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
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The sentence “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”
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Comparing Israel to the Nazis
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Calls to end Zionism
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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 @[email protected] account (which all mods have access to).
To help you understand why, I'll leave an assortment of sources here (translations via DeepL).
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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 […]
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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.
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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).
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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 …)
federal reverse (on behalf of the mods of !europe)
Why does the country that gassed people think they have any moral authority to tell others right from wrong
They think it makes them uniquely qualified to judge whats a genocide and what isnt(dont laugh)
Deutschland hat kein Existenzrecht. Nicht einmal 25 Jahre nach der Wiedervereinigung sind die Nazis bereits die beliebteste Partei. Totale Rückverdummung und Balkanisierung Deutschlands JETZT! Das Konzept Deutschland ist an sich antisemitisch. Freies Frankenland. Unabhängiges Berlin.
Wenn die d*utschen so geil auf ein israelischen ethnostaat sind sollten sie gefälligst ihr eigenes Land abtreten. Stalins einziger Fehler war in Berlin innezuhalten.
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.
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”.
How is that siding with genocide?
Users can engage in regulated quantities of vague and pointless criticism of the ongoing genocide, as a treat.
Are you claiming that the German government is running that instance?
They ban supporting or advocating actually stopping the genocide
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
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.
Let me guess, nobody batted an eyelid when Netanyahu used the phrase to assert Jewish supremacist sovereignty “West of the Jordan”. Like you can say from the river to the sea as long as your extremist statement has the opposite of the proscribed polarity.
Lets not validate the intimidation tactics of the g*rman police. From the river to the sea.
They’re validating the policy of the instance on the basis of the police tactics potentially being used against them, not the tactics themselves
That’s some fine nuance in there
Do you have a source about that incident? Reminds me of a dude arrested in russia for holding a blank piece of paper.
I did not leave reddit to come to a fucked down version of political censorship. fuck you and begone. I’m blocking their instance
THATS how we vote.
How do i do this from a browser? Edit- Hilarious this got under someones skin enough to downvote. Bootlicking fascist. Censor me harder daddy. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free
How do I do this from an app like Boost?
Don’t know if it’ll be much help but on my app (thunder) you go to the instance, press the little (i) and then block community. It will probably be something similar on most apps.
I don’t blame the mods as they have little say in the matter but it’s sad to see never the less.
So they’re basically declaring themselves a fascist instance. I mean calling for end of Zionism is calling for an end of a fascist ideal, therefore that instance is declaring itself a fascist organization. Simple. Yeah no one should be Federated with this place.
It’s wild how lies and propaganda spread in real time.
So they’re joining the Nazis. They can fuck off and die.
weren’t the na*is litterally against that group of people?
You know, the bad part of nazism is the genociding. Not really the specific of their racial hierarchy. If Bolsanero or whatever his name is decide that the state must take care of the True Brazilian and mass murder everybody else, he’d be a nazi
no they supported israel since they promised to help with “the jewish question” by resettling them.
The nazis hate jews and israel took advantage of that to get more bodies to settle their frontier. Notably they even helped the nazis circumvent a boycott going on at the time to achieve this.
ah hell yeah found the book
https://archive.org/details/zionist-relations-with-nazi-germany
No, Christians were against the Jews. The nazis just took advantage of that hate. If you think that the nazis somehow had legitimate complaints against Jews or that those complaints were required to be in anyway accurate, then you have completely misunderstood the history of the last 100 years.
thank you
So basically just knockoff reddit then?
It says it in the name. Reddit but for and by the feds.
That and .world every time someone suggests that genocide is bad.
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.
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.
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.
Lemmy is the most ML oriented community I’ve been in… Well, it literally has been created by ML
Oh for sure, I don’t doubt that.
But I don’t think Lemmy has any impact beyond maybe one person somewhere changing their opinion on a company.
I don’t think you get banned for upvoting Luigi here yet
Yet.
A post about white people doing white people things and banning anyone not in full support of genocide, and even the criticism has to be half about China this and China that.
Y’all are exactly the type of idiot who sets up the conditions for these ghouls to do another genocide to then go on your merry way to act like the monsters are they before you spread blood libel against somebody else.
Fuck y’all. Read the fucking room and examine yourself for once.
Sorry? I guess?
Unsurprising, still disappointing.
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.
Oh shit, the (White) Power Rankings heating up as feddit takes up an unexpected lead against stormfront.world
