AwesomeLowlander

Feddit.org admins have responded to the recent controversy about the pro-Israel censorship on [email protected] 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 [email protected] and their actions (Edit: Because the law, or at least the way the law is being enforced, says they have to)

[email protected] 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: [email protected]

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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)

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@[email protected], 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.

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Quote of their post follows:

Hello everyone,

in the last few days there have been some accusations against the moderators of [email protected] 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)

spoiler 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).”

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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:

• Public approval or condoning of criminal offenses (Germany)
• Hate and Incitement in Criminal Law (Germany)
• Guidelines for the Prosecution of Antisemitic Crimes
• Working definition of antisemitism
• https://www.bundeskanzleramt.gv.at/kampagne-gegen-antisemitismus/fragen-und-antworten/antisemitismus-im-internet-moegliche-rechtliche-konsequenzen/moegliche-strafrechtliche-folgen.html (Austria)

In this instance, we fully support the moderators of [email protected] 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 @[email protected], 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 @[email protected] 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.

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Title says it all. In combination with the recent post about somebody getting banned from the same comm, there's a trend starting to emerge.

Edit: Sad but unsurprising that this immediately got downvoted by a German user

Edit 2: Looks like this was just one of many such posts that got locked without any reason given. Notice a pattern in the topics locked?

Running bamboo is notoriously fast spreading and difficult to remove. What keeps its population balanced in the wild, and prevents it from crowding out the competition? I tried googling, but was inundated with gardening advice, horror stories, and assault / offensive gardening (some of the latter two presumably covering the same incident from both sides). My google-fu failed, I couldn't really find any info about natural population controls of running bamboo in the thicket of tall tales and gardening advice.

To be clear: They are joining an existing lawsuit for businesses that are being impacted by the tariffs

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/157533

Less than two weeks after the Trump administration’s announcement of historically high tariffs on virtually all goods imported into the United States, the board game industry appears set for an unexpected reckoning. An ad hoc industry survey conducted by Cardboard Edison reveals that nearly a quarter of publishers polled will simply stop making board games. A majority believe that prices for board games that do get published will go up, and that the size and complexity of those games will go down. It’s a dismal state of affairs for what was once a blossoming part of the larger tabletop games industry, one that has for decades generated hundreds of millions of dollars for the United States economy.

Cardboard Edison is a small publisher best known for its annual game design awards. Its survey, conducted April 9-11, collected responses from 62 publishers. The company claims that “about 90%” of respondents said they expect consumer prices on board games will go up because of tariffs, and “about two-thirds” of publishers said print runs for those games will be smaller. 62% of publishers said they plan to sign fewer new games to their catalogs, meaning fewer opportunities for tabletop designers who traditionally operate as independent contractors. Most tragically, the group says 23% — nearly a quarter — of respondents said they’ll just stop making board games altogether.

The biggest red flag in the survey, however, is that those publishers who want to try and stay in the board game business are actively seeking ways to cut distributors and retailers out of the equation. As margins fall due to the cost of tariffs, which are a tax, selling games at retail using traditional logistics simply won’t be an option. Brick and mortar stores, including thousands of independent local game stores all around the country, likely won’t have as many board games to put on their shelves going forward.

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