Feddit.org announced today that they are changing their rules to match German law despite their server not being hosted in Germany.

Feddit.org now bans

  • The sentence “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”

  • Comparing Israel to the Nazis

  • Calls to end Zionism

  • Calling for the dissolution of Israel

And much more. The full original post can be found here, or

Click here for full text of original post:

Hi.

In the past few days, discontent regarding mod decisions in this community has been brewing, particularly when it comes to comments on Palestine, Israel, and Israeli politics and actions. There are also misunderstandings regarding mod intention and German law. We hope to clear that up with this post.

While the servers of feddit.org are in Austria, most of the mods of this community as well as admins of this server live in Germany. Speaking of, our server admins have also posted a write-up on the same topic.

And with that, let’s go:

In Germany, antisemitism is specifically sanctioned in German criminal law, both for speech and as a motivation for other criminal behavior. In addition, Germany seeks to protect the Jewish state of Israel (the so-called “Reason of State” introduced in 2008) and thus verges toward protecting Zionism as well. Certain criticism of Israel/Israelis is also categorized as “Israel-related antisemitism”.

Since criminal law is involved, enforcement can mean things like police raids and device confiscations. After such police action, it does not really matter if it was appropriate or if cases are dropped or never charged: The damage is done. All told, it’s not that fun.

There is also no point in engaging in discussions about the veracity of statements that could get us into legal trouble. In addition, we believe that you can express most opinions without breaking rules.

If your comment contains the following, it will be removed from this community:

  • Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
  • Calling for a destruction, annihilation, an end of all Zionism or the like.
  • Equating Israeli actions and (historical) Nazism.
  • The slogan “from the river…”
  • Endorsement of or justifications for Hamas or Hezbollah, or slogans or graphics positively referring to these organizations. These are considered terrorist organizations in Germany.
  • … and obviously: Any of the common antisemitic tropes or calls to violence against Jews or Israelis

Comments will not be removed for the following:

  • Denouncing genocide.
  • Denouncing Israeli war crimes.
  • Criticizing Zionism as an ideology or political movement.
  • Referring to the current Israeli government as “criminal,” “expansionist,” or “far-right”.

If your comment is removed nonetheless, these are not the reason. I’d also like to stress that this community was never a free-speech-absolutist zone: It is a (usually lightly) moderated community. There may also be times when bans go too far. In such cases, please DM the @EuroMod@feddit.org account (which all mods have access to).

To help you understand why, I'll leave an assortment of sources here (translations via DeepL).
  • A news report:

    Berlin in mid-May [2024] around 6 o’clock in the morning. A loud, continuous “banging” against the apartment door wakes student Alina T. from her sleep. […] When her husband opens the door, several LKA officers, two employees of the district office and the SEK “storm” past him into the apartment. Puzzled, he looks at the search warrant. […] The background to this was a Facebook entry in the student’s profile: "From the river […]

  • A legal treatise:

    In November 2023, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs also issued a prohibition order against Hamas.[60] According to the order, “the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ (in German or other languages)” is a distinguishing mark of Hamas[61]. […] the current legal situation [regarding “Denial of Israel’s right to exist”] is - contrary to what the statements of the Federal Ministry of Justice suggest[63] - anything but clear. Whether incitements to eliminate the State of Israel are prosecuted depends on the respective legal opinion and the prosecution will of the respective public prosecutor’s office.

  • Press release from the previous government:

    In this context, Section 111 StGB, which covers public incitement to commit crimes, may also be relevant. Incitement to extinguish Israel’s existence by force may be punishable under this provision. The same applies to calls to publicly display the Hamas flag. If Hamas attacks are publicly cheered and celebrated, this may also be punishable. This means that people who cheer on Hamas’s actions or publicly express their sympathy with the attacks may constitute the criminal offence of “approval of criminal acts” under Section 140 of the German Criminal Code (StGB).

  • Another news report

    In connection with the controversial Palestine Congress in Berlin, the German authorities have also imposed an entry ban on former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. “In order to prevent antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda at the event”, several entry bans have been issued, the news agency AFP learned from security sources on Sunday. One of these concerned Varoufakis. (Notably, Varoufakis would have spoken about one-state solutions …)

  • Overview Germany in 2024 by Amnesty International

  • Overview Germany in 2024 by Human Rights Watch

federal reverse (on behalf of the mods of !europe)


    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      Says the person not at risk of early moring police raids of their home including months long confiscation of all their communication devices and costly legal proceedings to get them back.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          2 months ago

          Right, people arguing to not expose others to the risk of police raids are “asckually Nazis”. You realize how absurd that is? Anne Frank was found during a police raid…

          • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            Are you fr? Are the feddit admins (appropriate as fuck name) hosting Palestinian refugees in their server locations, now?

            Eur*s and their guilt tripping for shit they caused in the first place I stg

      • marcie (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        I’m a communist trans woman with guns who helps house refugees for free in the USA. I’ve had ICE show up to my doorstep before.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          2 months ago

          Great, more power to you, but you do realize that this is still quite a different situation? What you are doing is not illegal (for now at least) and you have some control over the risks you personally take.

          Hosting a space for others but still being legally responsible for what they do in that space has different requirements.

            • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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              2 months ago

              Fine, I don’t know your situation, but there is still the difference that you chose to take that personal risk intentionally, while the feddit.org admins did not.

              • marcie (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                Unforced error really, there’s a lot of secure hosting providers that take anonymous payments. Could easily say you transferred domain control to someone else to avoid liability when the law passed. They’re doing this because they have no convictions and are lazy at best, at worst they support Israel.

                • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  2 months ago

                  Not really.

                  You can’t become anonymous and retain site ownership. The site would’ve needed to be shut down and a new, somehow completely unrelated site would have to be started.

                  Besides, even if that were done you bet your ass a random German lawyer would immediately sue the new site for violating Impressumspflicht. That’s one quick way to get the police investigating your site. Your OPSEC better be close to “hosting an illegal streaming site” level.

                  Even German forums about piracy would rather have an impress and remove illegal content than remain anonymous and evade police - see tarnkappe.info.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            Communists have always been pro-gun, you can’t have a revolution without them. Things get more nuanced within Socialism, once the revolution has broadly succeeded, but an armed working class in Capitalism is harder to oppress.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          2 months ago

          The irony of all the armchair warriors here is too thick 🤦 Go get yourself squatted and possibly arrested, that will for sure help the Palestinians that are facing a genocide /s

            • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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              2 months ago

              A Solarpunk with better opsec, yes. Maybe you should learn a bit about that yourself.

                • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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                  2 months ago

                  You need to look up the definition of censorship, because you are apparently ignorant or brainwashed by some freeze peach people on the topic.

                  Asking people not to post stuff on a public forum that could endanger themselves and the operators of the forum is good opsec practise, as is removing such posts that are made regardless of that.

                • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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                  2 months ago

                  I am not one of the admins effected by this, but I know better than to expose others to such risks over stupid arguments on a public internet forum.

                  But apparently that is too much to expect here 🙄

                • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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                  1 month ago

                  That wasn’t me, but in specific cases where multiple accounts are used for ban evasion or similar stuff that can be justified from a moderation perspective.

                  And if you do such a bad job that it is easy to guess your sockpuppet accounts then that is really a failure in opsec on your side 😅

          • Count042@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            I’m a devops engineer and host quite a few things. Running a point to point VPN is fucking simple for anyone capable of running Lemmy.

            Your argument is transparently stupid to anyone with even an once of technical capabilities.

            • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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              2 months ago

              Ok great, than explain it to us, because apparently you have no idea about the actual situation Mr. “DevOps Engineer”… (a joke of a job title for actual security professionals). /s

              • Count042@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                You’re as competent a security professional as your beloved Rhodesian military was as fighting.

                I also literally did tell you how I’m the comment above. Setup a point to point VPN and set the remote endpoint address in DNS for the URL. Make sure the remote endpoint is not in German jurisdiction.

                Someone that was actually competent (not you) would know how to do that.

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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        2 months ago

        both are regime fronts on fedi.

        It amazing to see how organic opinion is against them and without centralized social media they can’t suppress this sentiment.

        Makes you wonder how often public opinions get subverted by these regime whore shills.

        • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          I doubt Lemmy has any major effect on public option at large. Reddit never did when they supported Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders, at the height of its user count/activity.

          But I don’t doubt that Lemmy enables echo chambers and filter bubbles that enable people to brush aside any criticism of their favorite politician or nation-state as The Good Guys.

          • Omega@discuss.online
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            2 months ago

            Lemmy is the most ML oriented community I’ve been in… Well, it literally has been created by ML

          • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I understood the comment above to be comparing how public opinion is allowed to shape itself in the fediverse, vs being censored and molded to only fit particular permitted messages in mainstream social media. We can express ourselves without worrying that we’ll get locked out of the entire fediverse for stating an opinion that mods or admins don’t like. Which makes it fair to wonder how much suppression is going on elsewhere, that we don’t see and never hear reports on, because censorship.

            I’m not sure where the idea of Lemmy having an effect on public opinion at large came from. It feels like a non-sequitur, but maybe I’m just too tired and I missed something.

  • Navarian@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Man, seeing Germany side with genocide once again was fucking not on my bingo card.

    I don’t imagine things will get better under the new right-wing government either.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Western Germany never de-Nazified, the Nazis teamed up with the Zionists even when the Nazis were in power. They left the Nazis as they were effective anti-Communists, and the West collectively felt that was a worthwhile trade. Germany pays lip service to combatting fighting the Nazis, but keeps the underlying fascism the West in general has.

  • gobbles_turkey@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    well, fuck feddit.org then. Any place thats too busy fellating genocide deserves to be abandoned and blocked. If they think they matter, they are wrong.

  • answersplease77@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I did not leave reddit to come to a fucked down version of political censorship. fuck you and begone. I’m blocking their instance

  • The Menemen@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Tbh, I can understand it. There have been police raids kicking in doors of families with small children at 5 in the morning for having a Facebook post saying “from the … to the …” (I am also in Germany…). The police went through all of the families belongings and took all web-connected electronics.

    The situation is really rough here in Germany.

  • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    ive got temp banned from there for mentioning europe engages in colonialism.

    havent participated a lot in there since.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      2 months ago

      Caught a perma ban there for calling german oligarchs being heavy on Nazi nepo babies

      That server has censorship that’s more clown than lemmy.world.

      German regime front on Lemmy… Lol

      People should vote with their feet.

      These clowns should not host pan EU communities, let them circle jerk Zionism in an echo chamber 🤡