Earlier, after review, we blocked and removed several communities that were providing assistance to access copyrighted/pirated material, which is currently not allowed per Rule #1 of our Code of Conduct. The communities that were removed due to this decision were:

We took this action to protect lemmy.world, lemmy.world's users, and lemmy.world staff as the material posted in those communities could be problematic for us, because of potential legal issues around copyrighted material and services that provide access to or assistance in obtaining it.

This decision is about liability and does not mean we are otherwise hostile to any of these communities or their users. As the Lemmyverse grows and instances get big, precautions may happen. We will keep monitoring the situation closely, and if in the future we deem it safe, we would gladly reallow these communities.

The discussions that have happened in various threads on Lemmy make it very clear that removing the communites before we announced our intent to remove them is not the level of transparency the community expects, and that as stewards of this community we need to be extremely transparent before we do this again in the future as well as make sure that we get feedback around what the planned changes are, because lemmy.world is yours as much as it is ours.

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[+] Slacker@seal.cafe -17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Wow, a lot of angry people in the thread.

I unironically support your decision admins. Piracy is illegal and therefore unethical. There is nothing wrong with blocking piracy communities and people don't understand the legal ramifications of allowing illegal piracy communities.

Wish you luck, chadmins! 😘

[–] Hypnobag@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Abolitionism was also illegal at one point, guess that's also unethical. Laws and ethics do not inherently coincide. Ethical piracy can and does exist, but not all piracy is ethical.

[–] Slacker@seal.cafe -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are you really comparing slavery to piracy? What does that have to do with piracy?

Of course there are a few exceptions, but usually laws = ethics. Piracy isn't one of the exceptions.

[–] CaptainEffort@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

In other words, “laws = ethics when it suits my argument”.

What about prohibition?

Anti-abortion laws?

Laws against trans people?

[–] EngiNerd@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Illegal does not mean unethical.

[–] ttmrichter@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

"Illegal" and "unethical" are two vastly different things, to the point that someone so blithely equating them makes it hard to take them seriously.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

You know what else is illegal? Selling something on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace without claiming it as income on your taxes. Jaywalking. In Canada it's also illegal to pretend to practice witchcraft. Or paint a wooden ladder. Swear in a park.

There are lots of stupid laws too.