Hello World,
following feedback we have received in the last few days, both from users and moderators, we are making some changes to clarify our ToS.
Before we get to the changes, we want to remind everyone that we are not a (US) free speech instance. We are not located in US, which means different laws apply. As written in our ToS, we’re primarily subject to Dutch, Finnish and German laws. Additionally, it is our discretion to further limit discussion that we don’t consider tolerable. There are plenty other websites out there hosted in US and promoting free speech on their platform. You should be aware that even free speech in US does not cover true threats of violence.
Having said that, we have seen a lot of comments removed referring to our ToS, which were not explicitly intended to be covered by our ToS. After discussion with some of our moderators we have determined there to be both an issue with the ambiguity of our ToS to some extent, but also lack of clarity on what we expect from our moderators.
We want to clarify that, when moderators believe certain parts of our ToS do not appropriately cover a specific situation, they are welcome to bring these issues up with our admin team for review, escalating the issue without taking action themselves when in doubt. We also allow for moderator discretion in a lot of cases, as we generally don’t review each individual report or moderator action unless they’re specifically brought to admin attention. This also means that content that may be permitted by ToS can at the same time be violating community rules and therefore result in moderator action. We have added a new section to our ToS to clarify what we expect from moderators.
We are generally aiming to avoid content organizing, glorifying or suggesting to harm people or animals, but we are limiting the scope of our ToS to build the minimum framework inside which we all can have discussions, leaving a broader area for moderators to decide what is and isn’t allowed in the communities they oversee. We trust the moderators judgement and in cases where we see a gross disagreement between moderatos and admins’ criteria we can have a conversation and reach an agreement, as in many cases the decision is case-specific and context matters.
We have previously asked moderators to remove content relating to jury nullification when this was suggested in context of murder or other violent crimes. Following a discussion in our team we want to clarify that we are no longer requesting moderators to remove content relating to jury nullification in the context of violent crimes when the crime in question already happened. We will still consider suggestions of jury nullification for crimes that have not (yet) happened as advocation for violence, which is violating our terms of service.
As always, if you stumble across content that appears to be violating our site or community rules, please use Lemmys report functionality. Especially when threads are very active, moderators will not be able to go through every single comment for review. Reporting content and providing accurate reasons for reports will help moderators deal with problematic content in a reasonable amount of time.
Doesn’t the very concept of jury nullification only apply to cases where a crime has already been committed and then a jury is called upon to reach a verdict on said crime? This honestly reads as mental gymnastics. Or perhaps it could be worded better. Do you mean to say that jury nullification will be fine going forward, no matter what the crime, but you still must forbid calls to violence against named or otherwise identifiable individuals or specific groups or people and/or the glorification of violence in general? This would be better wording I think, though still hard to distinguish and enforce consistently. I find the concept of “jury nullification for future crimes” hard to grasp.
Sounds like what they mean is that they don’t want the topic of jury nullification to factor into a decision to commit a crime. If the crime is already committed, the topic can not affect that decision since it was already made. Before a crime, they take the discussion to be an incentive to commit a crime. Essentially, “don’t be too worried about being prosecuted, the jury can just find you effectively innocent.” It can come off as encouraging crime.
Yes it can come off as encouraging crime. So what is the outcome now? Jury nullification ok or not ok? You cannot enforce a rule based on conditional future outcomes. If one wants to eliminate the chance of potentially encouraging future crimes, one needs to ban any and all forms of jury nullification. Was this the decision made? I am unclear on this.
If someone got murked, you may talk about about jury nullification.
If someone pissed people off and they want him murked (but that someone is still un-murked), don’t.
Yes I think that’s the intent. The first is jury nullification. The second is a call to violence. Two very different things, even though crossing the line from one to the other is super easy on a public forum. I just don’t think the post by the admins phrased that well, that’s all.
I think it actually goes further than that. They’re trying to protect themselves from being liable in the event that someone uses Lemmy to actually plan a crime with the intent of not being found guilty by also planning a jury nullification. And the wording doesn’t reflect that.