Feddit.org officially announces they will ban criticism of Israel and pro-Palestinian posts and comments.
1y 1mon ago by lemmy.world/u/IndustryStandard in fediverse@lemmy.ml from feddit.org
Feddit.org announced today that they are changing their rules to match German law despite their server not being hosted in Germany.
Feddit.org now bans
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The sentence "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"
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Comparing Israel to the Nazis
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Calls to end Zionism
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Calling for the dissolution of Israel
And much more. The full original post can be found here, or
Click here for full text of original post:
Hi.
In the past few days, discontent regarding mod decisions in this community has been brewing, particularly when it comes to comments on Palestine, Israel, and Israeli politics and actions. There are also misunderstandings regarding mod intention and German law. We hope to clear that up with this post.
While the servers of feddit.org are in Austria, most of the mods of this community as well as admins of this server live in Germany. Speaking of, our server admins have also posted a write-up on the same topic.
And with that, let's go:
In Germany, antisemitism is specifically sanctioned in German criminal law, both for speech and as a motivation for other criminal behavior. In addition, Germany seeks to protect the Jewish state of Israel (the so-called "Reason of State" introduced in 2008) and thus verges toward protecting Zionism as well. Certain criticism of Israel/Israelis is also categorized as "Israel-related antisemitism".
Since criminal law is involved, enforcement can mean things like police raids and device confiscations. After such police action, it does not really matter if it was appropriate or if cases are dropped or never charged: The damage is done. All told, it's not that fun.
There is also no point in engaging in discussions about the veracity of statements that could get us into legal trouble. In addition, we believe that you can express most opinions without breaking rules.
If your comment contains the following, it will be removed from this community:
- Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
- Calling for a destruction, annihilation, an end of all Zionism or the like.
- Equating Israeli actions and (historical) Nazism.
- The slogan "from the river..."
- Endorsement of or justifications for Hamas or Hezbollah, or slogans or graphics positively referring to these organizations. These are considered terrorist organizations in Germany.
- ... and obviously: Any of the common antisemitic tropes or calls to violence against Jews or Israelis
Comments will not be removed for the following:
- Denouncing genocide.
- Denouncing Israeli war crimes.
- Criticizing Zionism as an ideology or political movement.
- Referring to the current Israeli government as "criminal," "expansionist," or "far-right".
If your comment is removed nonetheless, these are not the reason. I'd also like to stress that this community was never a free-speech-absolutist zone: It is a (usually lightly) moderated community. There may also be times when bans go too far. In such cases, please DM the EuroMod@feddit.org account (which all mods have access to).
To help you understand why, I'll leave an assortment of sources here (translations via DeepL).
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Berlin in mid-May [2024] around 6 o'clock in the morning. A loud, continuous "banging" against the apartment door wakes student Alina T. from her sleep. [...] When her husband opens the door, several LKA officers, two employees of the district office and the SEK "storm" past him into the apartment. Puzzled, he looks at the search warrant. [...] The background to this was a Facebook entry in the student's profile: "From the river [...]
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In November 2023, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs also issued a prohibition order against Hamas.[60] According to the order, "the slogan 'From the River to the Sea' (in German or other languages)" is a distinguishing mark of Hamas[61]. [...] the current legal situation [regarding "Denial of Israel's right to exist"] is - contrary to what the statements of the Federal Ministry of Justice suggest[63] - anything but clear. Whether incitements to eliminate the State of Israel are prosecuted depends on the respective legal opinion and the prosecution will of the respective public prosecutor's office.
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Press release from the previous government:
In this context, Section 111 StGB, which covers public incitement to commit crimes, may also be relevant. Incitement to extinguish Israel's existence by force may be punishable under this provision. The same applies to calls to publicly display the Hamas flag. If Hamas attacks are publicly cheered and celebrated, this may also be punishable. This means that people who cheer on Hamas's actions or publicly express their sympathy with the attacks may constitute the criminal offence of "approval of criminal acts" under Section 140 of the German Criminal Code (StGB).
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In connection with the controversial Palestine Congress in Berlin, the German authorities have also imposed an entry ban on former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. "In order to prevent antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda at the event", several entry bans have been issued, the news agency AFP learned from security sources on Sunday. One of these concerned Varoufakis. (Notably, Varoufakis would have spoken about one-state solutions ...)
federal reverse (on behalf of the mods of europe)
Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular. Calling for a destruction, annihilation, an end of all Zionism or the like.
Zionism means colonialism not just in practice, but from its very inception:
And yet every self-declared pro-Zionist I've talked to says Zionism is just the right of the state of Israel to exist, and so being anti-Zionist is being for the destruction of the state, and being for the destruction of the state is being for the death or dispossession of every person in the state.
I think the German state is probably more inclined to interpret discussion of Zionism the way the pro-Zionists I've spoken to have describe the term.
I think the historical description in the text that you link is accurate, but if you're trying to argue that Germans should be able to critique Zionism however they want because of that, it's like literally getting into an argument about the literal meaning of literally with people who use literally to mean figuratively, but instead of a random teenager or twee linguistic descriptivist, you are arguing with the state.
Who got the oldest artifacts in Palestine? Doesn't seem colonizing if you have one of the earliest histories somewhere, right? That's why Russia has a right to reclaim Ukraine /s
Who has the oldest artifacts in the Americas? Or Australia?
Oh I fully support America and Australia controls should be handed back to the respective natives if in either situation they would have conflict about territory
Do Greeks get Constantinople, Marseille and Syracuse back?
Yes, and you are free to critizise Zionism for that on Feddit.org. The legal problem is not that, but that the German authorities don't play word games and tend to equate Zionism/Israel/Jews as a shortcut and leave it to courts to decide later if that was justified or not.
They clearly state in one of the rules that I just linked, that calling for an end to zionism is a bannable offense.
The german state is full of witch-hunters and its people have learned nothing.
Yes and as I explained already there is a very specific legal reason for that, but this doesn't mean you can't critizise Zionism or call it a terrible settler-colonialist project.
As for learning from past mistakes... I think you of all people should not throw the first stone there đ
there is a very specific legal reason for that
A misguided or intentionally malicious reason, for what the effect of that law is. Codifying into law the conflation of Judaism/ethnic Jewish identity with zionism is itself antisemitic. Calling for the end of Zionism isn't the same as calling for the end of Jews or Judaism. What is the use of being allowed to criticize Zionism the ideology when you're not also allowed to advocate for its end?
"Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology." <- Ok "Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology, and Israel as a Zionist project should be dissolved in favor of a single-state that provides equal rights for Palestinians" <- Not ok, somehow?
The law as written only allows abstract and dissociated critique of Zionism, but forbids any criticism that comes too close to threatening Israel's existence as a ethno-nationalist state. That's a huge problem.
I didn't make those laws, and I agree that the German government should make more of a distinction between antisemitism and anti-zionism. But it doesn't and honestly in your above example you could just say:
âZionism is a settler-colonial ideology, and Israel should become a state that provides equal rights for Palestiniansâ
An no one would object đ¤ˇ
This singular and persistent focus on the destruction of the (unfortunatly) already existing state of Israel, really makes it likely that many people rather use that as a dogwistle for antisemitism.
âZionism is a settler-colonial ideology, and Israel should become a state that provides equal rights for Palestiniansâ
Except the moderation rule feddit has implemented does not allow for this statement, unless you specifically say that jews deserve equal rights in a single-state solution - which is similar to those who respond to 'black lives matter' by saying 'but all lives matter'. Saying 'Palestinians deserve equal rights' wouldn't be necessary if equal rights were already afforded them, and the point of making that statement is to draw attention to the fact that they currently aren't
This singular and persistent focus on the destruction of the (unfortunatly) already existing state of Israel, really makes it likely that many people rather use that as a dogwistle for antisemitism.
Nobody who is advocating for Palestinian liberation uses the word "destroy" or 'destruction' when referring to the dissolution of Israel - I only ever see those words used by people trying to make this inference between anti-zionism and antisemitism. The only people who take statements of liberation as a threat against Jews are people who are collaborating or benefiting from the oppression Israel conducts in their name.
Sorry, but you are misinterpreting that rule. What I said is perfectly compatible with the rule. The extension that this also applies to Jews is solely to preempt the common "equal rights and the Jews are free to leave" dogwistle.
And you are highly mistaken that there are no people advocating for the destruction of Israel, in fact it is quite common.
Then what is even the point of this rule? If historical Palestine becomes a single secular state with equal rights for all, and Israel ceases to exist as a Jewish state, then I'd be free to say 'fuck yea let's do that'?
You are free to advocate for reforming the existing state into a multi-ethnic state with freedom of religion for all.
A state is nothing more than the sum of its parts and a lable. If you insist that the existing state needs to be destroyed first than that is against German law, and honestly I see no reason for that (other than that all states should be destroyed and not be replaced with other states â).
States rarely get destroyed, but sometimes they get absorbed and/or change their system of governance 𤡠South Africa still exists, as does Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe) to name two examples that often come up in relation to Israel.
Israel is by its very construction an entho-nationalist state. I don't simply advocate for freedom of religion, I advocate for the abolishing of all Jewish supremacist structures that makes up its government.
In my opinion it would no longer be recognizable as modern Israel, but they could keep the name if they'd like.
The existing governments both stopped existing.
Conflating Rhodesia with Zimbabwe in particular is just fucking disgusting and you should be ashamed for doing it.
I've found you provably lying elsewhere in this post, so yeah.
Plus your response is stupid on the fucking face of it.
Because South Africa is still on the fucking map as South Africa does not mean there is continuity of government between Apartheid South Africa and the Government formed by the ANC.
If Hamas magically conquered Israel, and created a new constitution giving equal rights to all citizens and still called the country Israel, would it be the same country? No, it wouldn't. That is how stupid your map argument is.
Given that you're making the same argument for Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, where the name isn't even the same.... I can't see any reason for doing so other the trying to white wash the racist horror that was Rhodesia. I mean fuck. The only people defending Rhodesia are the worst of the worst racist scum of humanity.
Guess that makes sense for someone defending the attempt to silence the discussion of Israels genocide.
You are just wrong. Try to educate yourself. The rebels in Rhodesia signed an official peace agreement with the old apartheit regime, and there was a formal transition of government. Something similar happened in South Africa with the ANC and there some of the previous rulers retained a political party and their successors are now part of a coalition government with the ANC.
I am not in any way endorsing those horrible apartheit regimes, but you are spouting so much factually incorrect non-sense that it is really pointless to discuss any further. I hope for you will never actually talk to someone from southern Africa about this because it would be incredibly embarrising to show so much ignorance.
That does indeed seem to be the case.
South Africa still exists, as does Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe) to name two examples that often come up in relation to Israel.
Note that calling for Zimbabwe/South Africa style change to Israel is also against the rule, as they made it clear in the comments that any calls for reform that include violence against Israel are forbidden.
Also no, Rhodesia does not still exist, that's an absurd thing to say.
The racist shit bag white supremecists that made up the Rhodesian government lost a civil war because they thought their skin color made them better fighters.
They were wrong.
Describing losing a civil war as continuity of government, especially for the pathetically inadequate white supremecists that made up Rhodesia's ruling class, would only be done by another disgusting racist shit bag.
Get the fuck off of here you fucking racist.
Tagging you with 'Rhodesia lover'
You are competely dellusional. I simply pointed out that according to international law Zimbabwe is the legal succesor state to Rhodesia and that formally there was a transition of government.
I am absolutely on your side that Rhodesia was a racist shit apartheit state, but facts are facts...
It is not forbidden
It explicitly is. Stop lying.
you are conflating vocal support for terrorist organisations with a terrible human rights record, with a general ban to discuss different forms of resitances against unjust treatment of Palestinians.
The revolutions in Zimbabwe were both performed by organizations that their opponents labeled as terrorists, because crackers label all violent opposition to them terrorism. Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. You have just laid out exactly a general ban to discuss any non-peaceful resistance for Palestine, because that is terrorism, and you have indisputably confirmed that calling for South Africa or Zimbabwe style resistance is 100% against the rules.
And trying to claim that Zimbabwe is actually a continuation of the white supremacist British colony that was Rhodesia is the most racist fucking thing I've heard in a long time, and not surprising coming from a pro-fascist like yourself.
You need to learn to read what is actually written, and not just imagine some lala land interpretation that has nothing to do with reality.
And Zimbabwe is legally the continuation of the Rhodesian state, I didn't claim anything else and please don't insult others as racist just because you don't understand what they are saying.
You need to learn to read what is actually written, and not just imagine some lala land interpretation that has nothing to do with reality.
Right back at you, given you're the one not reading whats actually written and imagining some lala land interpretation that has nothing to do with reality. But go on, keep lying. Show everyone how dishonest you fascist dogs are.
And Zimbabwe is legally the continuation of the Rhodesian state
So calling for a violent overthrown of the Israeli government by indigenous Palestinians, recreating it as Palestinian state named Palestine that fully rebukes the colonialist settler state it replaces, that would be within the rules then? Because that's what happened in Zimbabwe.
just because you donât understand what they are saying.
Everyone understands what you're saying, racist, you're not as sneaky as you think.
You seriously need to read up on the history of Zimbabwe because that is not what happened.
Oh fuck off. That's exactly what happened, and you know it. At this point you're just lying through your teeth.
You live in some lala land that has no resemblence to reality.
When you have no argument, just endlessly scream "NO! NO! YOU CAN'T READ!"
Lying fascist.
The irony is so thick. Go back to your troll cave đ
The only troll here is the one that seems to have a hard on for Rhodesia.
Go fuck a Confederate uniform you racist shit bird.
âNever believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.â â Jean-Paul Sartre
The only person here in LA LA land is the racist filth trying to equate Rhodesia with Zimbabwe.
You're a fucking disgusting racist. You're as pathetically delusional to your own superiority as the Rhodesian elites were.
Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
It's so funny how you types are constantly hiding behind the law and saying, "I didn't make the law, I don't agree with it, but they have to do this to avoid legal liability, hands are tied" and then five seconds later you say stuff like, "criticism of Israel is a dogwhistle for antisemitism."
You're a coward, refusing to admit your real positions because you know you can't defend them.
Please don't put words in my mouth. My real position is crystal clear and I am happy to stand by it.
I just quoted what you said. Your real position is crystal clear, you're a Zionist who thinks criticism of Israel should warrant a ban and also be illegal, because you view anti-zionism as a "dogwhistle" for anti-semitism. You are not, however, "happy to stand by it," because you're hiding behind all these excuses about "complying with the law." The problem is you slipped up and gave the game away with your "dogwhistle" line.
My real position is crystal clear and I am happy to stand by it.
Your opinion is to limit speech that calls out ethnic cleansing, using the law as a defense for the opinion.
but that the German authorities donât play word games and tend to equate Zionism/Israel/Jews
Sounds like they very much do play word games then.
Oh I see. Which is why the admins/mods of Feddit.org are also publicly coming out criticizing the German government for this crackdown on nuanced speech, right? Right?
Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular
This part floored me. As if it wasnt Israel that was currently denying equal rights to Palestinians and not the other way around... this is just the zionist version of 'all lives matter' bullshit.
How dare we ignore the trauma of those committing violent oppression?!
sounds like grounds for defederation. protecting fascism is fascism.
I did not leave reddit to come to a fucked down version of political censorship. fuck you and begone. I'm blocking their instance
Time to defederate Feddit.org.
To bad. They weren't that bad, IME. But denying criticism of a state actively carrying out a globally recognized genocide... that's a strict rule I've adopted.
If midwest.social won't defederate, I'll have to block the whole instance.
The post literally says that you can critizise that đ¤Ś
Please understand that there can be some nuance on the topic and that people in Germany are understandably extra careful on the topic.
So hand over the instance moderation to people in a different jurisdiction, or shut it down entirely. Don't comply with this bullshit.
How about you start your own instance instead of complaining? đ
Having an opinion isn't "complaining". I'm not even on that instance, I just happen to care about solidarity with victims of genocide.
Claiming that the genocide, apartheid, and colonialism perpetrated by Israel is in any way complex or nuanced is such a disgustingly smug way of revealing you haven't spent even a moment thinking the situation through, or reading up on the history. Gross.
germans "just following orders" again?
Nah theyâre just wimps
Germans should listen to Namibians a bit more. You don't get to play favourites with your genocide victims.
just in: it's reactionary to fully support a group being targeted in a genocide
A knee jerk reaction to genocide denial?
Shit EuropeanSS say
Yikes. đŹ
Man, seeing Germany side with genocide once again was fucking not on my bingo card.
I don't imagine things will get better under the new right-wing government either.
Cool, I'll add them to my ban list.
Better yet I am trying to get them to add me to their ban list
Beat you to it without even trying hah
Didn't blaja already defed them?
Nah, that was feddit.uk
Shot you're right. I forgot they were two separate instances tbh.
While the servers of feddit.org are in Austria, most of the mods of this community as well as admins of this server live in Germany... Since criminal law is involved, enforcement can mean things like police raids and device confiscations.
Lol, they're trying to pretend that the cops will kick down their doors if someone says "free Palestine" on a server they're mods of.
Youâre not keeping up with the news from Germany then I take it.
I know that they're repressing opposition to Israel, but I have not heard of them arresting someone just for being a moderator on a website that doesn't follow German law.
The moderators less likely, but the server admins quite likely, as those are legally responsible for the publication. Where the server is physically located is actually of lesser relevance in that regard.
The admins responsible for the Lemmy instance AFAIK live in Germany.
Is their any precedent for social media admins being arrested for comments on the site the administrate?
There are precedences of public forum admins having their homes raided by police and all communication devices confiscated, yes.
Source?
Literally in the original post linked above.
Or here for example: https://netzpolitik.org/2023/linkhaftung-scharfe-kritik-an-razzia-bei-freiburger-radiosender/
That link does not remotely support your claim that "There are precedences of public forum admins having their homes raided by police and all communication devices confiscated".
Once again, you are a lier, and a fascist
Here's how Firefox translates what I see to be the relevant parts from German to English:
"The Ministry of the Interior used a legal trick by declaring the platform not as a medium, but as an association. All investigations against allegedly involved persons, including because of the formation of a criminal association, were suspended or went into the sand. At the time, there was criticism from different sides against linksunten.indymedia.org."
"The accused is to have published an article on the homepage of the aforementioned radio station, which contains a link of an archive of the forbidden association "left-unten.indymedia". The association âlinksunten.indymediaâ was banned and dissolved with the disposition of the Federal Minister of the Interior of 14.08.2017, since the purpose and activities of the association contravened the criminal laws and was directed against constitutional order."
I mean translations get a little funky but I'm reading this as saying that this office and two private homes were raided because someone posted a link to an archive of an indymedia website which was declared to be a criminal organization.
because someone
That "someone" being the people who were raided. This is not a case of an admin being held responsible for the content of a user, which was the entire point at issue
What? It literally says that the private homes of the operators of a public website were raided by police and their communication devices confiscated. LITERALLY! Are you completely unable to read and understand basic texts?
Nowhere does it say anything equivalent to "public forum admins having their homes raided by police and all communication devices confiscated"
Again, stop lying, fascist
This was a public website where multiple people had access to post stories and links đ And they got raided because they linked to another (by then officially forbidden) leftist website that also was a kind of forum to share news stories very similar to Lemmy.
Sorry, but I am tired of you trying to twist words in my mouth, the evidence I provided is clear and you just don't want to admit that this is a real risk in Germany.
So like I said. Not a source for your claim.
Please provide a source for âpublic forum admins having their homes raided by police and all communication devices confiscatedâ.
Those are your exact words, so drop the "stop putting words in my mouth" crying, you lying fascist.
"Forum" is not that clearly defined, Lemmy can also be called a forum as do many other websites. You are just trying to split hairs because you can't admit that you spend the last couple of hours making a total ass out of yourself đ¤ˇ
Lol. So you lied when you said âpublic forum admins having their homes raided by police and all communication devices confiscatedâ.
Speaking of "making a total ass of yourself", being a self proclaimed "punk" and spending the last day going all out arguing for the suppression of anti genocide speech. How does the rest of .slrpnk feel about having a fascist for an admin?
What the fuck is a VPN going to do if your name is known to the web host? If you have given away personal identifying information in the purchase or maintenance of the website?
"Oh no herr officer, look at mein IP address, I am le French where such rules don't apply. Please ignore all the other identifying information you may have gathered over the time that the website was hosted."
Yeah, but those people actually disagree with their government, unlike poVoq and the other Zionist mods
No it isn't.
I added another link. And there are other such examples behind the spoiler tag in the orginal post.
So you were lying when you previously said it was there.
Edit: and it still isn't there, lol.
No they are there behind the spoiler tag đ
Nope, you're still just lying.
I live in Germany, and it's a totally realistic scenario, especially in Bavaria. They seize computers to intimidate digital activists all the time for way less serious topics.
Have they ever raided someone just for being the admin on a social media site?
social media site specifically I don't know, but raids for managing infrastructure for completely legal but politically inconvenient activities, yes, plenty. I remember going to a talk from a guy managing the servers of Extinction Rebellion and he got all his stuff seized, never got accused of anything, had to wait months to get his stuff back and never got back a few things.
Source?
And that's very different to just being an admin on a social media site that doesn't ruthlessly enforce German law.
So here's an article about a raid on an environmentalist group in Germany called Last Generation: https://earth.org/last-generation-activists/
There's a link to the German language statement from the police which is quite readable after translation, and of course the article itself describes the general activities that they were engaged in and accused of.
Of the activities that they were accused of, it does seem in line with prior environmental activist groups like Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, and Earth First!
As for what laws get enforced by a website, that is going to depend on jurisdiction. For example, the USA has section 230 of the DMCA, which holds that website operators are not responsible for user content with the exception of content accused of violating copyright within certain parameters. Doesn't mean they won't raid your servers, just means you won't be held legally responsible if they think you were sufficiently responsive to issues when raised.
At this time I don't know the specifics of what Germans have to think about to avoid state interference, but it does look like it is more severe than what the US has to do with.
So not a source for the claim.
So if that's not the case, that does mean Germany is not fascist? Or are they fascist and is their policy justified?
...equal rights for all people, Jewish in particular.
Lol
German Guilt Pride is a hell of a drug. Hiding behind 'laws' to justify this is also very on brand.
Guilt Pride
Thank you for this term.
Palestinians, remember the following: you can resist your occupation but ONLY on the occupiers terms.
For the rest of us, remember the following: you can protest genocide, but ONLY on the genocider's terms.
That's enough for me to block my first instance! Fucking Nazis.
did the same and it's the first time i've used lemmy's blocklist; i hope there aren't more in the future
How do you do that?
So they're basically declaring themselves a fascist instance. I mean calling for end of Zionism is calling for an end of a fascist ideal, therefore that instance is declaring itself a fascist organization. Simple. Yeah no one should be Federated with this place.
So basically just knockoff reddit then?
Wow, real mask off moment, though they were using the "German law" pretext for a while now.
The write-up they link is also insightful. Notably, they "explicitly reject these accusations" of being Zionists and insist it's a legal precaution required by their countries.
I've bought servers for hosting some small communities and I sometimes thought maybe I was paranoid for retaining anonymity and carefully picking the country and company to allow muh freedoms as far as speech goes, but it's interesting seeing .world and feddit pull out the "just following legislation" card (which is understandable, given that staff imprisonment is obviously bad for their community, but also irresponsible and complicit to simply accept the situation instead of resolving it, and because this is an internet community there are safe ways to resolve it).
How much ranting do you think they will be able to do from inside a jail cell?
It is however illegal for them to allow such material to remain on their servers once theyâre made aware of it.
Their server isn't located within Germany, from what I'm reading.
From what I understand, the situation they are worried about is a german authority gaining access to their personal devices or somehow de-anonymizing their accounts and associating them with their actual identity while living in/traveling through germany, and seeing the type of content they are posting/allowing to be posted on a community they moderate.
The actual risk of exposure to them is incredibly small.
No it isn't, the server isn't hosted in Germany
This is false. The German police will contact the Austrian one, who will share the contact details of the persons legally responsible for publication, and if those happen to be residents of Germany, the Austrian laws are irrelevant to what the German police does.
Is there any example of that happening?
Yes that has happend before many times. The EU and nearby states like the UK, Norway and Switzerland have a tight integration of the police forces via Europol and regularly exchange such information.
Source?
No because you can apparently not read and thrn accuse others of lying.
When you have no argument, just endlessly scream "NO! NO! YOU CAN'T READ!"
Lying fascist.
Still no source either.
The members have a choice to leave if they donât like the rules.
Er, are you saying itâs just as hard to register on another lemmy instance as it is to emigrate?
Feddit.org was not started as an law-skirting activist space with specific op-sec requirements.
My impression when talking with the admins is that they are quite sympethatic to such efforts, but simply ask that to be done somewhere else where it is safer for everyone involved.
Tbh, I can understand it. There have been police raids kicking in doors of families with small children at 5 in the morning for having a Facebook post saying "from the ... to the ..." (I am also in Germany...). The police went through all of the families belongings and took all web-connected electronics.
The situation is really rough here in Germany.
well, fuck feddit.org then. Any place thats too busy fellating genocide deserves to be abandoned and blocked. If they think they matter, they are wrong.
Unsurprising, still disappointing.
Ex-nazis choosing to support neo-nazis. Maybe they lost the ex, is Germany OK?
Is it any shock when actual members of the Nazi party and SS were kept around to help rebuild West Germany?
We should have just dealt with the problem instantly. Hindsight is 20/20 but fascists deserve no breaks.
Why are only Germans ex-nazi and Italians not ex-fascist? Y'all seem to enjoy your pizza
It's almost as if this thread isn't about Italy, Italians, or Italian law đ¤ super weird of me to focus on the topic presented, I know
Yeah you can call it what aboutism but you lie if it aint so
out of all my years on the internet this is such a dumb take lmao
Germany is supplying 30% of the weapons used in the Gaza genocide.
Italy also supplied, so where do you draw the line between not-fascist/fascist?
A negligeable amount. But I have no objections to calling the Meloni regime Fascists.
No but you have to be a hypocrite or else I can't be comfortable supporting nazis
I didn't realise thinking Italy is fascist is mutually exclusive with enjoying pizza. I guess that means I'm not allowed to eat sauerkraut anymore?
just rename it to be freedom-kraut and you're fine.
I always check if my pizza is fascist before eating
Mine was made in America so I guess I've ticked that box. like who can afford to air ship a pizza from Vietnam or whatever
What's interesting is that I got blatantly being called a nazi by those particular mods. I reported to admins and nothing happened.
So obviously there's a double filter here about "not tolerating accusations of nazism".
I just left, blocked europe@feddit.org and became very wary of feddit.org administration. So this doesn't take me as much as a surprise as I have already seen issues with both that community and an admin team that's clearly not objective when talking about that community admins.
So theyâre joining the Nazis. They can fuck off and die.
When you're so anti-Nazi that you loop around and become pro Reverse-Nazi.
What lack of theory does to a mfer.
Western Germany never de-Nazified, the Nazis teamed up with the Zionists even when the Nazis were in power. They left the Nazis as they were effective anti-Communists, and the West collectively felt that was a worthwhile trade. Germany pays lip service to combatting fighting the Nazis, but keeps the underlying fascism the West in general has.
Germans and being complicit because they are "just following laws/orders". Name a better duo.
Genuine freak shit. Maybe wait until the government bothers you, don't preempt them
Says the person not at risk of early moring police raids of their home including months long confiscation of all their communication devices and costly legal proceedings to get them back.
I'm a communist trans woman with guns who helps house people for free in the USA. I've had ICE and police show up to my doorstep before. For some reason, I doubt a bunch of cishet white nerd guys in Germany are about to have as many problems as I do for hosting anti israel content on a small social site.
Incredible work, comrade. đŤĄ
You are an amazing person, but I find it funny how in the US even the communists have guns.
Communists have always been pro-gun, you can't have a revolution without them. Things get more nuanced within Socialism, once the revolution has broadly succeeded, but an armed working class in Capitalism is harder to oppress.
Great, more power to you, but you do realize that this is still quite a different situation? What you are doing is not illegal (for now at least) and you have some control over the risks you personally take.
Hosting a space for others but still being legally responsible for what they do in that space has different requirements. You would probably also ask people you host to not set up a meth lab in your place.
What I'm doing is illegal in my jurisdiction, ICE showed up for a reason. The law can eat my ass no one should be homeless
Fine, I don't know your situation, but there is still the difference that you chose to take that personal risk intentionally, while the feddit.org admins did not.
Unforced error really, there's a lot of secure hosting providers that take anonymous payments. Could easily say you transferred domain control to someone else to avoid liability when the law passed. They're doing this because they have no convictions and are lazy at best, at worst they support Israel.
Not really.
You can't become anonymous and retain site ownership. The site would've needed to be shut down and a new, somehow completely unrelated site would have to be started.
Besides, even if that were done you bet your ass a random German lawyer would immediately sue the new site for violating Impressumspflicht. That's one quick way to get the police investigating your site. Your OPSEC better be close to "hosting an illegal streaming site" level.
Even German forums about piracy would rather have an impress and remove illegal content than remain anonymous and evade police - see tarnkappe.info.
I'd argue every small social site should run on the principal that they will be prosecuted like an illegal streaming site. You can divest yourself of liability and doxing with basic opsec.
An example: host on 1984.hosting and pay with mined or donated Monero. Only access the site through a computer specifically for that purpose, and only with Tor / Tor Browser and a Linux distro such as Qubes, Tails, or less suspiciously, Fedora Atomic. Memorize credentials if possible, if not encrypt them on drive with a strong password via a keepassxc databases. If you are hosting the site properly, you can transfer the site podman/docker container and url with databases and info intact with no effort. Make sure the computer for managing site management stuff wipes itself on every shutdown sans credential info, has secureboot, and an encrypted drive. As an admin account, only access the site through base Mullvad Browser with a VPN (ideally Mullvad) or Tor Browser on a computer of your choosing.
You can easily say the site is no longer yours and your payment information will reflect this. This has been done before. Germany can ban the site but it'll be easily discoverable through other fediverse servers, Tor, and VPNs. They would have to ban anything that uses acitivitypub, and again, even in that scenario you can use a VPN or Tor or self host a vps with the instructions above to access it normally anyways.
Simultaneously, you lose all rights to the site and risk a hostile takeover with no possible recourse.
It's also significantly more effort to retain this level of anonymity from a state actor. I don't even think there's a single Lemmy instance which follows all those steps.
The thing is, as of right now German censorship doesn't warrant this. Yes, it sucks you cannot freely speak about Israel. But frankly, since it only requires you to adjust your wording minimally without changing the message ("Israel should be destroyed" => "I support a one state solution where everyone in current-day Israel and Palestine can live freely, similar to how South Africa abolished apartheid.") it's really not worth it.
Should Germany turn fascist and ban all opposition, it is too late for feddit.org and their moderators anyways. If Germany doesn't, feddit will be fine like this and reduce the strictness of these rules as German sentiment towards Israel slowly worsens over the coming years.
Hostile takeover? Not if you don't share credentials. The passwords and so on should be random and encrypted.
And yes, if Germany is going to execute you for potentially hosting a small social site that occasionally could criticize Israel you've got bigger problems and should choose to fight or flee.
Sorry, I meant either confiscation of the domain or the server provider deciding to take everything down. The latter can be mitigated with backups but it will nevertheless result in long downtimes.
There's generally no legal recourse or protection if any instance involved in hosting the site decides to break contracts. This sort of uncertainty sucks and has to be taken into consideration.
Confiscation of the domain isn't a big deal. As I've already said, there are many anonymous hosting providers that have been tested on the Israel issue and came out the other side. 1984 is one, ADL served them an injunction in court in Iceland and 1984 was successful in fighting it and also avoiding divulging any info about activists.
If you wanted to it's also possible to proxy server traffic so that the main server is never divulged which makes it very easy to swap domain names and providers. I consider this overkill for this use case though, would be necessary on a streaming site or something, though that should be hosted in Russia to avoid issues anyways, Russia essentially allows for the piracy of non Russian data.
~ Average german defense for their complicity in the 1940s.
You would have turned in Anne Frank.
Right, people arguing to not expose others to the risk of police raids are "asckually Nazis". You realize how absurd that is? Anne Frank was found during a police raid...
Are you fr? Are the feddit admins (appropriate as fuck name) hosting Palestinian refugees in their server locations, now?
Eur*s and their guilt tripping for shit they caused in the first place I stg
"Look it's the law, disobeying the law is bad, I must obey the law and report my local Jews pro-Palestine thought crime."
The irony of all the armchair warriors here is too thick 𤌠Go get yourself squatted and possibly arrested, that will for sure help the Palestinians that are facing a genocide /s
Better than supporting laws that censor support for people. Some solarpunk you are.
A Solarpunk with better opsec, yes. Maybe you should learn a bit about that yourself.
Apparently not.
I am not one of the admins effected by this, but I know better than to expose others to such risks over stupid arguments on a public internet forum.
But apparently that is too much to expect here đ
The OPSEC of "censor discussion"? That's not the OPSEC or solarpunk I'm familar with.
You need to look up the definition of censorship, because you are apparently ignorant or brainwashed by some freeze peach people on the topic.
Asking people not to post stuff on a public forum that could endanger themselves and the operators of the forum is good opsec practise, as is removing such posts that are made regardless of that.
"I think Israel is commiting genocide in Palestine."
Is this personal info that must be scrubbed?
No, that is perfectly in line with what is explicitly allowed on feddit.org.
I dare you to post it and not get banned.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
That is not the same at all.
Yeah, it would only be against the rules to say that genocide should be stopped
That is also explicitly allowed. Are you even reading anything before posting senseless accusations?
Nope, they've been explicit that any calls for violence against Israel are forbidden.
Are you even reading anything before posting senseless accusations?
You really love this line, you're posting some variant of it in every comment you make.
You evidently can't read. It is much more nuanced than that.
When you have no argument, just endlessly scream "NO! NO! YOU CAN'T READ!"
Lying fascist.
No, the person you are arguing with is correct.
Please click the link at the top and read the full text of the feddit post which it takes you to. It is okay to dislike feddit's policy, and it is perhaps okay to believe that they are lying and that the words they wrote down explaining what it is are not true.
But this person from another instance whom you are arguing with is accurately describing the content of the text on the feddit post.
No, they aren't. I've read the full text, I've also read the comments from the admin underneath it where they add additional rules.
There is no form of call for violence against Israel that isn't against their rules. Feel free to present one if you believe otherwise
I have a hard time believing you care about opsec if you think rotating across accounts is a bannable offense.
That wasn't me, but in specific cases where multiple accounts are used for ban evasion or similar stuff that can be justified from a moderation perspective.
And if you do such a bad job that it is easy to guess your sockpuppet accounts then that is really a failure in opsec on your side đ
And if you do such a bad job that it is easy to guess your sockpuppet accounts then that is really a failure in opsec on your side
Wouldn't be opsec at all if I kept more than one account active at a time or expressed the same views and opinions. You'd probably not have a risk of german prosecution if you and your moderators made use of a similar practice - which is why it's funny that you gave yourself that attribute
Good opsec includes not endangering other people that might have less good opsec. I am personally not at risk because I don't live in Germany.
Lmao wow that's so punk
If we limited our speech to what was legally permissible we wouldn't need opsec to begin with, genius.
"The safest way to use dissenting speech is to not" lol
I'm a devops engineer and host quite a few things. Running a point to point VPN is fucking simple for anyone capable of running Lemmy.
Your argument is transparently stupid to anyone with even an ounce of technical capabilities.
Ok great, than explain it to us, because apparently you have no idea about the actual situation Mr. "DevOps Engineer"... (a joke of a job title for actual security professionals). /s
You're as competent a security professional as your beloved Rhodesian military was at fighting.
I also literally did tell you how in the comment above. Setup a point to point VPN and set the remote endpoint address in DNS for the URL. Make sure the remote endpoint is not in German jurisdiction.
Someone that was actually competent (not you) would know how to do that.
Wtf is this, this is like capitulatiing to nazis back in the day, shame on them
Oh shit, the (White) Power Rankings heating up as feddit takes up an unexpected lead against stormfront.world
Death to Germany
The country or the inhabitants?
Germany is a country. Germans are its inhabitants.
Yea, so which
Death to Germany
So where do the Germans go?
They can be resettled in Libya with the Gazans.
Where do the Israelis go?
resettled in rhineland-palatinate. if g*rmans are so horny for a jewish ethnostate they can do it in their own country. it even sounds similar the average pissraeli wouldnt know the difference.
(regrettably im part of this cursed "nation")
lviv and zakarpattia oblasts and lublin and south carpathian voivodships are great picks too. in germany saxony would be my first choice, or perhaps mecklenburg.
Back to New Jersey and Poland once they pass the vibe check
Brooklyn.
Why would they have to "go" anywhere?
What would you do with them if you don't relocate?
Who said anything about relocating?
So they stay?
Borders change, governments fall, but people stay. When people say "death to <country>" they usually don't mean its inhabitants in general.
Why wouldn't they?
They literally can't comprehend radical action beyond genocide.
It really gives away their intentions towards the Palestinians.
Nothing? Who said anything about doing anything to them?
By the way, while I've got you here, did you know that a mod of c/Germany (as well as most of feddit judging by the upvote ratios) thinks you're a rabid antisemite who wants to kill all Jews, and who thinks people should go to Gaza to join Hamas, because they misread some of your comments defending their policy? I was wondering if you'd do me a favor and explain to them that you're on their side, I doubt that you'd want that sort of libel going around.
They dont "go" anywhere. The people in that physical location form a new, better government thats not bought out by foreign interests.
any other obvious stuff I can give you the minute details on? Do you need a diagram of how to use the toilet? Lend me some of your crayons and I'll diagram it out for you. Thats why we are all here, to give you painfully obvious answers to boneheaded questions.
Oof, cringe.
Such a pain you can't block an entite instance (at least not that I've found on Sync) and have to block the individual communities one by one. I blocked the ones with over 500 subscribers and i suppose the others will get blocked as they show up in my Everything feed.
There's no way i want to be a part of German genocide whitewashing.
And another instance gets blocked
How do I ban an entire instance
Assuming you're using the default Lemmy UI, there's a block settings menu in your account settings page. It's worth exploring, there's some good options to play around with.
Thank you. đ
Fucking Germany
It's wild how lies and propaganda spread in real time.
I am curious about the reactions in the thread linked in the OP, but I can't access it. I don't know if the thread is deleted either since I can't access even the server.
Are they temporarily down?
EDIT:
False alarm. I was able to access it after some struggle. I don't know why I can't access it in my desktop but I was able to access it via mobile. At any rate, it's a problem on my end.
Reading the linked post, I'm glad to note that it seems to me that the consensus is largely against the change. Even the few comments from those in the instance is pretty much against it.
Germany has a very binary view on class supremacism. It's not supremacism is good vs bad. It's a pendulum of who is above criticism. Russophobic nazi supremacism still kosher though.
Russophobic nazi supremacism still kosher though.
I've noticed that pro-Israel Germans are usually not that much against Russia.
Yep if you have Russian blood in you you're guilty of all crimes of its government, even if you're against Putin.
It's so cool and not at all xenophobic.
I want you to take notice and how I said "Russia" not "Russians". The state aren't the individual people. But good job with following the hive mind. So proud of you.
The hivemind of "I don't think everyone in Russia is inherently guilty of all crimes by Putin?"
Alright let's just arrest everyone in Russia. They're all guilty. Especially the children and people in jail for protesting.
I'm sure a non-zero amount support it, but it's like thinking that everyone in America is guilty of the invasion of Iraq.
If there is a Israel citizen who is against the Genocide, I don't want them considered guilty. I think they should be doing as much as they can against it, and being neutral to it is complicity. But if they're against the genocide, they aren't guilty.
I'm also unsure of the rates of support for the War on Ukraine in Russia, but I doubt it's 100%. Even if it's 99%, that 1% can't be considered guilty as charged for.
I don't consider think that being a citizen of a nation instantly makes you guilty. But I also acknowledge that they can benefit from how their nation acts on the world stage.
My nation benefited from the Iraq invasion, but I was 6 years old when we did it. I didn't even know what war really was then.
Thank you one sane, non-kneejerk response. I appreciate you.
And for the late hivemind, I got a comment history full of not being a prick like the dude that responded to me.
I try to be sane and kind to people unless they prove they don't deserve it.
I appreciate that I was deemed worthy.
And coming from not family, it means so much more!
Bro, again. You're acting like the person insulting me, assumed I was. Please grab some nuance. The individual citizens are not as a whole responsible for state actions. Despite it the majority of the populace is in favor, you cannot blame them as a whole.
But why do that when we can do collective punishment, which is done by Russia, Israel, North Korea, and all the famous Good Nations?
Trust a dronie to start whining about Russia and "tankies" in a thread about the genocide of Gaza.
I wonder if "Jews and non-Jews can't live together, and thus Jews must be exiled to Israel" will be allowed...
Germany tried to create laws to prevent a repeat of the Holocaust. It's a laudable effort but they're failing at it.
The problem is that they were so specific about preventing "The Holocaust" that they ignored many other kinds of bigotry and racism. They thought that if they forbid a few key phrases and symbols, hatred would wither on the vine. Instead they just cleared the way for other aspects of racism to flourish.
They could have made a symmetrical ban.
Wtf is feddit
I don't blame the mods as they have little say in the matter but it's sad to see never the less.
Defederate. Let them be murderous genocide apologists on their own.
I was banned today from Europe on feddit, a community I've never posted in, because apparently reporting a disinformation spam account posting uyghur genocide fake news rubs the mods the wrong way. I had no idea that instance was this much of a dumpster fire. Am I officially a communist now? Seems like a rite of passage has occurred
Better than what the headline seems though.
The description reads almost like malicious compliance.
Still. There are people advocating for similar measures against statements not as normal as the listed.
I hope these people can see how their wishes being fulfilled might lead to similar regrettable results. It's better not to walk the preceding steps.
One set of basics a decent human being should always remember - "I am not wise, I am not righteous, and I don't know what is right and what is wrong, I can only try not to multiply evil and to avoid lying to myself and others, and when I make a decision, I know it'll harm people".
A post about white people doing white people things and banning anyone not in full support of genocide, and even the criticism has to be half about China this and China that.
Y'all are exactly the type of idiot who sets up the conditions for these ghouls to do another genocide to then go on your merry way to act like the monsters are they before you spread blood libel against somebody else.
Fuck y'all. Read the fucking room and examine yourself for once.
1984
Oh man. Come on Lemmy.
Maybe read the post again and put yourself in the shoes of the admins and mods who do live in Germany.
Each of you personally has your own views on the Israel / Palestine genocide, and that's absolutely fine.
However, very few of you risk personal criminal prosecution in support of Palestine. The people involved in hosting a lemmy instance are volunteers, who probably didn't sign up for that kind of risk.
Also, the very nature of federation means that feddit can restrict this content on their servers confident in the knowledge that other servers can host this content in a jurisdiction that doesn't have the same risks.
I am not reading that. Can we get some more non political instances and communities?
Comments will not be removed for the following:
- Denouncing genocide.
- Denouncing Israeli war crimes.
- Criticizing Zionism as an ideology or political movement.
- Referring to the current Israeli government as "criminal," "expansionist," or "far-right".
Y'all grabbed your pitchforks before you even got to that part, didn't you?
-
You can criticize Zionism as an ideology, but you can't call for its end.
-
You can refer to the current Israeli government as "criminal," but you can't call for the dissolution of the state of Israel as it currently exists.
You see the problem, surely?
Ummm... Take it up with Germany?
Germany doesn't have jurisdiction on servers hosted in Austria. This "German law" defense doesn't make the remotest amount of sense.
Germany is doing plenty of extra-judicial repression of pro-Palestine activism. Jurisdiction doesn't matter.
These laws are AFAIK in Austria similar to those in Germany, and Austrian police will share the contact details of those responsible for publication who happen to be people living in Germany. The server location alone is not the only criteria.
You can't call for the end of israel, a state started by ethnically cleansing the Palestinians and stealing their land. You don't realize why thats a problem?
Take it up with Germany, the country in which they live.
What, you're scared of getting harrassed by your government for wrongthink on your hobby project? You sir are the actual fascist! We'll defederate! Can't let any of those instance users access ours. đ¤Ą
Hamas is the reaction to a century of genocidal settler colonialism. Read The Wretched of the Earth.
I mean, you can, if you're a piece of shit.
If Zionists don't want terror maybe they should stop stealing shit and torturing children.
I stand with Ghorman and condemn the Empire's action towards them without supporting the rebel terrorists. Pro-rebel supporters don't understand that the rebels don't have good intentions.
Hamas is a symptom of an oppressive nazi genocidal regime