I don’t remember details but essentially it was decided (in some court, somewhere, i guess) that linking to illegally copied material was also illegal.

This proposed change has been discussed in congress, but big tech is fighting it hard, as it would make moderation of social media very expensive and/or restrictive. Basically, certain parties want to hold platforms legally responsible for the content they host, even if that content was posted by users.

It would make it nearly impossible to legally operate a FOSS platform like Lemmy. Fortunately for us, it’s one of the few areas where the interests align for both big tech and the common man.

IRC the new loophole became encoding the link to what ever you wanted to copy, for example as base64.

Base64 encoding is not a legal loophole, it’s a method to avoid automated content filters on platforms like Reddit and Discord. Encoding a link in base64 offers no legal protections.

Just pick a mid-sized instance and there’s a 99% chance it’s more stable than Lemmy.world right now.

Look at users who don’t sound insane and see where they’re posting from.

For many people, Google controls the entire network stack from their ISP, router, OS, DNS, their browser, all the way down to the platform hosting the content they watch.

Google has captured such a wide part of the Internet that any changes they make will have at least a moderate effect on our lives. Even if we don’t use any Google services.

The only thing that can stop them is probably the EU at this point. And I’m sure Google has a plan for that.

I can’t fathom why these media companies still love to do exclusivity agreements. There’s no way it’s more profitable than just allowing everyone to watch your show from any service, with commissions for the number of views.

I’d probably start paying for a streaming service again if I could watch every show in one place. But I’m not interested in playing musical subscriptions.

Why do I need port-forwarding for torrents?

Torrenting happily on Mullvad right now.

I switched to Mullvad after PIA got bought by that spyware company.

They’re great.

I can find just about anything I want through public trackers or DDL sites, so I haven’t bothered to look into them.