Hey all,
In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.
We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we’ve done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.
ToS Additions
That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.
Regarding misinformation, we’ve tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:
- Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
- We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
- When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
- Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
- Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
- Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.
By-laws Addition
We’ve also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.
This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we’ve created as a result of what has happened over the last week.
Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.
https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation
https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT:
We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
EDIT 2 (2024-08-31):
We’ve posted a response, sorry for the delay.
👉 https://lemmy.world/post/19264848 👈
removed
Don’t these rules make communities about BBQ or cooking meat in general against the rules? BBQ does put “any living being in imminent danger”.
Walk into a vet office and tell them you want your cat to eat a vegan diet and watch their eyes roll at the speed of sound out of their skull
This is why I left .world in the first place, and that was even when their censorship was understandable. That’s the beauty of Lemmy.
I’m glad to see site-wide action taken against the spread of harmful disinformation.
As noted in my post on the “moderation incident”, by adding more subjectivity to the rules, you are opening the door to even more instance moderator misconduct. There is already evidence of how that would go.
Rooki felt it right to intervene in the !vegan cat food thread (and got a pat on the back with the new rules made to justify their actions), then not only took no issue with comments like “Meat is not something diabetics need to worry about.” but also fueled the fire in the same thread by saying “To be honest linking something like meat to death of people is like saying everybody that breathed air died.”
So much for taking action against harmful dietary advice.
Lol
Don’t feel there are many people who actually use the phrase “free speech absolutist” these days, as a forward self-identification, who have much personal integrity or actual understanding of what that phrase might mean.
What value it may have had as an identifier was destroyed by Musk IMO.
free speech absolutism is the same as any other absolutism, it’s silly and likely not going to work very well.
Free speech absolutists just think that being an asshole harassing people and lying is socially acceptable if they so desired.
I’m a free speech absolutist, but only for “Free as in free beer”, and “speech as in Oscar acceptance speech”. Don’t let people charge to hear what they have to say, and start loudly playing music over them if they go on too long
It means they want the right to spew misinformation knowingly or otherwise and not get in trouble for it.
I’m of the opinion that people attempting ‘legitimate’ claims on unsourced dangerous posts should be stamped out with impunity regardless of a forum being more free speech.
It’s one thing to say you believe this despite insufficient evidence. It’s another thing to willingly present near universally incorrect information as truth just because one study might call it into question.
We learned a near decade ago now that deplatforming hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, and misinformation stops it in it’s tracks.
If you want to share your bullshit with other people you know in your heart of hearts is wrong, go to Signal lol.
No disrespect to Signal. They have a place as a secure messaging that’s mostly by invite only for those groups. Not publicly viewable forums.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07524-8
The FBI and governments don’t try to shut down these places for no reason lol.
I agree, and also of the opinion that a significant portion of people who yell the loudest about “freedom of speech” are only doing so because they want to force others to listen to what is essentially bullshit, and any attempts to call them out is somehow impinging on a non-existent right to free speech. And I do hope it’s understood that there is no right to free speech other than pertaining to the government; mods and site operators are free to edit, block, delete or silence as they see fit no matter what we think. However, I do agree there is some form of social contract to at least enforce a perceived right to free speech in society.
Personally, I have become intolerant of intolerance - especially of the kind that believes it has the right to spew what is objectively bullshit.
Personally, I have become intolerant of intolerance - especially of the kind that believes it has the right to spew what is objectively bullshit.
that makes sense, given the pardox of tolerant societies exists.
You have to be intolerant of some level of intolerance otherwise your society is no longer tolerant, it’s that simple.
We learned a near decade ago now that deplatforming hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, and misinformation stops it in it’s tracks.
Uh … source? Really not sure what world you’re living in, but I’m living in one with covid conspiracy theories.
Carrolade
Uh … source? Really not sure what world you’re living in, but I’m living in one with covid conspiracy theories.
Are you really fucking asking for sauce when there’s two literally already in the comment and somehow got two other people to agree with you lol?
Yea neither of those says anything got anywhere near stopped in its tracks. Slowing the spread on the one platform where accounts were removed is not terribly impressive. lol?
lookin gauche
I just want to say thank you, and I appreciate the team’s efforts to be excellent to each other.
Oh my drama.
While I disagree with the stance the vegans took in this. The mods reaction to the situation was way out of proportion, and it definitely seems like you’re updating the ToS to justify what he did retroactively instead of addressing his behavior, which was way out of line.
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your (the site admin’s) interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
Leaving the rules open to interpretation only leads to disagreements and arguments. It is better for users to have concrete rules with a reliably consistent correct interpretation than for everyone to complain because their interpretation of a rule lets them do whatever they want. Just my two cents on that.
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
This might be a language-barrier thing, but that’s the meaning of “open for interpretation”.
It means that the admins and moderators are judging it on a per-case basis instead of a hard delineation that anybody could use to decide whether something is against the rules or not (and hence use technicalities to skirt the rules, naturally).
We didn’t cover that in ESL, because open to interpretation means open to interpretation. If what you’re trying to say in your comment was the admins intention then the language should’ve been: “Admin’s interpretation of the rules is the last word and will be judged in a case by case basis”. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s how laws and court systems work. Anyone can interpret laws as they see fit (see sov citizens) but when push come to shove, judges have the last word and the courts interpretation is the only valid interpretation of the law. Hence debate based trials, checks and balances. When rules are open to interpretation, they become useless as a tool for defining truth.
because open to interpretation means open to interpretation
And most people understands when a company says that. They mean:
“Admin’s interpretation of the rules is the last word and will be judged in a case by case basis”.
It’s just understood that a company always means “we can do what we want, deal with it”.
But this is not a company. What are you talking about?
But in a real sense, yes, the admins can do whatever they want. We as users have no power or recourse. They could just turn off the server tomorrow and that’s that.
But this is not a company.
I think we’re still have language issues
Yes, indeed we are still in have language issues is.
They are literally saying the opposite.
People will go to any lengths to justify their bad behaviour to themselves.
All you need to do is not interfere in communities where you have no idea what you’re talking about, stop assuming you know better than everyone else just because you have some power over a meaningless message board. This isn’t an anti-vax community we’re talking about here and you’ve totally blown this way out of proportion to prevent admitting that the moderator was out of line.
You, the mod/admin exist to stop spam and hate speech and to empower users with tools and features that they want and find useful. Otherwise, just stay the fuck out of the way. Do not impose your will on your little petty fiefdoms, that is unwanted and unhelpful.
You, the mod/admin exist to stop spam and hate speech and to empower users with tools and features that they want and find useful. Otherwise, just stay the fuck out of the way.
Yeah, and the post in question was about someone hating on their cat in an abusive way. Reason to remove it.
Also, you don’t get to decide what the admins exist for, it’s their instance, they do. Make your own instance if you want to decide what the admin (i.e.: you) exist for.
No, it wasn’t. You’re lying through your teeth. I’m not going to get into the details because they’re frankly not very relevant.
I get to share my opinion. They can do what they want with it. If you don’t like that, go make your own thread.
You’re backing yourself into a corner where you’ll have to respond to every shitbird that comes crying some content hurt their feelings. Removing illegal material is the only thing that’s expected, moderating people’s opinions because they might make someone put glue on pizza is solved by a “nothing on this instance should be considered a fact” banner. It seems petty and the optics only get worse as you slowly burn out and stop being consistent in censoring shit. Because that’s what it is. A cat might not be too stoked with its carefully balanced plant-based slop, but it’d be alive. Hope you’ll go into kink communities and censor the shit out of risky sexual practices.
A cat might not be too stoked with its carefully balanced plant-based slop, but it’d be alive.
No, it wouldn’t, that’s the point.
Cats are obligate carnivores, they’ll die if they don’t eat food containing certain amino acids which aren’t present in plants.
That said, advocating animal abuse, even if it didn’t lead to the animal’s death (which in this case, again, it would), should be a bannable offense.
Hope you’ll go into kink communities and censor the shit out of risky sexual practices.
Those are consensual.
A cat being fed the feline equivalent of poison can’t consent.
This is misinformation. Please add a source for the study.
So I understand this, vegans promoting vegan cat diets need scientifically proved reproducible peer reviewed studies backing their claims, while the “feed cats whatever garbage is in these cans as long as its meat™” crowd can just say it with their chest, right?
