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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Unpopular Opinion
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A bit of looking makes me think the admins have a legitimate concern here. Platform immunity in the EU isn't quite as strong as it is in the US in general, and it's specifically weaker with regard to copyright.
A successful copyright lawsuit (maybe even an unsuccessful one) could bring down the whole .world network, which hosts multiple federated services for many people. There could be personal liability for the admins as well. The admins should try to protect against outcomes like that, and the EU should probably strengthen its platform immunity laws.
And again, they're volunteers, they're already doing a service and they shouldn't be forced to take legal risks they don't want to.
It's really annoying how lazy people are, the solution is to just have multiple accounts. It's two clicks to change accounts but those lazy mfs have no response to that except that they don't want to.
On top of that, they've been dealing with an ongoing DDOS for weeks. Is blocking piracy communities the response most of us want? No. Is it the best solution to get the most out of limited volunteer resources right now? I think the case for that is strong.
I think this is the right take. Americans have Section 230 (for now) that quite broadly protects communications platforms from liability over what 3rd parties (users) post to their platform about Piracy. We also have the 1st Amendment which more or less protects anything you say short of direct, specific calls to commit crimes and some types of slander/libel. It's why we can say goofy shit like "now I'm not saying you should do this or encouraging anyone to do this, but if you were going to anyway here's how:..." and get away with it.
In the EU, not so much. They have "methods and means" rules that can get platform owners in trouble for 3rd parties just posting about BitTorrent clients or providing advice like "Google X if you want to find Y" on their platform if it's smells of possible piracy. We're so used in the US to just being able to disclaim everything we say that this is a bit shocking. But talking about tools and techniques, even if you preamble with "now don't ever use these for piracy bros, ok, I don't advocate for using this advice in that way" is not going to save the user or even the platform owners from trouble. It is not just about posting direct links to pirated content or hosting/torrent sites. Maybe a point that is little-understood in the threads I've been reading on here about this.
Not sure where LW is hosted, but successful lawsuit absolutely doesn't matter, just the existence of one. You spin up a server, host your instance, and any corp with their army of lawyers decide to sue. Just stop and think about what a pure hassle and the cost of even responding to the suit is. You're probably in for a few grand and dozens of hours just on having a suit leveled against you. They don't have to be morally right, legally right, they don't have to to win, these companies can ruin lives and it's just a Tuesday for them.
You basically said what I meant by this post without being an asshole like I was
If I ran an instance and there was even a fraction of a percent of a chance I could get ruined financially by some media company whose lawyers have a slow day…I might either shut it down, turn it over to someone else, or take some possibly overly cautious steps such as…what we’re talking about. We wanted social media that isn’t controlled by corporations. We got it except uh oh that means we don’t have lawyers like Spez, Zuck, Elmo have piles of.