I don’t know the specifics behind why the communities were (re-)removed but the reasons given in the modlog seem vague enough to apply to anyone linking to Google or YouTube as they reference or indirectly link to piracy:

Removed Community CrackWatch@lemmy.dbzer0.com
reason: facilitating piracy, referencing websites used for the distribution of copyright infringing material in images

Removed Community Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com
reason: facilitating piracy, indirectly linking to websites used for the distribution of copyright infringing material

From the initial removal announcement post:

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.

EDITED multiple times due to confusion over origins of the ban.

    • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
      133·
      8 months ago

      Yeah. They’re liars.

      Everyone should jump ship sooner rather than later.

      There are clear bad actors on the admin team. There is no hope for lemmy.world.

      • lorkano@lemmy.world
        29·
        8 months ago

        There are no ships, it’s not reddit. You download one app to sync your instances, and you fucking join few to have access to everything you want. Or you just create your own instance, grant access to everything and use it by yourself. No lawyers will call you because they won’t even know. Lemmy instance admin can do whatever the hell they want, they could close Lemmy world tomorrow and I wouldn’t care, because there are hundreds instances in it’s place. Stop pretending that you matter to any of the instance owners.You are not a client here like on reddit, you are just a guest that costs them money.

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    472·
    8 months ago

    EDIT: Probably should hold off on pitchforks and exit plans, it’s likely I’m misinterpreting the modlog and it wasn’t Lemmy.World that initiated the ban but the dbzer0 team that did.

    lemmy.dbzer0.com has nothing to do with this. This was an action from the l.w admins. In the past @antik@lemmy.world was the one who argued to reverse this decision, so 🤷‍♂️

    • DABDA@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      273·
      8 months ago

      Ugh, I just can’t win. I generally don’t like to edit out (but just append to) stuff I’ve written but I’m really sorry about besmirching you and your instance due to another user causing me to doubt my interpretation of the modlog. Going to remove all mentions of dbzer0.

      Sorry.

  • Zak@lemmy.world
    31·
    8 months ago

    Without taking any stance on what the rules should be, I’ll re-quote this for emphasis:

    we need to be extremely transparent before we do this again in the future

    Instead, we have communities banned without a public post or opportunity for community members to engage with the admins making the decision. I joined lemmy.world before it was the biggest instance or anybody’s idea of the default because I was aware of mastodon.world and had the impression it was well-managed. I’m starting to lose that impression here, and I don’t like it.

    • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
      75·
      8 months ago

      It was good at first, but it’s clear corporate interests have infested the admin team.

      I don’t have any hope for it now and just encourage other people to move to different instances. I just moved to lemmy.ca in response to this.

      This is the glory of federation, after all. Don’t give abusers power!

  • solrize@lemmy.world
    302·
    8 months ago

    I didn’t notice it was gone. Most of what I remember from it was links to torrentfreak articles, which were completely above board. So yeah the silent removal is lame.

    • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
      42·
      8 months ago

      Everything about it was above board, but useful idiots don’t like acknowledging how they’re being taken advantage of.

      I see it all the time because it’s the norm.

    • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
      78·
      8 months ago

      Absolutely. It’s clear lemmy.world has been infiltrated by bad actors with an agenda.

      We cannot trust them. They are not here for us. All they do is serve their agenda, which in this case is looking out for corporations.

      I’ve also seen a ton of censorship surrounding Israel. People literally getting banned for comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

      It’s not looking good.

  • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
    202·
    8 months ago

    Awful decision, but I just moved to lemmy.ca because of it.

    Censorship is a bad thing. Let users control what they want to see instead of corporate overlords and their useful idiots.

    I encourage everyone to get off of lemmy.world as quickly as possible.

    • Dremor@lemmy.world
      55·
      8 months ago

      Problem is, with an instance as huge as LW, it has some moderation obligations in many countries that may have opened them to be litigated for multiple millions €, considering its size. It is more a question of survival, not because of some power-hungry admin.

      I can understand your point of view, but the TOS is clear about piracy and piracy discutions (see : https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#41-piracy), and thus they are required to remove those communities if they break those terms (they are legally binding).

      Anyone who doesn’t want to comply with those TOS can, as you pointed out, move to another instance. It is one of the beauty of the Fediverse. In this case, the one who will be responsible in the case of a litigation is lemmy.ca, and not lemmy.world anymore.

  • NOSin@lemmy.world
    249·
    8 months ago

    Sigh Lemmy has the opportunity to do something great, but no.

    After sync being abusive with ad banner recently and now this, I’m just done, can’t be bothered keeping track of all the bullshit, which instance to go to, which app to use.

    I’ll just read e-book on my free time now.

  • kratoz29@lemm.eeEnglish
    105·
    8 months ago

    A nice tip for you fellow .world users, your instance has been updated recently and supports exporting, so you can create an account somewhere else ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

    Or you know… You can go back to reddit if you want those kinds of meme communities.