Hello everyone,
Following the recent discussions on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com and !lemmyworld@lemmy.world , it seems that people realize that Lemmy.world is subject to European laws, and not the US ones.
This is another event where US citizens seem to be looking for an instance that would adhere to their “legal culture”, the previous one being the US elections, where the topic was discussed everywhere, before getting channeled into !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
I don’t know anything about Dutch or Finnish laws, but I’ve seen many recent articles about people arrested in Germany for their social media posts that were considered hateful or violent (which is frankly a culture shock to me as an American), so I can see why some of the posts on Lemmy in the past week would be concerning.
https://lemmy.world/comment/13870047
So, the question is: could Discuss.online become that instance? And host US-focused communities like “AskUSA”, “USPolitics”, “USFinance”, this kind of things?
I am mostly asking because there’s no secret that the DO admins aren’t the biggest Lemmy fans, so would you guys be okay if your instance would get promoted, potentially causing an influx of users and communities, some requiring moderation?
I won’t speak for @jgrim@discuss.online (he’s the primary admin, I just pretend to help out 😉), but I see no reason to be a “USA focused instance”. We are open to anyone, anywhere as long as they are interested in open, respectful discourse staying within the code of conduct. Additionally, IMO having instances be “go to” instances kind of goes against a core concept of the fediverse. Anyone can run their own instance and get content from other instances (I don’t recommend it though 😱). Themed instances are fine, but they don’t advertise themselves as the “go to” for that theme, they just simply cater more to that style of communities. And with that description, Discuss.Online’s only “theme” is that you discuss… things, online 😜
Also, IANAL and neither is @jgrim@discuss.online. We are not about to say this instance allows you to comply with all legal obligations for your geographical location in the world - that’s up to you as an individual.
On that specific topic, what is your stance on this decision by the LW admins?
https://discuss.online/post/14139596
I saw a lot of US citizens in the comments surprised as the differences on laws about “free speech” between the US and Europe (see example in the OP), what would be DO’s stance on this matter?
Thank you for your comment!
To be honest, the situation now feels like most of people on Lemmy are on LW, most of the communities are on LW, and that would probably stay this way if there is no incentive for people to look for other places.
Your other comment touched upon the legal aspect, so I’m not going to talk about that here. There was another example of “US matters taking over the whole place” with the US elections. Some communities like !nostupidquestions@lemmy.world would have a majority of threads about that topic, overwhelming the community, especially members who were not US citizens.
!asklemmy@lemmy.world took another approach: they forbid US politics questions. People then asked for a place to go, and it became !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
The whole thread is here: https://feddit.org/post/4482552
We are now seeing a similar situation with the recent LW decision. People are looking for other instances and communities that would follow the legal framework they are used to, and that’s why I mentioned that DO could become that US specific instance.
they don’t advertise themselves as the “go to” for that theme
They kind of do, or at least they differentiate on one aspect. All the German and French communities are hosted on feddit.org and jlai.lu. When people wanted to consolidate the electric vehicle communities, they chose slrpnk.net (https://feddit.org/post/4569227). Beehaw is known for their very strict moderation policies. Lemm.ee is known to be the “non defederating instance which is not LW nor lemmy.ml or hexbear”
If a generic instance does not have a differentiator, there’s almost no incentive for anyone to use it compared to let’s say LW, SJW and Lemm.ee
I don’t think every instance has to have a “theme” that it remains exclusive to - although I agree with lazyguru that the existing theme already here is to have fun discussing things:-P - but isn’t it enough that DO is welcoming to hosting communities that could meet the needs of the Fediverse as a whole?
Perhaps in addition to !AskUSA@discuss.online we’ll add AskLatinAmerica@discuss.online or CasualUS@discuss.online (although I think the former already covers that role?) or GlobalSouth@discuss.online (there is already a !globalsouth@lemm.ee I see). It doesn’t need to be exclusive, just welcoming, which it already is:-).
Especially since the role for the significantly more controversial !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world is already covered.
Moving forward, either in this or another post, I would love to hear your thoughts as to what else would make the Fediverse more welcoming to people wanting to migrate here from Reddit? There’s only so much distancing we can do from the tankie instances, apparently, but other than that I think Lemmy is off to a great start?
