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 @[email protected] 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)
Oh shit, the (White) Power Rankings heating up as feddit takes up an unexpected lead against stormfront.world
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.
Didn’t blaja already defed them?
Nah, that was feddit.uk
Shot you’re right. I forgot they were two separate instances tbh.
Better yet I am trying to get them to add me to their ban list
Beat you to it without even trying hah
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.
They’re going to stand behind the German law on this? smdh
Germans and being complicit because they are “just following laws/orders”. Name a better duo.
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).
Then they should be ranting about how terrible the law is, not defending it.
How much ranting do you think they will be able to do from inside a jail cell?
It’s not illegal to rant about the injustice of these laws… Jfc
It is however illegal for them to allow such material to remain on their servers once they’re 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.
I didn’t say they needed to refuse, but they could make a statement regarding their feelings on this. And they should find a new location for their server…
Ok, so all German mods/admins should be removed of their roles until they move to a country with reasonable freedom of speech laws. Instead they’re enforcing the terrible laws of their home country on the rest of the people in the community, which is bullshit.
The members have a choice to leave if they don’t like the rules.
And you can leave your country if you don’t like the laws. But that’s not reality
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?
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.
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’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.
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You can criticize Zionism as an ideology, but you can’t call for its end.
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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.
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.
Germany is doing plenty of extra-judicial repression of pro-Palestine activism. Jurisdiction doesn’t matter.
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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. 🤡
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.
So if that’s not the case, that does mean Germany is not fascist? Or are they fascist and is their policy justified?
You’re 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.
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.
German police gonna arrest Austrian based admins?
The admins responsible for the Lemmy instance AFAIK live in Germany.
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.
Wow, real mask off moment, though they were using the “German law” pretext for a while now.
For a server hosted in Austria 🤡
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 🤦
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? 🙄
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.
Nah they’re just wimps
Shhh you’re thinking too much, these people only want knee-jerk reactionary feely feels to guide your opinions
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
You watched some video of some civilians getting hurt in a war zone and formed all your opinions about the conflict based on your emotional response to that, so yeah, you are being reactionary.
germans “just following orders” again?
Germans should listen to Namibians a bit more. You don’t get to play favourites with your genocide victims.
You know what? I’m gonna pro Palestine even harder
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?
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.
But have you thought but the guy doing the genocide asshole?!?!
How dare we ignore the trauma of those committing violent oppression?!
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?
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 refugees for free in the USA. I’ve had ICE show up to my doorstep before.
Incredible work, comrade. 🫡
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.
What I’m doing is illegal in my jurisdiction, ICE showed up for a reason. The law can eat my ass
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.
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.
~ Average german defense for their complicity in the 1940s.
“Look it’s the law, disobeying the law is bad, I must obey the law and report my local
Jewspro-Palestine thought crime.”The irony of all the armchair warriors here is too thick 🤦 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.
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 😅
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 🙄
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’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 once 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 as fighting.
I also literally did tell you how I’m 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.
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
