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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • That’s all well and good, I agree with virtually all you said. It’s certainly the admins’ right to block or de-federate any community they want, based on risk or just because they feel like it, I have no issue with that. It’s simply my personal belief that discussion of crime is not a crime. Direct links to illegal content should not be allowed, but discussion about piracy in general should carry no more risk that learning about murder in a criminology class, which does not need to be banned just because it’s teaching people things they could in theory use to get away with murder.


  • I think we’re close to saying the same thing, I’m in total agreement that linking to illegal content should be banned, it’s the uneven enforcement of that principle across communities that I think is an issue. I know .world isn’t hosted in the US, so you don’t enjoy broad 1st Amendment protections for free speech, but does anyone really think that discussing crime is itself a crime? If I say “here’s a scenario for how a group of people could rob a bank” what crime is that? If I say “hey I think there’s people dealing drugs on this street corner” what crime is that? And I can of course appreciate a host not wanting to expose themselves to any sort of legal liability, that’s their free choice, they own the server. I’m talking about, on principle, what’s wrong with allowing a community to exist so long as that community does not post or link to illegal content? That principle seems to work just fine for virtually every other topic but when it comes to discussion of filesharing, torrents, and the like, then suddenly the “don’t link to illegal content” principle isn’t good enough and it becomes “we must ban this entire concept for our own safety.” That’s the admins’ right and I have no issue if they want to do that, I just want to point out the glaring double standard between moderating communities so they don’t break the rules and banning communities so they don’t break the rules.


  • Linking to or posting content that’s illegal or in violation of copyright should not be allowed, but you don’t have to ban an entire community to do that, you just have to enforce the same rules that are in place for every other community on here. Maybe someone can explain this to me, but this seems equivalent to banning a cybersecurity community because encryption get used by bad actors sometimes, so discussion of staying anonymous online needs to be banned since information about staying anonymous online is “sharing the tools and techniques” that could be used in assisting criminal activity. Ditto for cryptocurrency, ditto for secure operating systems, ditto for drugs, guns, and any number of other things where community discussion is allowed but illegal activity is not. I understand the need to draw the line at actually sharing copyrighted content, but discussion of lockpicks or linking to sites that sell lockpicks is not equivalent to going around illegally picking locks, except it seems that is exactly the case when it comes to piracy but no other topics.









  • khepri@lemmy.worldtoComic Strips@lemmy.world*Permanently Deleted*
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    9 months ago

    I’d have to disagree with you on one point, which is that competing sets of facts or evidence do exist in many situations. In a murder trial, for example, the defense team may have evidence that points to innocence, and the prosecution presents evidence that points to guilt. Now weighing one body of evidence against the other, the judge or jury must decide where the line of “beyond a reasonable doubt” or “preponderance of evidence” lies. This is a matter a comparing one set of facts to another set of facts as objectively as possible against known standards and precedents, which, to me, is different than arguing pure opinions (“red is the best color” “no, I like green better”) and also different than inarguable bare facts (“12 people are in this room right now”). Idk, just my 2 cents on it, but to me there can be shades of reasonable debate on differing sets of evidence that aren’t covered by an opinion-fact dichotomy.



  • 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 then talk about how to commit crimes, and get away with it. Because we’re just talking about it right? No one is saying “now go do these things at my direction” we’re just sharing information, innocently, not telling anyone to act a certain way…

    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.



  • Absolutely right. “Impartial” doesn’t mean you’ve never heard of the person, or never seen them on the news, or don’t live near them, or have no opinion of them, or haven’t heard or believe things about what they’ve done. It means just what you said, that whoever is picked will be able to listen to the evidence presented by both sides and make a decision based on that evidence. Apparently a huge number of people believe this is functionally impossible for humans to do, which is pretty sad if you’ve let your politics overwhelm your reason to such a degree that you think no one else can be objective either.

    It’s a classic shithead defense to try and tell a judge “the paper did a piece on my crimes and everyone read it, so I can’t get a fair trial!!” Well guess what, that never works, for anyone, ever. There is no such thing as “too famous” for justice, there is no such thing as “too infamous” for justice. And there is no such thing as “the vast majority of people in NY and DC and GA hate me so badly because of who I am and what I’ve done that no one in those states can be allowed to judge me for my acts.”