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?
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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Why would they be acting? It’s probably not a first amendment test.
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).
They've probably already ID'd them. Now they just need Reddit to "volunteer" the info that DickSwanger420 is actually Marvin Peterson from Boise.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cannon no doubt
there goes "their freedom of speech", hypocrites
I remember when reddit first got popular and the demise of Digg
I feel like we're watching the demise or reddit now
The place is nothing but bots, they allow loser power tripping mods to ban you willy nilly with basically no appeal process. And now they're gonna give you up to the govt
I'm sure shareholders are super stoked right now
Now? It died in 2023 or whenever the API debacle happened. Even before that it was pretty botty.
Yes it had been pretty shit since maybe 2016 or so honestly. You can go on any thread of an article on any subreddit and the top comments and top replies are like pre manufactured echo chamber propaganda for whoever is astroturfing or modding that community. Don't get it messed up, Lemmy is guilty of echo chamber attitude as well but on Lemmy it's at least a mass of people causing an echo chamber not one likely corporate interest pushing a talking point. Definatley feels more "natural" here I suppose. Or more human? Idk if I get rained on with downvotes here I'm pretty confident every individual one had a person behind it, vs u broke with the propaganda machine on reddit then you get downvoted into oblivion or censored/deleted. And if u get banned here it's usually only one community that you likely don't want to be in anyways, so benefits both the banned user and the community. I was glad the api debacle happened because it's the only reason I learned about the fediverse!
The 2016 point is, on point. I remember the absolute flood of pro-Trump, incel, conservative content that felt completely inorganic and had very little representation prior popping up literally everywhere, everyday. It was like a firehose of far right fringe ideas was aimed at Reddit. Reddit 100% had problems prior but it was mostly focused on violence/sexual violence towards women and girls and wasn’t ever on the front page, other than maybe Jailbait. Even at the time people using Reddit were aware and talking about how unnatural it all seemed but now it’s too far gone and been normalized.
I was a very early Reddit user, and a “power user” for over a decade who was permanently banned for “inciting violence” by saying I was surprised Kanye hadn’t murder/suicided Kim or Taylor yet as a joke. I think my far left progressive comments were more likely the reason.
Everyone is still using it. It sucks since i just want everyone to come on piefed/lemmy. I really have no idea what reddit has to do to make people switch. Its kinda like seeing a toxic relationship.
Based on the number of people still using the cesspit that Twitter turned into, Reddit has to sink a hell of a lot lower to get people to stop using it.
I finally left just a couple weeks ago. Seeing and hearing about entire accounts being banned after simple peaceful criticism of political leaders showed me that they use poorly programmed algorithms to issue bans and also confirm them on appeals without any reasonable human elements. It also seemed like some accounts would get perma-banned by simply complaining about this process.
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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
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.
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
Well anyone could start a thread on any topic (like progressive, feminist, disabled, etc) but it's a lot of work to moderate. I got swept from Reddit to Lemmy during the "Buy Canada push a year ago. As for intolerant trolls, I have learned to play with them like a dog would play with furry slippers.
I think we're just going to have to get a lot more interested in operating systems.
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.
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