Feddit.org admins have responded to the recent controversy about the pro-Israel censorship on !europe@feddit.org and elsewhere on their instance. I thought I’d repost it here for greater visibility (since it’s posted in a mainly German language comm). Also, there’s a fair bit of comment removal going on in there, and the contents are not being shown in the modlog, so it’s a bit hard to tell what’s being removed and how it’s affecting the discussion.

TLDR: They stand fully behind the mods of !europe@feddit.org and their actions (Edit: Because the law, or at least the way the law is being enforced, says they have to)

!Europe@feddit.org mods have also spoken up: https://lemsha.re/feddit.org/post/12550375 (https://feddit.org/post/12550375). Their stance seems to be “We live in Germany, and we don’t want the cops breaking down our door. Here’s some examples”. And that’s totally reasonable, I get that and if I lived under that law I’d be behaving the same way. The question then is, should the biggest europe-centric comm be hosted and modded in such a way that criticism about one of Europe’s most powerful nations isn’t allowed?

Alternative Europe-centric comm, if you’re looking for something censorship-free: !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com

You can find their post here: https://lemsha.re/feddit.org/post/12529640 (https://feddit.org/post/12529640)

Previous post about their behaviour: https://lemsha.re/sh.itjust.works/post/37918115 (https://sh.itjust.works/post/37918115)

@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com, let me know if this is outside the boundaries of this comm and I’ll move it elsewhere. I’m mainly posting here as a follow up to the previous post.

Quote of their post follows:

Hello everyone,

in the last few days there have been some accusations against the moderators of !europe@feddit.org as well as against our admin team of being Nazis or Zionists, mainly because of the way of dealing with criticism of Israel.

We explicitly reject these accusations and will not tolerate such accusations. In particular, people who accuse others in this way without any concrete objective reason are not welcome on feddit.org. This is already covered by our rule of respectful interaction.

First of all, we would like to remind you that the use of feddit.org must be compliant with the rights and regulations of the DACH region. This is explicitly mentioned in our instance rules, and includes Germany (D), Austria (A) and Switzerland (CH). The infrastructure of feddit.org is maintained by the Fediverse Foundation, a non-profit association in Austria. Our Admin team, which takes care of the instance wide moderation, organization and supporting infrastructure operations, is based in Germany. Since we primarily target the German speaking coutries, we also try to comply with laws and regulations of Switzerland.

Even if we do not have to actively search for violations of the law, it is necessary to intervene after becoming aware of them. This includes, for example when moderators or admins receive messages about posts or comments, but also when such content is discovered by chance when browsing Lemmy.

https://www.wko.at/internetrecht/providerhaftung

In the case of “hosting”, the service provider has limited liability if the provider

  • has no actual knowledge of specific unlawful activities or content and is not aware of any facts or circumstances with regard to claims for damages from which the unlawful activity or content is obvious, and
  • as soon as it obtains this knowledge or awareness, takes swift action to block access to the illegal content or to remove it.

Relevant criminal offenses include the following:

Legal instruments against the dissemination of anti-Semitic statements or statements condoning terrorist acts of the German Parliament (German)

excerpt, unofficial translation

Translated through deepl.com. May not be fully accurate from a legal perspective.

  • From 2.1.1 Criminal condoning of criminal acts

According to Section 140 No. 2 StGB, anyone who publicly condones certain types of unlawful acts listed in Sections 140, 138 and 126 StGB in a manner that is likely to disturb the public peace is liable to prosecution. Such related offenses include murder (§ 211 StGB), manslaughter (§ 212 StGB), genocide (§ 6 VStGB), crimes against humanity (§ 7 VStGB), war crimes (§§ 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12 VStGB) and aggression (§ 13 VStGB), but also various offenses directed against sexual self-determination or personal freedom…”

  • From 2.1.2 Incitement to hatred

Pursuant to Section 130(1) StGB, anyone who, in a manner likely to disturb the public peace, 1. incites hatred against a national, racial, religious or ethnic group, against parts of the population or against an individual because of their membership of a designated group or part of the population, incites violence or arbitrary measures or 2. attacks the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously denigrating or defaming a designated group, parts of the population or an individual because of their membership of a designated group or part of the population"(…)”1. distributes or makes available to the public any content (Section 11(3)) or offers, provides or makes available to a person under the age of eighteen any content (Section 11(3)) that a) incites violence or arbitrary measures against persons or groups of persons referred to in letter a), or c) attacks the human dignity of persons or groups of persons referred to in letter a) by insulting, maliciously denigrating or defaming them, or 2. produces, obtains, supplies, keeps in stock, offers, advertisements or undertakes to import or export content referred to in number 1 letters a to c (§ 11 paragraph 3) in order to use it in the sense of number 1 or to enable another person to make such use of it.”

  • From 2.1.3 Incitement to hatred related to crimes under international law

"As of December 2022, the new criminal offense of incitement to hatred related to a crime under international law was introduced in Section 130 (5) StGB. According to this, it is a criminal offense to publicly condone an act of the type specified in Sections 6 to 12 of the German Criminal Code against one of the majorities of persons specified in Section 130 (1) No. 1 of the German Criminal Code in a manner that is likely to incite hatred or violence against such a majority of persons and to disturb public peace…”

  • From 2.1.4 Formation and support of terrorist organizations

Pursuant to Section 129a(1) StGB, “(1) Whoever establishes an association (Section 129(2)) whose purposes or whose activities are directed towards 1. murder (§ 211) or manslaughter (§ 212) or genocide (§ 6 of the International Criminal Code) or crimes against humanity (§ 7 of the International Criminal Code) or war crimes (§§ 8, 9, 10, 11 or § 12 of the International Criminal Code) or 2. offenses against personal freedom in the cases of § 239a or § 239b (…), or whoever participates in such an association as a member ”

  • From 2.1.5 Disseminating propaganda material of terrorist organizations and using their emblems

“Finally, it is also a punishable offense to disseminate propaganda material of terrorist organizations and to use their emblems (Sections 86, 86a StGB).”

Section 130 Incitement of masses

excerpt, unofficial translation

Translated through deepl.com. May not be fully accurate from a legal perspective.

(3) Whoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the child indicated in section 6 (1) of the Code of Crimes against International Law in a manner suited to causing a disturbance of the public peace incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine.

(4) Whoever publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner which violates the dignity of the victims by approving, glorifying or justifying National Socialist tyranny and arbitrary rule incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or a fine.

Some further links, mostly in German:

In this instance, we fully support the moderators of !europe@feddit.org to potentially remove too much rather than too little in case of legal uncertainties.

One of the triggers for the current debate is this post, which followed the removal of a comment comparing National Socialism with the current situation in Israel, which can be considered a trivialization of National Socialism. Such statements can, among other things, lead to imprisonment. Among other things, the post claimed that the removal had a Zionist motive, an accusation that should always be supported by appropriate evidence and prior to which it should be ruled out that there are alternative explanations.

We will not be removing every comment that goes even remotely in this direction, but we reserve the right to permanently ban users from feddit.org who make unfounded accusations, such as labeling our instance, admins, moderators, or other users as Nazis or Zionists, without substantial supporting arguments. This is especially the case when this is recurring behavior and not an isolated incident.

This includes content such as this post by @Deceptichum@quokk.au, who was banned from our instance shortly before that post due to multiple incitements of violence and terrorism. This person also seems to be the admin of the instance quokk.au, or at least to have good relations to the admin, since we received a censure on Fediseer from quokk.au around the same time, in which we are being accused of being Zionists and Nazis, and @Deceptichum@quokk.au has suggested [to defederate quokk.au from us].

If this censure by quokk.au is not withdrawn in a timely manner, we will defederate quokk.au from our side for these unsubstantiated and untrue accusations. quokk.au is a relatively small instance with only a few local users, which tried to build an alternative news community that is not on one of the “big” instances. Unfortunately, this community also seems to be a poor alternative if this is how their admin typically acts.

:::

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
    27·
    2 days ago

    I’m going to let this up, since it might affect future posts in YPTB. But I think we need some sort of [tag] to assign to these posts to make them easily findable in the comm. It can’t be [meta] since that should be about comm-internals. Any ideas?

  • Omega@discuss.online
    5·
    8 hours ago

    Just because they speak German doesn’t mean their servers have to be hosted in Germany

    I rather see a fundraising effort and a temporary lock on Comms related to politics just to fix this.

    They doubled down, so I don’t expect this happening, I just hope it is shunned and defederated, just like Lemmy was meant to be used.

  • Draconic NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    9·
    15 hours ago

    I saw this the other day and in that time I immediately deleted my account on Feddit.org. I’m not going to associate myself with this server if they are going to uphold and support Zionism. I don’t care if it is for German law or not. Also their whining and complaining about defederation is laughable and makes them seem more petty than lemmy.ml, who didn’t whine and complain and threaten counter defederation when they got blocked by any of these other servers.
    This is a historic moment because it’s the first time that a server I’ve joined has ended up becoming one of the few servers I actively work to embargo however I feasibly can.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
    3·
    17 hours ago

    I’m personally not a fan of the legal situation, but you can’t mod or admin from prison and evading a country’s law is pretty hard in the long run if you live in that country.

    The question then is, should the biggest europe-centric comm be hosted and modded in such a way that criticism about one of Europe’s most powerful nations isn’t allowed?

    You can discuss whether this legal situation is wrong or not and whether the German government should support certain countries, though, if you don’t include stuff like “you’re a nazi/zionist/etc.” (usually unhelpful, anyway) or “this country should be destroyed” (I don’t think it’s super necessary for discussing Germany, unless you also want to destroy Germany).

    That said, I agree that it’s probably better to move English-language discussions of that topic to a different instance; German law enforcement is pretty gung-ho on that topic and frequently breaches the law itself.

    • 野麦さん@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      5·
      8 hours ago

      Simping for the government is passivity. It’s complacency. Hey, watch this: I want to assassinate the leader of AfD! With a bullet! To the temple!

      I steal shit, I have sex in public, I advocate for violence and I’ll do it proudly. If you’re not willing to go to prison for what you believe in, then you don’t really believe it now do you?

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        3 hours ago

        You’re so based for this.

        If you’re not willing to go to prison for what you believe in, then you don’t really believe it now do you?

        Not at all. I’d rather go to prison for my ethics and morals than sell out and be a good little mindless worker drone, obeying all the laws I am told.

  • Quokka@quokk.au
    15·
    1 day ago

    I don’t think they realise I can’t see any messages from them as we de-federated days ago. As for the record, I am not @Deceptichum but I rarely use Lemmy and trust their input here and what they’ve shown me is validation enough.

    The fact that Feddit.org is more upset about the comparison to Nazi’s than they are for allowing genocide deniers to exist on their instance is reason enough for our position to continue. If Feddit.org can show serious systematic changes in how it deals with its hate speech problem, we may consider changing our stance in the future.

  • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    8·
    1 day ago

    I had some completely unrelated issue with those mods. But it led to me abandoning and blocking that community.

    Being a mod is not easy. No everyone is fit for it. I’m bot specially harsh as I, myself, am not fitted to be a mod.

    There’s not shame in stepping back if things got out of hand. If things are going so complicated, specially with severe legal issues involved, and potentially a lot of people not happy with the way they do things, maybe is better just to stop and let others try to mod an EuropeanCentric community.

    I’m going to go and try !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com I’ve always felt great affinity with how decisions are made in this instance, so I’m hopeful.

  • JessicaEnglish
    31·
    2 days ago

    I blocked their instance. I did comment on that post, and the replies weren’t worth responding to. They can argue the granular details of what Zionism is, and is not—I don’t care. I could be factually incorrect in my replies (I am human and capable of error) but I still stand by them. At the end of the day, it’s not worth the time and effort to engage any further with them.

    I’m going to get back to the leftist memes and shitposts, just as god intended.

    I still stand firmly with the people of Palestine, and hope to be able to support them further from here on out. I don’t have any extra money to donate, nor do I have the time to be able to go out and protest (I work 3rd shift and have to sleep during the day). But I will try my best to do more.

    The Palestinians deserve for their voices to be heard loud and wide. Fuck Israel, free Palestine.

  • Mystic Mushroom [Ze/Zir]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    28·
    2 days ago

    So that the gist of it is that they’re doubling down on the Zionist apologia and the IHRA definition of antisemitism basically. And are trying to frame all the issues as some trolls making accusations against them instead of something to consider. Good to know.

    Just so everyone is aware I made a !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com community thinking this might happen. If you want a Europe community that isn’t run by Zionists or an instance committed to an actively Zionist policy you should check it out.

    Also IMO as much as @Deceptichum@quokk.au may cause issues, if Quokk.au wants to defederate that is their admin’s decision and trying to blame another user because their admin chose to defederate is disgusting and childish. Shame on Feddit.org for acting like children on the playground calling someone else a “tattle-tale” for getting actioned by admins after being called out.

  • Count042@lemmy.mlEnglish
    22·
    2 days ago

    None of this addressed the locking of post regarding the current genocide with 0-1 posts.

    They are actively removing the ability to discuss, regardless of opinion, Israel’s genocide and only Israel’s genocide.

    • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.worksOP
      8·
      2 days ago

      None of this addressed the locking of post regarding the current genocide with 0-1 posts.

      That was previously explained here: https://slrpnk.net/comment/15701097. I think it made things worse, but hindsight is 20/20.

      They are actively removing the ability to discuss, regardless of opinion, Israel’s genocide and only Israel’s genocide.

      That is true. For legal reasons, so the blame should fall on the govt of Germany, but true nonetheless

      • Wobble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        16·
        2 days ago

        This is using “for legal reasons” very broadly, too broadly and shifting any accountability away from the moderation.

        If entire country cannot be discussed “for legal reasons” on a large Europe community then should be a strong justification to move the community to somewhere that it is not a problem.

        • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          14 hours ago

          Have you read the post? There are 3 things you cannot say about Israel:

          1. Israel is as bad as the nazis
          2. Calling for the (violent) destruction of Israel
          3. The slogan “From the river to the sea”

          Anything else has zero risk and can be freely said.

          The first one is objectively speaking a hyperbole so it’s not necessary for discussions. Use any other genocide to draw a parallel to such as the US’s genocide of the indigenous population. The second one can be interpreted too vaguely but you’re save if you just put the word “peaceful” anywhere when advocating for a one state solution. The third one is a slogan that shouldn’t be banned but is, so just don’t say it.

          Yes, this law is too broad and designed to criminalize discussion about Israel. In a moderated forum this law is trivial to follow without changing the message behind any comment.

        • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.worksOP
          5·
          2 days ago

          I’m not going to condemn people for choosing to follow the law while they live there and without knowing the context of their situation. The law is what has to change.

          • FelixCress@lemmy.world
            6·
            1 day ago

            Rubbish.

            Edit: to clarify, law is being used as an excuse here. It doesn’t need to change, it is feddit admins who need to change.

  • FelixCress@lemmy.world
    15·
    2 days ago

    Dear admins of feddit,

    Instead of suspending overeager mod and apologising, you have doubled down.

    If you are afraid of “police knocking to your door” (which is moronic by the way), what about removing these cretinous mods and migrating the community to another instance? I suggest the one you mention in your post.

  • Cait
    12·
    2 days ago

    A lot of comments don’t seem to understand what’s the explanation, in essence they say comparing the Gaza genocide to the Nazi era, downplays the Nazi era, which is illegal in Germany. Its not about criticism of Zionism, but comparing it to the Nazis era

  • surprised pikachu@feddit.orgEnglish
    13·
    2 days ago

    Also, there’s a fair bit of comment removal going on in there, and the contents are not being shown in the modlog, so it’s a bit hard to tell what’s being removed and how it’s affecting the discussion.

    this is unfortunately how lemmy currently works when it comes to instance bans. we would have to manually remove every single comment of those accounts separately for them to show up in modlog. if you look at the ages of the accounts and the names being used it should already be clear that those are all just troll accounts. if you’ve run across “anti yank” accounts in the past, these seem to be operated by the same person, with their only purpose being to troll by trying to stir up more shit on current drama (they seem to always be aware of the latest drama on lemmy) and frequently call americans and german genociders, not even being consistent in their own arguments.

    you can see some of the original contents here:

    spoiler




    these are all sockpuppet accounts with the same agenda of making lemmy a less desirable place.

    • grue@lemmy.world
      1·
      15 hours ago

      you can see some of the original contents here:

      Thanks, that’s been more useful than anything else in helping me figure out which side to support.

      Spoiler: it’s not yours.

      Removing comments saying things like “just create a secular state that respects people’s right” should’ve been your “are we the baddies?” realization moment.