Rather than reply in the deeply nested thread we are in, I'm going to make this a new comment.

I’m also going to say this again as a preface: I am not a lawyer. None of this should be considered legal advice. Seek your own legal counsel.

I think you might be misunderstanding what "free speech" means in the US. The First Amendment protects us from the government making laws restricting what we can and cannot say. For example, I can say "the President is a moron" and face no criminal consequences for doing so.

However, that freedom is not a blanket immunity—it does not protect us from the consequences of our words. Context is everything.

For instance, while no government agency can make a law preventing you from yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater, if you do so and someone gets injured or killed in the resulting panic, there will likely be legal consequences. You wouldn’t be charged with saying "fire" itself, but rather with knowingly causing a panic that any reasonable person would expect to lead to injuries. Victims or their families could also sue you in civil court.

The First Amendment doesn’t protect anyone not physically located inside the borders of the US or a US-controlled territory. For example, a US citizen vacationing in China wouldn’t be protected for speaking out against the Chinese government.

For those outside the US, it’s also important to note that hosting an instance in the US doesn’t shield you from your own country’s laws, which might differ significantly.

Interestingly, you might find that an instance in another country, such as Germany, would provide stronger data privacy protections. Given how little many US citizens seem to value privacy—continuing to allow our federal government to pass laws enabling warrantless surveillance—other countries may have an edge. (No, I’m not a tinfoil hat wearer. Besides, everyone knows tinfoil is reflective and would just make it easier for them to spot you from satellites.)

That’s my long-winded, sometimes whimsical but mostly serious way of saying: Please stop looking for the line that isn’t okay to cross. This instance exists to foster welcoming, friendly conversations. If you make an honest mistake, you’ll get a warning so you know where the line is.

If you want an instance where you can say whatever you want without any moderation, this isn’t the place.

With that, I’m going to lock this post from further replies because I don’t see how the conversation can continue constructively. If you believe the thread should be reopened, feel free to DM me, and I’ll consider it. Please note that this is for discussing whether to reopen the thread, not for continuing the debate in private.

That's a fairly broad and loaded question. We tend to defer to moderators for taking actions in the various communities. The question you've asked here has no context to it. It's like asking if it's ok to talk about getting drunk. Yes, you can talk about getting drunk. Can you talk about encouraging people to get drunk and then go drive a car? What about drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning? What about encouraging people to get drunk in a MADD community? All of these have different context to them and you can obviously see where in at least some of them you'd likely find yourself with a warning or being banned from the community (and in one, there's potential your own mother might call you out). I don't think it's possible to list out all of the possible scenarios a particular topic is allowed to be discussed. So my answer is, read the code of conduct of this server AND the one of the community you are posting in (paying special attention to the sections about harassment along with the definition of harassment), then use common sense about whether a particular topic is allowed.

what is your stance on this decision by the LW admins

I don't have one. LW and DO are very different in size (number of users, number of communities, AND traffic). I also won't get drawn into a debate about how one instance chooses to govern vs how we do (not saying that's what you were doing, just saying this is my only reply on the topic)

Also, IANAL and neither is @[email protected]. We are not about to say this instance allows you to comply with all legal obligations for your geographical location in the world - that's up to you as an individual.

I won't speak for @[email protected] (he's the primary admin, I just pretend to help out 😉), but I see no reason to be a "USA focused instance". We are open to anyone, anywhere as long as they are interested in open, respectful discourse staying within the code of conduct. Additionally, IMO having instances be "go to" instances kind of goes against a core concept of the fediverse. Anyone can run their own instance and get content from other instances (I don't recommend it though 😱). Themed instances are fine, but they don't advertise themselves as the "go to" for that theme, they just simply cater more to that style of communities. And with that description, Discuss.Online's only "theme" is that you discuss... things, online 😜

We've tried rolling back multiple times in a couple of different ways. They all end up failing. From what we have seen through it all, Lemmy doesn't support downgrading/rolling back

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome.

Something else to consider here would be some kind of batching. A system doing this check should group users together by instance and make a single call to that instance. Something like: "Hey, I have this list of users from your instance. Are they all still active? A, B, C, D..." Reply: "From your request, here is the list of users that I found in my database: A, D". Now the calling system would know it should remove all data for users B & C.

I don’t want to become a product manager

A lot of what you’ve done here already is very much PM work…. Regardless, whatever path you decide, I’m rooting for you