When this instance first started, I don’t think it was fully anticipated how large it would get. The place where this instance was when I first stepped up as admin was wholly unsustainable long term. There was little direction as to what the instance’s intentions as a website were, and the specific intentions it seemed to lean towards (being a sort of reddit 2.0) is not something we have the ability to handle. Neither monetarily nor legally.
The expectations that this instance specifically would be replacing reddit nsfw content entirely is not realistic, and the expectations that have been had for what all of lemmy is capable of has been much higher than what the backend side of things is at right now. Rome was not built in a day, and the same is true for communities of this nature. We are utilizing a platform based on a philosophy that hasn’t been widely used outside of email since the early Internet, while now having to work the laws and limitations that the current Internet now presents as well. It’s an experiment, and just like all other communities we have made mistakes and are trying our best while figuring this out together. This is not a business, we are not shareholders, we are simply passionate volunteers.
Right now, our team has been paying attention to concerns and feedback that have been raised. We are currently actively engaged in a discussion of what the next steps are from here. My hasty implementation of the current restrictive content policy was not something to do long term but an attempt to reign in a community with what felt to have little restrictions and many issues popping up. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes of managing a community like this. The current policy as it stands right now, has been a band aid while we discuss further how to move forward. And we have been.
And thankfully we have a much bigger back-end team than before. What has helped the most to provide insight is that we have a back-end team member who has active experience in hosting adult websites within the legal span of the law. We also have backend team members who are helping to build mod tools not just for lemmyNSFW but with active collaboration with others across instances as well.
As we have discussed rule changes and throwing things at the wall, our biggest aspect has been determining if we are on the same page as a team. Unfortunately, a now previous back-end team member decided that he was not. And that’s ok. However last night, instead of moving forward and deciding that our ethos as a team moving forward isn’t for them there was a post that was made that compiled our original rough draft for new content guidelines and attempted to pass them off as that is going to be our full go to as a community. It isn’t. We are discussing things and hashing things out as a team still but have made significant progress moving beyond what was discussed. When changes occur, we will make a post clarifying such changes. We ask for patience, please.
I feel like there’s an air of suspicion that the admins (I guess myself included, except I really don’t want to consider myself an admin outside of infra and code) are not being truthful. I think padded was frustrated, and that happens when you debate about something you’re passionate about. I don’t blame him, we all make mistakes and overreact, myself and the other admins included.
But here’s what happened. I’m eastern US timezone, so all this was between at 7pm-1am for me after an already long day, but never the less, we engaged in debate over the rules for over 5 hours straight. For context, Yay sent a screenshot that he woke up to over 1500 messages from us. I went to sleep at 1 and conversations continued.
It started with Mike proposing (what some of us felt were) draconian rules. I typically stay out of the “general admin” room, but gavi asked me to come give feedback. so I did and we all started discussing them. After about 2.5 hours of debate (probably like 930pm), Mike asked for people to use an emoji to show how they feel about them, the result was 2 thumbs up (gavi, mike) and 2 thumbs down (me, padded) - OUT OF 14 PEOPLE. It was not “a vote” - it was purely to gauge sentiment. And all it did was draw more discussion, almost no one even put a reaction except mike, gavi, me, and padded.
Padded got heated during the discussion and said he felt like he was repeating himself, even though I was agreeing with him and that’s kinda just how hard debates go. Eventually, I made it clear that I would not sysadmin a database of people’s IDs who want to post on this instance. Others chimed-in in agreement. The idea was dead before it started. it was also pointed out repeatedly that the tools would never exist to enforce “source only” and padded made good points that “sourced” content can be faked with a PH logo pasted over it.
His last message was this:
Then almost immediately after that I said this:
In my opinion, padded seemed unhappy with everything, it felt like his stance was that if we didn’t allow it all then we shouldn’t allow anything and we have no right being the “lemmynsfw” instance. So then padded posted summaries of the draft that no one agreed to, and then got banned with a shitty message in the modlog and the post purged as a reactionary response. Mike got reprimanded for the ban message, we regretted purging it, but what’s done is done. TBH based on the way purging works I imagine it’s still available on other instances if you really care. But we can’t “unpurge” messages, we SHOULDN’T change modlog messages.
But after he left, the conversation turned to how do we handle, and what are our legal responsibilities relating to, CSAM , how do we geoblock virginia/utah/etc, whether loli hentai can get any of us in trouble, how do we even define “loli”, how do we handle “extreme” content on the feed, and how do we determine if CNC is actually CNC and not NC.
And that’s basically still where we are still now, but we’ve made progress and I think we’re all getting on the same page. The past few nights I’ve been digging into lemmy code, including the pict-rs library, to figure out exactly how purging content works, how the federation aspect works, and what changes we need to make our instance safe from legal repercussions, and protect other instances from hosting content they may not be comfortable with.
Regarding purges, the only remaining piece after a purge is in the “admin_purge_log” table which lists the post id, the creator_id, the admin_id, the given reason, and the timestamp. This data is viewable from the “admin view” of the instance, but not to regular users. I don’t believe purges are federated.
Our instance has purged 8 posts, 3 of which were test posts, 1 was padded’s, and 4 others were before I was involved so I don’t actually know. I assume it’s involved with the de-federation ordeal.
That’s the long and short of it. Please remember, Reddit had billions of dollars to pay lawyers to deflect any liability. We don’t. I believe our current donation total is like $200 last we talked, probably more now, and the server costs were like $80 for june and expected to be much higher for July. We’re discussing going out of pocket to get a lawyer. I think a more detailed account of finances will be shared soon.
The finalized content policy will be shared soon for feedback and then hopefully implemented. We’re working on how to be more transparent with communications, server costs, and donations.
This shit is hard, I don’t get why people want to dismiss it as a simple thing. People have gone to jail over this kind of content, and even if we could win in trial, none of us want it to ever come to that.
I just want to write code, lol
Fantastically said.
This is true transparency, with screen captures and everything.
Glad you shed some light on the situation.
I really appreciate the transparency here. Thank you!
Do you think you could give us some insight on the administrative operations? Is gavi or yay or Mikey the “head” admin and ultimately they’re the one making the decisions?
Or is it more of a council that votes on policy? If so, what is the quorum needed? How many admins are actually active? Who are the 14 admins that aren’t listed on the lemmynsfw sidebar (secret admins)? How is the admin team expanding and how is the team deciding who to invite into that executive team? How can users feel confident that admins are diverse and representing their interests versus a specific interest group?
One of the impressions I’ve gotten is that the admin team is especially biased against hentai, and the hentai-related admins all appear to be inactive.
“Council” is the wrong word, and even “admins” is wrong.
The “General Staff” room is where this has been taking place, with the “Technical” room discussing much of the logistics, code, and law.
Gavi is “head admin” as chosen by Yay, this is a role lemmy has in the backend. As a result, he is effectively that. Mike is very knowledgeable about the adult industry and I think we all value his input and his perspective. I have assumed somewhat of “head sysadmin” role for now, but we’ll see how long that stays. Yay is still the owner, and the rest are members who basically responded to Yay’s initial plea for help or otherwise reached out and were accepted. At this point we have a couple folks that aren’t really active anymore, so it’s hard to say.
But we will debate until we feel like we are on the same page, and then the plan is to bring it to the community for feedback. That seems like the only way this can work. Time will tell how successful we are.
“Biased against hentai” is a bit unfair - “inexperienced, concerned, and unsure” is better. I mean, look at this wikipedia page, it’s enormous and there’s so much distinction between countries. Basically we need to enforce different rules for different geographies, and this is a legal and technical nightmare.
Thank you for describing the operations in greater detail.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but frankly it seems to me that your team is cherry picking the laws that you want to enforce.
In reality, >90% of the content here likely violates copyright law and/or privacy law and is illegal in a large swath of jurisdictions. Every year, there are hundreds of people arrested or sued for those crimes, whereas there is no precedent for arrests on fictional bestiality/noncon/dubcon (as far as I am aware). If your team is concerned about legality, I strongly recommend that you review those portions of the law rather than pursuing a unicorn chase on fictional/artistic depictions of content.
Many websites have a critical line in their Terms of Service that users must own the copyright or permission/license from the copyright owners to upload content. Although this is widely disregarded by users on many websites (e.g. Youtube, reddit, twitter), this rule is essential for for the hosting platform lest they be chewed apart by legal authorities. In fact, the entire principal behind a DMCA takedown request is that the party that files it claims that the user who uploaded content does not own the copyright (which should be against the platform’s TOS to begin with).
The legal implication of this is that no content except OC is technically kosher on lemmynsfw.
By choosing to ignore the law with respect to copyright yet aggressively interpret the law respect to fictional depictions of bestiality/dubcon/etc, it appears to me (and I suppose many users) that the admins are eager to ban hentai communities whereas they are reluctant to ban IRL porn communities (many of which also host illegal content).
Keep in mind that many countries also have obscenity laws – although many of these laws are not effectively enforced in many Western countries. Do note that these obscenity laws can be interpreted very loosely, and the UK has taken people to court for “extreme” sex acts such as (consensual) fisting or urethral sounding (although in most cases as far as I’m aware the accused was found not guilty).
Lastly, regarding the variety of laws between countries – the only laws that are effectively relevant is (A) the country the (server) owner resides in and (B) the country the servers are located in. It doesn’t matter if pornography is banned in Iran or Ukraine. Assuming that the server owner and the server itself isn’t located there, Iran has no ability to summon an American citizen overseas to Iranian court. I would, however, advise the porn-distributing American citizen against traveling to Iran, because if they are physically in Iran, there’s always the risk they may be arrested there.
I heard on the grapevine that the server is located in Ukraine though – so perhaps it would be prudent to changes providers on that bullet point.
I don’t believe anywhere has laws that state that website owners/admins are responsible for the content their users upload beyond acting on it once we are informed of infringement. Our responsibility toward copyrighted content begins when a DMCA request is received from the rightful copyright owner.
Part of what we’re working on is the “user agreement” too for the site, specifically that you (the uploader) are responsible for uploading content that you have the rights to upload, and we reserve the right to remove your content if we receive complaints, and possibly ban you if you are getting too many of these strikes.
Copyright is the least of our worries, from our perspective, we qualify as “porn providers,” and that is the definition that we are most focused on and what requirements and responsibilities that carries. Including a big pop up saying “Hey you gotta agree you’re 18 or whatever age your locality requires.”
But most of all, it’s child sex abuse material (CSAM). This is the #1 priority of ours, but loli is still on the radar and a bit worrying, so the focus is to be triple sure we are following the laws (including figuring out which countries laws actually apply).
Again, like I said, we’re basically going out of pocket to talk to a lawyer for this. We’re not trusting our google searches or the advice of posts on the instance. And until then, we’re gonna do the best we can until we get that done.
Speaking to a lawyer is prudent and I think it’s within your best interests to do so.
This is jurisdiction-dependent. While I’m not familiar with Ukraine’s platform versus publisher laws, Section 230 is US law and applies to US hosts and American citizens. I would suggest that you review this with lawyers familiar with the law of the country that @yay (the server owner) resides in and the country that you are hosting in.
As far as I understand, CSAM (for American services/hosts) is also similarly covered under Section 230. Twitter/Reddit/Google isn’t liable for CSAM found on their platform so long as they act promptly to remove it as soon as it is reported.
Personally, I would be a little more concerned than you are regarding copyright, if only because I’ve spent a lot of time in the fan-translation space. Websites that host >90% pirated content (e.g. manga aggregator websites) are much more vulnerable to prosecution under copyright law than a website like reddit, who can argue that they aren’t a piracy website because a minority of their content is infringing copyright and most of it is OC.
Then you don’t understand copyright case history. Safe harbor doesn’t protect you near as much as you think when it’s a clear pattern on the server especially when it’s majority use case.
You’re likely on the hook for several million in copyright lawsuit from rights holders and there’s no warning step they just come down on you one day when the prime function of your service is to infringe. They are not required to go through the dmca process if you’re the target of the suit. Why do you think contentid and similar systems exist? If you aren’t actually trying to keep your service clean of infringing content then you’re going to get curb stomped if you can’t show significant and majority noninfringing use case and that’s not counting the long drawn expensive out legal fight you’d have to make to even try that. Go ask a competent lawyer in the field and they’re not going to give you a rosy picture.
Our goal is to be a safe space for content creators incl models, artists, photographers, writers, and more to share their nsfw content, to have nsfw discussions, and to aggregate links to other sites where content is hosted safely (PH, RedGifs, etc). We do not aim to just have stolen copyrighted content on the site, and if that becomes an issue we’ll address it.
FYI, just so you’re aware – everything that you say in an official capacity as a representative of LemmyNSFW can be used against you as evidence in court.
Consequently, you can’t say: “We do not aim to just have stolen copyrighted content on the site”
As that indicates that your website intends to permit (some) copyright infringing content.
You’re basically forced to communicate: “We do not permit stolen copyrighted content” (irregardless of how tightly or loosely you privately intend to moderate the content). Alternatively, you should add a disclaimer to your posts that “these views/messages do not represent an official stance of LemmyNSFW and is a personal/individual statement” (something like that).
tldr: Just be very careful of what you say, especially as the content in these discussion threads are easily saved across fediverse instances, and people can always dig up your past statements if something ever goes to court.
Yeah their lawyer would have a fuckin stroke if they saw just that one sentence now federated out for posterity.
Jesus. Ya’ll need to touch grass if you’re writing this much about a porn lemmy instance lmao.
It’s an issue that I’ve dealt with for a long time, so of course I have a lot to say about it.
Irregardless of how much you like anime or manga, fan translations are illegal and everyone in the fan translation community knows this. People have seen serious consequences for copyright infringement, and our community has spent many years trying to figure out how to engage in this activity without getting completely busted.
I hope that you don’t geoblock states. I understand if you must do it, but the age verification laws those states are trying to create were already ruled unconstitutional years ago by the US Supreme Court. I guess we can’t predict how current courts will rule on it, and I know being small you certainly wouldn’t have the funds to defend any lawsuit. But, with some exceptions (Pornhub being the big one), most sites have chosen to ignore those laws.
Anyway I hope I’m not too negative in my tone. I really appreciate how thoughtful you guys have been, and support whatever direction you end up going in.
Just my opinion, but I say it’s better to err on the side of caution. The big players will sort it out in time. The risk is being taken on by those volunteering their time to keep the site running, while the reward is primarily just going to the rest of us. That being said, it’s also easy for me to say since I don’t live in a state with those laws.
I absolutely agree with you, and don’t want the site operators to take on more risk than they have to. It sucks to have to try to comply with an unconstitutional law, but if it’s necessary to minimize risk, I totally understand.
Geo blocks are kind of a bad solution to a bad problem, especially since geolocation can be very inaccurate. People outside the states in question get blocked based on IP just because the network infrastructure is tied together. Heck, in the past I’ve seen my IP address get geolocated more than 1000 miles from my physical location.
Anyway, I understand why it’s a very effective solution from a legal / CYA point of view. The laws themselves may be illegal / unconstitutional, but like you said, only the big players are going to have the resources to challenge it in court.
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There seems to be a huge issue with administration lately, but you seem like one of the good ones. If things get too out of hand, I encourage you to share your contributions to the rest of the wider lemmy community, as it would be a shame for your talents to go to waste.
No one expected perfection this early. Mistakes were inevitable and I’ve made my fair share. I have been on the other side of things like this and I totally get it.
But JESUS HAMBUGER CHRIST…
The way they banned @PaddedPerson and now @NSFWusername is totally unacceptable. I’m done. I tried. I really did. But I can’t.
(inb4 this post/account is banned for 47 Years)
This is probably going to upset you to hear, but NSFWusername wasn’t contributing to anything except demanding we allow loli/shota, telling people that the instance was failing, and telling them to go to the other instance to have more freedom.
Overall, we’re fine with advertising other instances, but that instance has been problematic for us, and right now we need to focus. I’ve asked the team to stop using decades long bans, I’ve adjusted NSFWusername to just 7 days so that everyone can have a chance to cool off. I’ve also asked for better reasons on ban/purge/deletion.
Frankly, we’re just not interested in the discussion of “how to be more like burggit” - we just need to do our thing the best we can. That bridge has kinda been burned for now, we can revisit rebuilding relationships once we get our feet under us and feel like the instance is in a better place.
What about this is a bannable offense? The demands for content seem warnable but overall this seems like some serious power abuse.
None of the above justified a purge of all their posts/comments.
I want to be clear, I do not condone the actions of those other two users, nor the content that is hosted on that other instance. But something’s gotta change. This is unsustainable. I don’t know if that other site is for me yet, but I figure it’s probably better than whatever the hell this has become and at least worth a shot.
I’ve just seen one of your posts on the other site. You say here you don’t condone, but over there you say you “admire”… seems a bit of a contradiction.
Then the way you’ve thrown everyone here under the bus for being cautious with regards to drawn and animated content makes it clear to me you have no idea where this content stands legally in some places around the world.
Like it or not some types of illustrated content are illegal in some places. It’s not a question of taste, it’s the fucking law.
To criticise admins here for not wanting to go to jail is just plain stupid of you.
What’s happening here is measure and caution. This could be sustainable.
What’s happening elsewhere is doing to get people put in jail.
The Lemmy Federation is exploding and this will begin to draw more attention. Getting this stuff right matters.
I love smut. But being reckless is unsustainable, and thus I appreciate the caution and restraint exercised here.
It gives me hope that something attainable can be built.
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Again, I do not agree with everything there. I still dunno if it’s for me yet. And I never expected everything to be permitted under the sun here. I fully understand the risks of a NSFW site, and I don’t know how many other ways I can say that I get it. But I’m leaving for more reasons than just their approach to content. I “admire” their supposed stance on speech, and I don’t want to wait for the other shoe to drop.
Anyone who thinks having people give out their IDs should never be apart of any team. That’s fucked up.
That’s the law on the production side. It just shows they’ve got someone knowledgeable from running a porn site, but not an untrusted content host. Try not to be harsh on that it’s an easy mistake to make.