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.

  • Pyrin@kbin.melroy.org
    1230·
    14 days ago

    Before we get to the changes, we want to remind everyone that we are not a (US) free speech instance.

    That my friend, is a huge issue.

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
      19·
      14 days ago

      Even US free speech arguments don’t apply here. That refers to what the US government can restrict US citizens from talking about. A private computer system, especially one located in and operated out of a foreign country, has never fallen under this umbrella.

      • Cheems@lemmy.world
        61·
        14 days ago

        People confuse the meaning of the first amendment all the time. It’s annoying.

      • Pyrin@kbin.melroy.org
        12·
        14 days ago

        Man, it must kind of like, suck to have any of your speech limited in some parts of the world not the USA.

        You can pinpoint anything about America all you want, we hear the shit all of the time. Europeans and other international entities alike just loooooove having a field day with making fun of America. Fine, whatever, some of it is valid and we don’t have all of our shit together. But in some cases and in some matters, America still has some edge over whatever the EU is doing.

        And the sore fact of the matter is, is that if the EU was so cocky, how come some of the time it can’t do the big boy decisions without America’s assistance, huh? All the while some countries limiting freedom of expression and speech.