressed happiness at corporate shill executions. Heck, name any shut down by a government entity for anything.
But all inaction against evil leads to a worse world. Therefore all action against evil has a greater chance of making a better world than doing nothing.
I posted in c/news about the mods being overzealous in deleting posts in these threads, and it was deleted for rule 6. Fair enough. However, I have looked over the modlogs for the post regarding this shooting and the number of posts that are being deleted for relatively innocuous comments is excessive.
Being happy a bad person got shot is not : Glorifying Violence, Celebrating Violence, nor Inciting Violence.
More over, If this were someone like Kim Jong-Un, or Putin who had been shot, I find it hard to believe the mods would be nearly so overzealous to delete comments saying in essence "good, he had it coming".
I don't think the mods are intentionally skewing the conversation as much as they have an unexamined bias.
It is okay for people to be happy a bad thing happened to a bad person. Other people are okay to disagree with this statement. Let the discussion (within reason) happen. If you aren't prepared to moderate a discussion, turn off comments on your magazine.
Mods are always gonna be mods. It is the personality that is required to do a thankless job for no pay.
That said: Understand that the major social networks have legal departments. A lemmy instance is a few people working out of their basements who suddenly get a letter from the French version of the FBI asking for details about someone who is TOO happy about a politician getting got.
Best case scenario? That instance now needs to make a "public" stand for when they will and won't cooperate with law enforcement and there is no way that ends well. Worst case scenario? The instance is considered an accomplice.
I enjoy lurking at resetera because holy shit. And it was hilarious to watch the mass ban waves of the "Socialism OT" members who had spent years outright calling for people to arm themselves and fight governments. And it started within weeks of people finding out that resetera had been sold to some major corporation (I want to say MMO Network?).
Mod: The moderators of this community - and those of other communities - have an easy-to-verify track record for removing any calls for violence and encouraging/celebrating past violence, even directed at despicable individuals. This does not depend on the target of the violence. It is a part of the terms of service of the server, which are not determined by the moderators of this community. Users also agree to these terms by accessing lemmy.world (I am not a lawyer - please contact an admin if you have legal questions).
"Celebrating violence" is not in the TOS. I get how one can move from the TOS "No call for violence" to a more practical "no celebrating violence". But no, no one here agreed to that in the TOS because that is not what is in the TOS.
And honestly the section in the TOS which you guys keep quoting:
Attacks on users or groups
Before using the website, remember you will be interacting with actual, real people and communities. Lemmy.World is not a place for you to attack >other people or groups of people. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't give you the right to harass them. Discuss ideas and be critical of >principles. Show the respect you desire to receive.
We do not tolerate threats of and calls for violence in any form against any living creature.
Really seems to be there to protect the users of Lemmy from violence, which I support. Not the CEOS of Corporations. I mean, in the context of the paragraph it seems obvious you guys are overreacting to most of the deleted posts.
Super disappointed mods can't parse people not being surprised or feeling something was deserved as a consequence of their actions, and advocating the violence.
My comment that got removed was "can't imagine why this happened", which neither calls for, nor celebrates violence, but expresses that the conditions leading to such an action, in our dystopian US are predictable, have happened before countless times in history all over the world.
The inability to acknowledge the fault of the powerful actors and system that created such conditions and utter lack of consequences for the rich and powerful in the US are what caused such responses for an agreeably horrific act. The issue that won't go away, on Lemmy or anywhere else, and oversimplifying the above to "advocating violence" is disingenuous if deliberate, and idiotic if accidental.
Any living creature can't be the standard. That's just absurdly Broad. By this argument you can't have cooking communities. In any form against any living creature? I can't cut down a tree on this website apparently.
Did you read this comment or apply any thought before you hit post? "Against any living thing" is so hilariously broad it makes me wonder if you're just trolling.
In this context in nearly is. It is a partial quote that is missing the context (the section it is in is generally talking about targeting other lemmy users and groups) and furthermore, they are using that overly broad one line to justify deleting a large amount of comments that "glorify" violence. Which is not in the TOS, including comments that don't talk about violence at all like:
Someone saying they would contribute to a legal defense fund
Someone mentioning an insanity plea or Jury nullification for a legal defense
Someone advocating for calling in to the tip line in protest
I get the mods have a job to do, but they aren't doing it very well and are severely overreacting and over-interpreting a single line in the TOS.
It depends on the community. For example, the Political Memes community of .world is incredibly dumb when it comes to moderation and I've been moderated for "misinformation" for saying that a party sending billions in support of genocide means that the party supports genocide, but that's an instance of moderators trying to enforce their opinions through the moderation system. At least in this case it's out of an abundance of caution since there's such a stigma against violence and even messages simply celebrating it can be misconstrued as encouraging it.
Meh, they should grow a spine, people call for violence all day on truth social, twitter, etc.
This whole 'abundance of caution' is due to decades of successful brainwashing and propaganda. How many avoidable deaths are the direct result of executive policy at healthcare, oil, law enforcement, etc. organizations?
Should we censor celebrations or (hypothetical) calls for the deaths of Hitler, Mao, Andrew Jackson, etc?
When does it become acceptable to fight back? When you've been conditioned to exercise an 'abundance of caution' the answer is never.
I'm not calling for violent revolution here, nor a complete lack of moderation, I'm just noting that removing comments of a rightfully angry and frustrated community is weak as fuck.
If you post a manifesto with calls to violence, sure, I can see that being removed, but a little festive comment celebrating the death of a deserving POS? GTFO.
You're just power tripping. I saw the comments. You are clearly incapable of discerning calls for violence or celebration from various other sentiments. It's pathetic. This is some Reddit-type shit.