Reason number 5,386 to delete your Reddit account and encourage your friends & loved ones to do the same.
OP’s headline does not match the article linked in any way. I don’t know if the site changed the article or what, but the Grand Jury has not ordered Reddit to turn over any data.
a subpoena issued by federal prosecutors to the management of Reddit, representatives of the site have been ordered to appear before a grand jury in Washington D.C., with an April 14 deadline set in an attempt to compel Reddit to volunteer personal data and the identity of a user who had the temerity to lightly criticize Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the platform.
Essentially, they have ordered Reddit to send representatives to be badgered into volunteering the user’s information.
These kinds of posts and titles on Lemmy are a serious issue that I’ve noticed over the last 6 to 7 months.
There appears to be a serious issue with moderation and a lot of Lemmy subs.
I’m not calling for any Reddit styled moderation here. Absolutely not. I’m just saying something needs to happen here to better moderate these subs.
It’s really easy for one of the mods in this community to make the op fix the headline or remove the post. Did anyone report it?
Isnt it up to the readers of the article to notice and upvote things like this? Lemmy is just a link aggregator. Mods dont read every post. I bet almost everyone has a full time job or student life too.
Report it and upvote the problem and it will be fixed by a mod eventually, and readers will be aware until that happens.
Some communities have bots that check post title and article title match, if not the post is auto-removed. Happened to me a while back when I simply tried to shorten a really long title.
IMO this bot should be mandatory for all communities
Maybe mods should be subject to review by members.
One thing I love about eBay is that buyers can also be rated by sellers.
That single handedly resolved many issues.
I’m just saying… You’re right.
No, it’s not volunteering, at least not anymore.
Subpoena is legal Latin for “under penalty,” because noncompliance with a subpoena carries a penalty.
Originally, it was an information request from the feds, and Reddit refused. Then they escalated to getting a grand jury subpoena (which means they got a bunch of normal citizens to agree that the information was relevant to a criminal investigation), so now noncompliance carries a penalty.
Reddit notified the users, who hired their own lawyers, who are resisting the subpoena and will litigate it to where they need a judge to decide whether Reddit will have to turn the information over.
That’s the process for these things, and we’re a couple steps in already.
Subpoena to appear, not subpeona to give up info
The commenter above you is correct, they haven’t forced the issue yet
This reporting says that the subpoena requires that Reddit produce the information and appear for a hearing.
So they are using a form of harassment? Get them to look at the cost of sending someone vs just betraying one user. Of course the blowback as reddit shows it would betray your anonymity could be a pr disaster.
If the article is correct then the whole demand is truly bizarre. There seems to be nothing in the reddit user’s postings to warrant this amount of concern. The fact that his comments are innocuous may be to set a precedent that any criticism, regardless of severity, can be prosecuted or at least intimidation.
I copy pasted the headline from Particle. Apologies
I find it reassuring that the government is at least acting like they can’t identify this user without Reddit’s consent. I wonder why this charade is necessary; are they trying to set a legal precedent?
They are doing a parallel construction so they can publicly make accusations. It’s not reassuring I assure you.
They want to intimidate people, imho.
They want to prosecute peope in open court so using the NSA to id people would be inconvenient (but not impossible).
Exactly, known as parallel construction, they find a plausible way to have found what they illegally know to use it publicly.
They’ve probably already ID’d them. Now they just need Reddit to “volunteer” the info that DickSwanger420 is actually Marvin Peterson from Boise.
are they trying to set a legal precedent?
Yes, of course.
Why would they be acting? It’s probably not a first amendment test.
DC is hoping a grand jury will order .
Fuck these nazis
The headline is wrong. No decision has been made yet.
Why not worry about the pedo in the white house instead? Deport him and his entire family to the middle of the atlantic.
I really wonder what is preventing people using reddit from using Lemmy, Lemmy is just really good and I really like it, the only problem would be financial issues with big instances that have to store historical data so they can serve it, using more and more space, so that is why is better for everyone to use small instances instead of big ones ;3
The one thing I miss about Reddit is the number and diversity of groups. You had many more niche topics and many people under them. What I don’t miss is how they were sponsored and dependent on car and oil and gas ads.
Even huge thriving communities on Reddit have zero representation here. The culture is also hyper specific on Lemmy. I find Lemmy to be generally more tolerant of my progressive, feminist, disabled person views but also if I want to talk about them there’s not that many places, but there are what feels like hundreds of options to talk about stuff I have absolutely no interest in like operating systems. I think it’s a diversity issue
I think we’re just going to have to get a lot more interested in operating systems.
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You won’t find half the communities or niche interests here. It’s hopelessly small relatively and it’s not visibly getting any better any time soon.
I still shifted off reddit because I found their complacency unacceptable, but the sacrifice is felt.
I still think universities and academic societies should be hosting instances and funding them with dedicated endowments. It’d also provide a great way to request more money from people who feel a reciprocal obligation due to using the instance.
Lemmy is relatively dead and horribly split-brained.
Basically, federations should have been a per topic thing, not entire instances.
I gave my input almost 3 years ago when I first joined, and I stand by it.
There should be a few general instances. These would be the big ones, where users would mostly clump. Any community would make sense here, but communities based on topics that have niche instances wouldn’t do well here, because everyone would just use the niche instances communities for those topics.
Then there would be smaller niche instances. Like I’m sure there’s SOMEONE who would join the star trek instance. Where every community is star trek themed. I don’t imagine that would be a significant percentage, but they would exist. Now, the communities would see a lot of traffic. I don’t doubt that if you consolidated all the star trek communities it would get a lot of people joining the communities. I just don’t think most people would feel the need to make that their home instance.
And star trek is just one example. You could have a sports instance. A movies instance. A tv instance. An art instance. An instance that’s just geographical locations instance. But most people would join the communities, not the instance.
That way, when people use the “local” tab, it’s a bit more diverse.
I’m with you. I love the idea of decentralization, but it still needs to be all in network to maintain any significant size of a user base.
Cannon no doubt
I doubt an anonymous ICE critic would be criticizing ICE without using a VPN.
Given the US Constitution, no US citizen should need a VPN to do that.
ah pedonald trying to scare people. fuck him with a retractable baton.
That might bring him pleasure.
Dip him in acid.
Heh, which kind?
Donny was a pedo-phile
Now Donny is no more
What Donny thought was H20
Was H2SO4
That calcium-loving one that eats your bones if you touch it?
Ah yes, the bone hurting juice
I kinda wanna see the one that causes sensory blending and hallucinations.
And just fuck with him for…well how ever many days a dose like that would take to wear off.
Nah, give him shrooms and let the mushroom gods show him the weight of his own soul as it drags him beneath the rising tides of the abyss…
I think you’re referring to hydrofluoric acid
As a chemist, I recommend Hydrofloric acid
A friend of a friend died from spilling a small amount of HF onto himself.
concentrated HF is highly toxic and caustic, while diluted in water isnt that poisonous.
All of them
man i fuckin hate the us government. Do y’all really say shit like “pedonald” unironically though
do y’all say that shit and be like “heh yeah i got his ass”? do y’all say shit like “The Orange Menace” and think it’s the fuckin bomb dot com?
you old ass freaky mfs got that truth social energy going on. Y’all say some corn ball facebook auntie garbage and act like it’s tuff with two F’s
Can y’all act like normal human beings instead of this weird ass insulated secluded sector of the radicalized internet for a sec big dog like damn
slaughter conservatives and behead authority figures, stop this busted ass middle school style name calling though holy fuck
It’s not the radicalized people who are fine with a pedophile in the white house…
Room temp IQ.
ok.
Who here is acting “tuff”? It seems more like it’s you than anyone else.
Come on down from wherever you are from and get the ball rolling for us, id welcome you
Good god the title is very misleading. The grand jury hearing isn’t until April 14. It’s still chilling that the administration will go to these lengths to apparently silence criticism, but I’m not convinced there is more to this story. Although the reddit user in question is enlisting a civil liberties group to represent him, I’m thinking he/she may not be a terrorist mastermind who is a danger to the American people.
That doesn’t sound misleading in the slightest, because that’s not the definition of misleading. It sounds like a fucking lie.
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This measured response feels much healthier than my/our kneejerk reactions. Any prosecutor is going to seek information that would help their case, and they expect the Court to simply say No when it isn’t compatible with the law. It sucks that this Trump admin and retributive DOJ have such an anti-American track record that our initial instinct is that every move is another attempt to suppress criticism (which it likely would be if they had any scintilla of competence to go with their thirst for fascism).
Actual title:
A Secret Grand Jury Is Seeking the Identity of a Reddit User Who Criticized ICE
It’s completely unclear what illegal thing the user is supposed to have done, other than dislike ICE.
Fuck ICE
Once again, just in case no one heard, FUCK ICE
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I’ll say it for you then.
#FUCK ICE ✊
why don’t you take a marker and a white shirt, write that on that shirt, and actually wear it outside, instead of doing this.
why don’t you go get your diaper changed and take a nap big piss baby.
Why don’t you go criticize someone in real life too.
ohh deflection! nice one, but I already made the shirt! Why don’t you do something with your life in real life?
I’ve managed to do two things
This is a reminder to everyone. If you or someone you know is still on Reddit. Use an extension to bulk deleted everything before deleting the account. You’re friends and family are not safe posting on reddit.
You think it’s worth it for me to do that if I haven’t been on Reddit since 2022?
Bulk deletion of your posts might remove useful information from the internet.
Well, maybe it’s now all saved to ChatGPT‘s faulty memory.
I am no fan of reddit but in this case Reddit appears to have championed this users anonymity going so far as to actively draw the ire of the administration.
- Reddit refused to comply with the initial administrative subpoena
- the Federal government came back with this grand jury subpoena and warned Reddit not to disclose the existence of the subpoena or they’d consider it interference in federal law enforcement
- Reddit complied with this new legally binding subpoena, but did not comply with the demand to keep it a secret. In the contrary, they immediately alerted the user of the subpoena which allowed him time to immediately lawyer up.
You’re not wrong that you’re not safe posting on Reddit, but if this case is any indication you’re not any less safe posting in Reddit than any other site, including Lemmy.
You’re not wrong that you’re not safe posting on Reddit, but if this case is any indication you’re not any less safe posting in Reddit than any other site, including Lemmy.
You can choose the location (and thus legal jurisdiction) of your home instance, but yeah, in general, I think that people need to be aware that server operators on the Threadiverse are probably not going to fight legal battles on your behalf.
We had someone ask about turning over IP addresses to law enforcement a while back on lemmy.today. The lemmy.today server admin gave what I’d call probably a pretty accurate answer.
https://lemmy.today/post/7255213
How will Lemmy Today handle IP subpoenas?
Lemmy instances are run by volunteers who wants to see a social media network without big tech.
I dont think you can trust any of those volunteers, including this one, to not comply with law enforcement. Thats not why we are running instances. Its about providing a platform without tracking, ads and algorithms for talking to other people and having a good time.
Hope that makes sense.
Use a VPN if you have a reason to. :)
It linked to a similar question for lemmy.dbzer0.com:
How will dbzer0 handle IP subpoenas?
Don’t know man. I’m not making enough in donations to pay for the server costs, never mind hiring lawyers. I’ll deal with this when I have to 😅
There are platforms more-aimed at providing harder pseudonymity. I’d put Hyphanet fairly high on the list of “a pain in the ass to track a poster down due to technical barriers” list (though that comes with very real performance and latency and suchlike costs).
To answer for Quokk.au. If I had to, I’d delete the instance and all data before ever handing anything over. They can take me to court if need be.
If you’re subpoenaed and a request for discovery is not met because you destroyed evidence, that comes with severe penalties. In court, you’d have to prove that you didn’t intentionally destroy data. You’ll have to find an attorney that can protect you against a government or powerful corporation.
Depending on the country and jurisdiction, intentional spoliation of data will lead to harsh penalties, criminal charges, expensive financial restitution, and jail time. Would you want to serve multiple years in jail and pay tens of thousands (or much more) in fines just to protect the data on your server? Would you want criminal charges and job loss, and the incredible difficulty of finding employment again when you get out of jail? Permanent criminal charges on your record for the rest of your life?
If yes, you’re very, very brave. Most other server owners would just comply. They’re already struggling to pay their bills, including serving Lemmy. Must be expensive trying to get legal representation when they’re ordered to turn over data.
I run an instance filled with trans people and anarchists, I would risk a lot to protect them from the state.
Props to you, homie. I didn’t personally know about your instance, so your character is courageous and exemplary. I’d like to think my values are aligned with yours as I’ll stand up for trans people, too.
While the likelihood of being served a subpoena to turn over your data is slim, just be careful. Remember - even if someone else wrote it, it’s YOUR data. If you already don’t have a great moderation team on your server, make sure to set ground rules and stamp out calls to violence and other things that would get someone in loads of trouble. The state won’t target an online community, but persons making active threats to the state (e.g., a call for assassination of a public figure, organising violence and harm, etc.) will get you in loads of trouble.
If I was on your server and some dipshit was threatening assassinating a politician or organising a hit, you got served a subpoena, and you were getting ready to delete your instance, I’d jump in and request you to stop. I don’t think it’d be worth nuking the whole community and all the data so you get punished on behalf of that one dipshit. Don’t think it’d be worth having your life destroyed because one edgelord thinks it’s great to say stuff like that online without reprisal, in our state-sponsored surveillance system.
Edit: on mobile so fixed a bunch of typos
Edit 2: On turning over data. In the discovery phase of litigation, they’re legally obligated to cull the request for information to what is relevant and in-scope. In my above example, the courts want the IP address and other identifiers of the dipshit that called for the assassination of a public figure. You’d only have to turn over the data for that one person, NOT everyone on your server. Just to put the facts out there.
Big props to you! Thank you for defendeing their rights.
Why should the instance care about my ip? Why would they log it? Idem emails. Why tf do you care? We need a privacy preserving/enhancing server.
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Your comment was auto-removed for profanity, an admin will review it and undelete it soon if there has been an error. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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That is what I said
We know. We exist out of spite.
Life is not safe. It’s pretty relatively safe, as compared to living under a lean-to in the woods with bears and disease carrying insects and such, and even that’s safer than people make it out to be. However, there are “dangerous things” out there, both in the woods and in the streets and in the organized crime / government. Are you more likely to die of a car crash, or a malicious action of some organized group, or a car crash arranged by some organized group? It’s really hard to be sure, but if the available information is anything close to accurate, you’re better off worrying about a car crash than a meteorite strike, or shark bite, or bad people targeting you.
harder to make a international site comply though
Only if that country doesn’t have info sharing treaties with the US. So much of Europe isn’t any safer than in the US.
Isn’t Reddit owned by China? WTF is Trump going to do?
Reddit is owned by Vanguard, Blackrock, JP Morgan, etc
You’d really think they could afford hiring some moderators.
Reddit is headquartered in San Francisco
From what I’ve been hearing that hasn’t been working anymore.
Can you do that for a banned account?
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If you wait long enough they’ll unban your account. I lost my 10 year old account a few months before the API debacle over referencing piracy in /r/movies and then inadvertently commenting there on an alt account, and just discovered that it was completely restored a few months ago.
Good to know, since I was shadow-banned for “circumventing a ban” even though my account wasn’t banned to begin with. (No, I didn’t have any alt accounts)
That’s exactly what mine was for. I think it was around 2 years later that it was restored.
Nope
Ya. I just got a 7 day ban for telling people to go and train with their guns at shooting ranges just to get used to using them before the civil war starts.
bro you need to relax and touch some grass, fr fr.
They can’t fucking WAIT until this ID verification goes through. Literally frothing at the mouth for it.
I don’t get it. Once ID checks are here, do they think people will keep expressing these kinds of opinions publicly? Oh course not, they’re just going to keep going further underground online or find offline ways, do they really think we’ll just keep posting incriminating stuff with our real name attached?
The oppression is the goal. They want you to tell 10 people locally, not 10 million worldwide.
Yeah but the 10 locals are the ones that might actually end up doing something instead of shouting into the digital void.
Suppression of anything critical of Trump and the other snowflakes is the goal. Oppression is their favorite tool, but they’ll settle for intimidation which still ends up being effective even when our institutions uphold the Constitution.
do they think people will keep expressing these kinds of opinions publicly? Oh course not
People are already pushing all kind of extreme and suspicious opinions on multiple websites under their “official” name that can be found on their ID. This won’t change. And the risk isn’t people stopping saying thing at one point; it’s the list of “allowed” topics changing over time, then going back to older content.
The most absurd part of this is their inability to dox someone for a month. Give a handful of bored nerds any motivation and they’d have it figured out in a day or two.
Be grateful they are incompetent.
The Reddit hivemind is a bit like AI, now that I think about it.
They’ll give you a confident, reasonable sounding answer. Any accuracy will be completely accidental.
Well you see, most of reddit bots/comments are AI generated. it comes from 2 camps, 1 from propaganda, and the other (reddit targets with thier own AI moderation) the OF/ link /business droppers/ads that are warming up thier accoutns with random comments(in non-propaganda way) or posting it.
These days I’m pretty sure most of the Reddit hivemind is AI.
