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)


  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    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.

    Zionism means colonialism not just in practice, but from its very inception:

  • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Palestinians, remember the following: you can resist your occupation but ONLY on the occupiers terms.

    For the rest of us, remember the following: you can protest genocide, but ONLY on the genocider’s terms.

    • Omega@discuss.online
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      2 months ago

      I find it more disgusting than .ml and even hexbear, Chinese Human rights violations lean towards cultural genocide, Israel is killing, starving, dislocating and destroying their culture, ethnicity, community and land, it is as bad as it can get, any defence of Israel is disgusting for me, and criticism of Palestine on that front is very ill timed in that manner, you can’t worry about ‘terrorism’ when the alternative is extermination

  • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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”.

    Y’all grabbed your pitchforks before you even got to that part, didn’t you?

    • deathbird@mander.xyz
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      2 months ago

      What, you’re scared of getting harrassed by your government for wrongthink on your hobby project? You sir are the actual fascist! We’ll defederate! Can’t let any of those instance users access ours. 🤡

    • 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.

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

        I’m a communist trans woman with guns who helps house people for free in the USA. I’ve had ICE and police show up to my doorstep before. For some reason, I doubt a bunch of cishet white nerd guys in Germany are about to have as many problems as I do for hosting anti israel content on a small social site.

        • 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. You would probably also ask people you host to not set up a meth lab in your place.

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

            What I’m doing is illegal in my jurisdiction, ICE showed up for a reason. The law can eat my ass no one should be homeless

            • 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.

  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Oh man. Come on Lemmy.

    Maybe read the post again and put yourself in the shoes of the admins and mods who do live in Germany.

    Each of you personally has your own views on the Israel / Palestine genocide, and that’s absolutely fine.

    However, very few of you risk personal criminal prosecution in support of Palestine. The people involved in hosting a lemmy instance are volunteers, who probably didn’t sign up for that kind of risk.

    Also, the very nature of federation means that feddit can restrict this content on their servers confident in the knowledge that other servers can host this content in a jurisdiction that doesn’t have the same risks.

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

      Maybe read the post again and put yourself in the shoes of the admins and mods who do live in Germany.

      Man sucks to be them. Oh well, better preemptively censor all words because its illegal! Don’t stand for what’s right!

      Why are you on an anarchist instance if you are for states limiting speech?

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

      Is it any shock when actual members of the Nazi party and SS were kept around to help rebuild West Germany?

      We should have just dealt with the problem instantly. Hindsight is 20/20 but fascists deserve no breaks.

  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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    2 months ago

    I am not reading that. Can we get some more non political instances and communities?