Update to Terms of Service + New Bylaws (Protections for users) - Lemmy.World
lemmy.world
Hey all, In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content. We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we’ve done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section. ## ToS Additions That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules. Regarding misinformation, we’ve tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable: - Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful. - We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources. - When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post. - Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies. - Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice. - Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters. We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed. We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself. ## By-laws Addition We’ve also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities. This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we’ve created as a result of what has happened over the last week. Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation [https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation] https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/ [https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/] Sincerely, > FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team EDIT: We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
  • Gay_Tomato [they/them, it/its]
    ·
    3 months ago

    @Rose 3•

    As noted in my post on the “moderation incident”, by adding more subjectivity to the rules, you are opening the door to even more instance moderator misconduct. There is already evidence of how that would go.

    Rooki felt it right to intervene in the !vegan cat food thread (and got a pat on the back with the new rules made to justify their actions), then not only took no issue with comments like “Meat is not something diabetics need to worry about.” but also fueled the fire in the same thread by saying “To be honest linking something like meat to death of people is like saying everybody that breathed air died.”

    So much for taking action against harmful dietary advice.

    • Gay_Tomato [they/them, it/its]
      ·
      3 months ago

      That post is wild just carnist after carnist whining

      Bewildered Carnist

      "What the fuck is “vegan cat food”? I sometimes can’t understand people."

      "Ok. I get it. As people, we are bad. We mass husbandry just for food, modifying them with artificial selection for productivity. So I can understand veganism (although I am not vegan)."

      "But have we really reached the point where we stop animals from eating meat? Either I’m a bigoted idiot or people are out of their minds." speech-r qconfusion

      Brave Poster

      "For me, the purpose of the post is exactly what it asks for. I don’t think I’ve ever posted to !vegan except for today, to cross-post the OP, but my own fate as an active lemmy.world user likely rests on the outcome of this request. I run a tiny community that has no relation to animal rights or ethics but I feel it is absolutely threatened when there are moderators like Rooki that act based on their views rather than the rules."

      madeline-deadpan

      Smug Carnist

      "That vegan community has a rule against misinformation. The idea that a cat is perfectly healthy on a vegan diet is misinformation. You feel threatened by mods like Rooki who act based on rules rather than your views. You’d rather mistreat animals than admit that anything any vegan has ever said ever might be wrong, and not allow anyone to point out that your wrong." speech-rdebate-me-debate-me

      Concern troll Carnist

      People are out of their minds. It’s a cult. Thankfully, mostly constrained to the west. speech-rtate-fear

      • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.org
        ·
        3 months ago

        Famously some British folks invented caring about animal rights in 1940 or whenever. There has never been any large or long lived philosophical movements against the eating of animals outside the west. Certainly there are no religions that take non violence to mean that people should eat plant based. None at all. Outside britian and the vegan cult that is.