Topic: Ya seen the new ToS?

It was put out on the second I think, but I got the big popup asking me to agree to it today. Looks like they got a real lawyer to write up this one. There's an arbitration clause so that's fun. I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts, especially if they're more fluent in legalese and can actually understand any of it. I've got no clue if there are actually any meaningful changes.

edit: From the BD staff member. Take with your preferred amount of salt:

hal_greaves said:
Other than the arbitration agreement we've more or less had to update our TOS to be more in line with modern expectations. I know there's still some things that need to be clarified potentially, but we're not trying to change anything or steal anybodies information or artwork or anything of that sort. As questions come up I'll address them and see what we can do to refine everything.

hal_greaves said:
The reality is that e621 is a big website, and now we have to do big website things, especially in the face of new and modern political realities. Most other places are also going to start going this route for many of the same reasons but we're doing our best to cover what we can so we can continue to exist, which is ultimately of greater importance in the long run than trying to send some kind of message to the contrary.

We're not trying to be this big evil entity that's slowly turning into Evil Conglomo Corp, but we have to adhere to certain standards otherwise we face real risk, and ultimately I'd like to continue to keep this place around.

Edit: I want to add to this that once again we were advised to add in a clause by Free Speech Coalition due to the way certain laws can be enforced.

I have seen it and I'm not impressed. The trend of adding arbitration clauses and "You forfeit your rights" to everything lately is quite alarming. I'd wonder why e6 would feel the need to do this, maybe they're trying to get ahead of any future data breaches that result in UK Government ID's being stolen, like what happened with Discord?

Looking at the pull request on GitHub, that popup seems to have been a request by Bad Dragon.
So if I were to guess, the actual ToS probably remain unchanged, they are just now "in your face" every time you boot this site up in a fresh session.

You must treat your username as confidential and not disclose it to anyone was a bit of a wild read. Also I find the stated expectation that you check the ToS every time you access the site extremely amusing.

Hey there,

The Terms of Use is now quite different than the old version. If you have questions or want clarification on it, please contact our Bad Dragon staff member, Hal Greaves or email us at [email protected]

Edit: He will answer some questions below as well!

vulfie said:
I have seen it and I'm not impressed. The trend of adding arbitration clauses and "You forfeit your rights" to everything lately is quite alarming. I'd wonder why e6 would feel the need to do this, maybe they're trying to get ahead of any future data breaches that result in UK Government ID's being stolen, like what happened with Discord?

This was something that is more or less rolling out across the industry, and has been advised by Free Speech Coalition. More or less has to do with the way third party enforcement is handled.

Looks like it was updated on the 2nd, but the pop-up notification was implemented today. Not a legal expert, so I don't know if any of the changes are noteworthy.

quenir said:
You must treat your username as confidential and not disclose it to anyone was a bit of a wild read. Also I find the stated expectation that you check the ToS every time you access the site extremely amusing.

Didn't pay attention to that part. Alrighty, no one can know I use the username Crocogator on various places on the internet.
_{EDIT: I guess it's only if I'm provided such info as part of a security procedure, so you guys are allowed to know my username, I think.
EDIT: Actually, wait, it says "If you choose...", uhh, whatever...}

So, is there a tl,dr for what this changed from a users perspective?
Legalese is hard enough when it's your native language...

Is e6 going to get the age verification thing?

fuzzygears said:
So, is there a tl,dr for what this changed from a users perspective?
Legalese is hard enough when it's your native language...

Other than the arbitration agreement we've more or less had to update our TOS to be more in line with modern expectations. I know there's still some things that need to be clarified potentially, but we're not trying to change anything or steal anybodies information or artwork or anything of that sort. As questions come up I'll address them and see what we can do to refine everything.

hal_greaves said:
Other than the arbitration agreement we've more or less had to update our TOS to be more in line with modern expectations. I know there's still some things that need to be clarified potentially, but we're not trying to change anything or steal anybodies information or artwork or anything of that sort. As questions come up I'll address them and see what we can do to refine everything.

And said arbitration for ones outside us and canada this tos change essentially meant "We're just putting it upfront now so you're aware the TOS exist"?

pelleelle said:
And said arbitration for ones outside us and canada this tos change essentially meant "We're just putting it upfront now so you're aware the TOS exist"?

In order for it to be binding it had to be placed front and center and agreed too. This is especially important when it comes to certain types of third party lawsuits, because now they can't just say they didn't read the ToS.

Always an odd experience to be served with these "you consign all your rights to sue" in a country were that isn't just blatantly illegal, but also gets you laughed out of the room if you put it in.
I can kinda get it tho, with all those bounty laws red states have been putting out , and how litigious Americans are

As a casual user (and first-time poster I lied), the biggest change I've noticed has nothing to do with the site itself.

I tend to come here in my browser's private mode. I usually don't log in, either, unless I'm looking for something I can't find otherwise. That said, every time I come here now, that big, ugly pop-up displays and forces me to tap the screen three whole times ("agree to TOS", "are you 18?", "accept") instead of once. How horrible.

Really though, while I'm annoyed, I also recognize that if I just browsed "normally", this wouldn't be happening.
^{Still, who actually wants a porn site in their browser's long-term storage? Waka-waka.}

suihtilcod said:
As a casual user (and first-time poster), the biggest change I've noticed has nothing to do with the site itself.

I tend to come here in my browser's private mode. I usually don't log in, either, unless I'm looking for something I can't find otherwise. That said, every time I come here now, that big, ugly pop-up displays and forces me to tap the screen three whole times ("agree to TOS", "are you 18?", "accept") instead of once. How horrlble.

Really though, while I'm annoyed, I also recognize that if I just browsed in "normal mode", this wouldn't be happening.
^{Still, who actually wants a porn site in their browser's long-term storage? Waka-waka.}

I doubt you need to be told, but private mode doesnt hide anything exept your search history from users that share your account and password.
Assuming you own your device theres not much of a reason to use it

hal_greaves said:
we've more or less had to update our TOS to be more in line with modern expectations.

I'm dreadfully unfamiliar with trends in TOS, so... did those modern expectations change anything in regards to how users should behave.
For instance, the copyright section kind of does make it sound like saving a neat picture locally is forbidden now, and while my memory of the previous iteration is fuzzy I don't remember it that way.

fast91 said:
I doubt you need to be told, but private mode doesnt hide anything exept your search history from users that share your account and password.
Assuming you own your device theres not much of a reason to use it

it also resets your cookies and stuff, but not much more.

dba_afish said:
it also resets your cookies and stuff, but not much more.

and most of the would be "we are tracking you" kinda cookies fingerprint your identity using tech that doesnt rely on that anyway, as far as I understand, which admittedly is somewhat limited.

fast91 said:
I doubt you need to be told, but private mode doesnt hide anything exept your search history from users that share your account and password.
Assuming you own your device theres not much of a reason to use it

At least on firefox using a private window does seem to imply that the cookie managing this popup gets nuked. I just tried by opening the AI-version of e6 (assuming it's using the same setup, at least it's useful for once...) in a private window, closed that window and opened the site again in another private window. It showed the popup again. I didn't close this window.
Sure, my ISP could still see the traffic but at least there's no e6 cookie on the machine. (Or there wouldn't be if I didn't use a normal tab for this in case I hit ctrl+Q instead of ctrl+W again)

fast91 said:
I doubt you need to be told, but private mode doesnt hide anything exept your search history from users that share your account and password.
Assuming you own your device theres not much of a reason to use it

I'm the owner and sole user of all my electronic devices. I also know that my ISP, for example, can see every dumb, lewd, or "questionable" thing I do on the Internet regardless of whether or not I use "private mode" if they choose to. The reason I use private mode for some sites is more about personal preference and not wanting to clutter up my browser cache and history with every random site I go to.

As for this site, specifically? As I said, I simply don't contribute or interact enough with the site, itself, to worry about staying logged in at all times. But as I also said, I end up paying for it in having to accept the TOS every time I close my private browsing window.

"Them's the breaks".

It's unfortunate that forced arbitration is something we have to agree to just to view a site. Morally illegal, but legally legal

suihtilcod said:
I'm the owner and sole user of all my electronic devices. I also know that my ISP, for example, can see every dumb, lewd, or "questionable" thing I do on the Internet regardless of whether or not I use "private mode" if they choose to. The reason I use private mode for some sites is more about personal preference and not wanting to clutter up my browser cache and history with every random site I go to.

As for this site, specifically? As I said, I simply don't contribute or interact enough with the site, itself, to worry about staying logged in at all times. But as I also said, I end up paying for it in having to accept the TOS every time I close my private browsing window.

"Them's the breaks".

as long as your arent getting frustrated and wasting your time over trying to maintain a false sense of privacy, whatever floats your boat.
Hope you have a nice day, I'll stop cluttering this with posts on this mildly offtopic subject now

hal_greaves said:
In order for it to be binding it had to be placed front and center and agreed too. This is especially important when it comes to certain types of third party lawsuits, because now they can't just say they didn't read the ToS.

When it comes to forced arbitration, which likely shouldn't have been included due to it being legally dubious at best, what are our options to opt'ing out? From what I understand the company would only need to be told that a user opts out. Discord did this and only required the username and email tied to the account

Seeing this from E621 is extremely alarming. You legally cannot sign away your rights in arbitration for one. At least no on in the US can. You would have to have the power of amending the bill of rights itself to do that. You cant legally just take away someone's rights including taking away their right to a fair hearing in a court of law. Edit: Some states even deny that any contractual agreement is null and void depending on whether or not it was notarized so tough luck on that too. Corporations put things in there to try and scare you, but a corporation of any kind has no rights to do any of that regardless of what random thing you clicked okay on. Theres nothing to even stop one from stating the text field of the agreement ever loaded properly. These things are meant to strong arm and scare people into agreeing to things they know would destroy them in court otherwise. I am hoping that this was just put up by the e621 people to cover their own butts with everything that has been going on lately in the EU and US, but if this means some major corporation or other entity has taken over behind the scenes then we as furries may be screwed. We are already trying to be blamed for so many things in the world that I am on edge as it is. No one enjoys being made to feel guilty just because they identify as a member of a certain group, and we already get enough hate as it is.

"For clarity, we permit User Contributions involving explicit fantasy themes, including but not limited to non-human or anthropomorphic art, roleplay, and text-based scenarios that may include contentious elements, as long as they are clearly presented as fictional and do not violate any laws, promote real-world harm, or involve non-consensual interactions among users."

"we permit... roleplay..."

Huh. That wasn't there before.

I've been sitting on this for weeks wondering how long it would take for a notice to been seen and for people to see that forced arbitration clause, with no opt out of course
Forced arbitration clauses are already lame, but not having any way to opt out is even lamer

Going from an easily readable ToS to completely unreadable legalese is also extremely annoying, the corporatization of e6 has been slowly creeping in from all angles for the last year or so, we're just now seeing a more in your face example

mare_milkers said:
Seeing this from E621 is extremely alarming. You legally cannot sign away your rights in arbitration for one. At least no on in the US can. You would have to have the power of amending the bill of rights itself to do that. You cant legally just take away someone's rights including taking away their right to a fair hearing in a court of law. Edit: Some states even deny that any contractual agreement is null and void depending on whether or not it was notarized so tough luck on that too. Corporations put things in there to try and scare you, but a corporation of any kind has no rights to do any of that regardless of what random thing you clicked okay on. Theres nothing to even stop one from stating the text field of the agreement ever loaded properly. These things are meant to strong arm and scare people into agreeing to things they know would destroy them in court otherwise. I am hoping that this was just put up by the e621 people to cover their own butts with everything that has been going on lately in the EU and US, but if this means some major corporation or other entity has taken over behind the scenes then we as furries may be screwed. We are already trying to be blamed for so many things in the world that I am on edge as it is. No one enjoys being made to feel guilty just because they identify as a member of a certain group, and we already get enough hate as it is.

To add onto this, forcing users to agree to their new terms in order to use the site means the agreement isn't voluntary. This means the agreement to forced arbitration specifically can't be enforced due to there being no other way to use the platform without being coerced into accepting the new terms

donovan_dmc said:
I've been sitting on this for weeks wondering how long it would take for a notice to been seen and for people to see that forced arbitration clause, with no opt out of course
Forced arbitration clauses are already lame, but not having any way to opt out is even lamer

Going from an easily readable ToS to completely unreadable legalese is also extremely annoying, the corporatization of e6 has been slowly creeping in from all angles for the last year or so, we're just now seeing a more in your face example

Legally and ethically dubious be here or there.
While I am in the envious position of not even needing to say "I opt out" to express that I, of course would still like to if given the option, its pretty clear that a site hosting the things e6 hosts hosted in America will need every legal protection it can from bad faith politically motivated litigants, and a legal system more than happy to conspire.
My advice would be to move operations to a free country, but absent that lawering up is the best one can do.

fuzzygears said:
For instance, the copyright section kind of does make it sound like saving a neat picture locally is forbidden now, and while my memory of the previous iteration is fuzzy I don't remember it that way.

I was wondering about that part as well, but apparently posts are considered "user contributions" which are exempt from that clause.

donovan_dmc said:
Going from an easily readable ToS to completely unreadable legalese is also extremely annoying, the corporatization of e6 has been slowly creeping in from all angles for the last year or so, we're just now seeing a more in your face example

I understand that it's what every other company is doing, but I'm pretty sure it's only that way because it's unreadable. The legalese isn't somehow "more binding" than the normally-worded version, and actually this one covers far fewer edge cases than the equivalent normally-worded TOS. The only difference is that it's harder for a layperson to read and understand it.

By the way, that very thing has the side effect of making "there's no way I could have known that what I was doing was against TOS" be a genuinely successful argument that has precedent. The only reason companies open themselves up to that is because it also gives them the opportunity to strongarm their users and bury things in the TOS they don't want their users to know they're agreeing to, and that's worth the risk.

@staff, you guys aren't trying to deceive your userbase, so why bury what seems like a perfectly reasonable TOS in legalese? You're opening yourself up to more TOS-breaking without a benefit. It's only a common practice because it's anti-consumer, and you're not trying to be that, right?

tsilb said:
@staff, you guys aren't trying to deceive your userbase, so why bury what seems like a perfectly reasonable TOS in legalese? You're opening yourself up to more TOS-breaking without a benefit. It's only a common practice because it's anti-consumer, and you're not trying to be that, right?

The staff have nothing to do with it, the corporate jargon comes from Bad Dragon (the actual corporate entity above E621), E621 itself is actually very not corporate

rainbow_dash said:
Hey there,

The Terms of Use is now quite different than the old version. If you have questions or want clarification on it, please contact our Bad Dragon staff member, Hal Greaves or email us at [email protected]

reginaldludwig said:
Huh. That wasn't there before.

the CoC still explicitly says no using public comment places for roleplay sessions, while allowing "non-disruptive" roleplay in the same places (presumably this is allowing for stuff like playing along with a post's premise or using part of a comment to speak "in a character's voice" in order to get a point across, as well as allow users to use anachronistic voice when typing).

furviewingaccount said:
It was put out on the second I think, but I got the big popup asking me to agree to it today. Looks like they got a real lawyer to write up this one. There's an arbitration clause so that's fun. I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts, especially if they're more fluent in legalese and can actually understand any of it. I've got no clue if there are actually any meaningful changes.

The fact that it went from whatever it was they had before to "we got a real lawyer to write this one" at all is a big change. No, actually, it's a huge change. Lawyers are expensive, and the gods above only know how many billable hours went into all that legalese. Stop for a minute and ask yourself why they'd cough up that kind of dough.

They either went to court with the old TOS and lost, hard, and they're planning on going to court with something in the new TOS (note the presence of a forced arbitration clause), or something else has changed somewhere else in the US American legal system and they're covering their asses in preparation for being taken to court. Either way, somebody's about to get screwed.

eeeeevil_estk said:
The fact that it went from whatever it was they had before to "we got a real lawyer to write this one" at all is a big change. No, actually, it's a huge change. Lawyers are expensive, and the gods above only know how many billable hours went into all that legalese. Stop for a minute and ask yourself why they'd cough up that kind of dough.

They either went to court with the old TOS and lost, hard, and they're planning on going to court with something in the new TOS (note the presence of a forced arbitration clause), or something else has changed somewhere else in the US American legal system and they're covering their asses in preparation for being taken to court. Either way, somebody's about to get screwed.

For the sake of comparison, this is the old version, and this is the current version
Bad dragon keeps lawyers on retainer for various reasons so this isn't really them going out of their way to get a lawyer
Some changes have definitely been getting made because of the arizona HB that passed some months ago (topic #57070), there isn't exactly a direct quote to confirm it but the timing is sus

Dystopian future is happening sooner than I thought.

donovan_dmc said:
Some changes have definitely been getting made because of the arizona HB that passed some months ago (topic #57070), there isn't exactly a direct quote to confirm it but the timing is sus

I do still wonder under what, like, legal theory the site is able to remain in operation without it being in violation of HB 2112, since that has been in effect now since 9/26.

Having forced arbitration in the TOS is super shitty. Even if it's not enforceable, it's still just bad to have in there.

Just to put it out here, there is no real need for conspiracies or sky is falling "corporatization" stuff.

The reality is that e621 is a big website, and now we have to do big website things, especially in the face of new and modern political realities. Most other places are also going to start going this route for many of the same reasons but we're doing our best to cover what we can so we can continue to exist, which is ultimately of greater importance in the long run than trying to send some kind of message to the contrary.

We're not trying to be this big evil entity that's slowly turning into Evil Conglomo Corp, but we have to adhere to certain standards otherwise we face real risk, and ultimately I'd like to continue to keep this place around.

Edit: I want to add to this that once again we were advised to add in a clause by Free Speech Coalition due to the way certain laws can be enforced.

hal_greaves said:
Just to put it out here, there is no real need for conspiracies or sky is falling "corporatization" stuff.

The reality is that e621 is a big website, and now we have to do big website things, especially in the face of new and modern political realities. Most other places are also going to start going this route for many of the same reasons but we're doing our best to cover what we can so we can continue to exist, which is ultimately of greater importance in the long run than trying to send some kind of message to the contrary.

Edit: I want to add to this that once again we were advised to add in a clause by Free Speech Coalition due to the way certain laws can be enforced.

"Big website" means being targeted as such.

The whole of Europe will be the next to force ID-Mass surveillance on it's people, which then means that this site won't be able to hide itself from it if it's big enough.
This is going to be the next shitshow: either block Europe, find ways to slip trough every time authorities threaten with actions, or go along with it.

t24ttffrg said:
"Big website" means being targeted as such.

The whole of Europe will be the next to force ID-Mass surveillance on it's people, which then means that this site won't be able to hide itself from it if it's big enough.
This is going to be the next shitshow: either block Europe, find ways to slip trough every time authorities threaten with actions, or go along with it.

I want to stress that this is my own personal opinion and that this does not reflect on the staff as a whole or reflect any change we're going to do - but I personally feel like the writing is a bit on the wall on this one. I think most political entities are going to realize that site-level restrictions are basically worthless because anybody can simply VPN around them, and the next step here will be subjecting it down to the device level. While that of course takes a burden off my shoulders, the larger implications there are pretty obvious, but I can't see Microsoft or Google or any other company that controls the physical access points refusing to adopt device level implementations. And that's just going to be that, then.

I do wonder how long e6 can continue operating out of the US. I have to imagine this is because all of the moral panic going around these days, cause there isn't some high profile case from an artist or something that would cause them to change this to my knowledge. And I don't think this wave of internet censorship is going away any time soon either. Then again, where would they move to?

furviewingaccount said:
It was put out on the second I think, but I got the big popup asking me to agree to it today. Looks like they got a real lawyer to write up this one. There's an arbitration clause so that's fun. I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts, especially if they're more fluent in legalese and can actually understand any of it. I've got no clue if there are actually any meaningful changes.

I've been here for a decade. There is no reason for me to have to deal with this shit.

This service is effectively an archive. Why does the new ToS explicitly block utilising this as any archive would be utilised in order to retrieve and store local copies of information?

This also holds clauses that are generally not enforceable in a number of territories. I also have been unable to find the privacy statement, which not providing it to the end user makes this agreement significantly less binding, at least in the territory I am in. It is also incredibly concerning.

also having "By using the Website or by clicking to accept or agree to the Terms of Use, you accept and agree to be bound and abide by these Terms of Use, our Code of Conduct, found at https://e926.net/wiki_pages/1638, and our Privacy Policy, found at https://e926.net/static/privacy, all of which are incorporated herein by reference." but not letting people see the content in those links without clicking accept or agree means it is literally impossible to know everything that you are agreeing to before agreeing to it, if I'm not misinterpreting this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_by_reference

the_protogen said:
also having "By using the Website or by clicking to accept or agree to the Terms of Use, you accept and agree to be bound and abide by these Terms of Use, our Code of Conduct, found at https://e926.net/wiki_pages/1638, and our Privacy Policy, found at https://e926.net/static/privacy, all of which are incorporated herein by reference." but not letting people see the content in those links without clicking accept or agree means it is literally impossible to know everything that you are agreeing to before agreeing to it, if I'm not misinterpreting this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_by_reference

this is very funny but also seems like a very big issue

the_protogen said:
also having "By using the Website or by clicking to accept or agree to the Terms of Use, you accept and agree to be bound and abide by these Terms of Use, our Code of Conduct, found at https://e926.net/wiki_pages/1638, and our Privacy Policy, found at https://e926.net/static/privacy, all of which are incorporated herein by reference." but not letting people see the content in those links without clicking accept or agree means it is literally impossible to know everything that you are agreeing to before agreeing to it, if I'm not misinterpreting this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_by_reference

that'll be addressed

anotherfluffyderg said:
This service is effectively an archive. Why does the new ToS explicitly block utilising this as any archive would be utilised in order to retrieve and store local copies of information?

That's not our intention - I'm adding that to my list right now of things that need clarification / potential updates in language. We do want people to have their own copies of course but we need to be aware of the copyrights of others as well.

hal_greaves said:
I want to stress that this is my own personal opinion and that this does not reflect on the staff as a whole or reflect any change we're going to do - but I personally feel like the writing is a bit on the wall on this one. I think most political entities are going to realize that site-level restrictions are basically worthless because anybody can simply VPN around them, and the next step here will be subjecting it down to the device level. While that of course takes a burden off my shoulders, the larger implications there are pretty obvious, but I can't see Microsoft or Google or any other company that controls the physical access points refusing to adopt device level implementations. And that's just going to be that, then.

I'm pretty sure they will most likely force restrictions and control onto sites for a some time, until they finally realize, after a lot identity theft cases, looking at discord here, it caused more harm than good; you remember that cookie madness? Then, they absolutely will force device restrictions onto all the big tech companies; and while they're ad it, why not put mass surveillance in there too. Chat control *cough*.
At this point, we either have Internet 2.0 where all the "good" sites will go to while the big tech giants have completely taken over the "old" web, or the internet will slowly fade out and will be replaced by the next big thing that connects people; whatever that will be.

I guess we had a good run with the web for the past decades, but now it will slowly come to an end.

rainbow_dash said:
Hey there,

The Terms of Use is now quite different than the old version. If you have questions or want clarification on it, please contact our Bad Dragon staff member, Hal Greaves or email us at [email protected]

Edit: He will answer some questions below as well!

Yeah, I'd really like to know what the whole "you can't download anything on the site" nonsense is.

drachona said:
Yeah, I'd really like to know what the whole "you can't download anything on the site" nonsense is.

"Oi, you got a loicense for that 'right-click->safe as'?"
Jokes aside, that whole "Copyright" really raised an eyebrow tbh.

hal_greaves said:
I want to stress that this is my own personal opinion and that this does not reflect on the staff as a whole or reflect any change we're going to do - but I personally feel like the writing is a bit on the wall on this one. I think most political entities are going to realize that site-level restrictions are basically worthless because anybody can simply VPN around them, and the next step here will be subjecting it down to the device level. While that of course takes a burden off my shoulders, the larger implications there are pretty obvious, but I can't see Microsoft or Google or any other company that controls the physical access points refusing to adopt device level implementations. And that's just going to be that, then.

so basicaly, we all are doomed so its pointless to complain about it?

i may be a bit paranoid currently,but this comment does look like that

t24ttffrg said:
"Big website" means being targeted as such.

The whole of Europe will be the next to force ID-Mass surveillance on it's people, which then means that this site won't be able to hide itself from it if it's big enough.
This is going to be the next shitshow: either block Europe, find ways to slip trough every time authorities threaten with actions, or go along with it.

i still have hope that things will not nesscesarily go that way, or even if they do, it wont last forever

t24ttffrg said:
I'm pretty sure they will most likely force restrictions and control onto sites for a some time, until they finally realize, after a lot identity theft cases, looking at discord here, it caused more harm than good; you remember that cookie madness? Then, they absolutely will force device restrictions onto all the big tech companies; and while they're ad it, why not put mass surveillance in there too. Chat control *cough*.
At this point, we either have Internet 2.0 where all the "good" sites will go to while the big tech giants have completely taken over the "old" web, or the internet will slowly fade out and will be replaced by the next big thing that connects people; whatever that will be.

I guess we had a good run with the web for the past decades, but now it will slowly come to an end.

the later possibility seems kinda of impossible

drachona said:
Yeah, I'd really like to know what the whole "you can't download anything on the site" nonsense is.

The header there starts with "Excluding User Contributions", so presumably they don't want you downloading site assets, which is still a bit ridiculous
The whole thing is worded poorly and looks like a generic ToS that isn't actually tailored to the site

hal_greaves said:
That's not our intention - I'm adding that to my list right now of things that need clarification / potential updates in language. We do want people to have their own copies of course but we need to be aware of the copyrights of others as well.

It is not a breach of copyright to retain local files unless a license explicitly states the files are only to be duplicated by the party commissioning the work, or the party creating the work. In the case here, the only disrespect to the copyright of others would be ignoring the terms of this license, or in the absence of a license with such a clause, utilising it for commercial purposes without the consent of the copyright holder. It is not a breach of copyright for a third party to maintain a local archive purely for convenience that is not intended for commercial use. If such behaviour is in your mind demonstrating a disregard for the copyright holdings of others, I would posit perhaps a review of what this website does and how that reacts with copyright holdings may be in order.

The binding arbitration stuff is pretty fucking vile, yeah. An opt-out would be nice to not be subject to a shitty privatized and blatantly unfair corporation-always-wins bad court alternative used predominantly to dodge consequences for screwing people over. It's not excusable for any entity that even pretends to be ethical.

Also, as I mentioned in the bug report thread, the language in the ToS regarding using site software doesn't match the actual software license terms for e621ng (which are BSD 2-Clause and not "you may not do absolutely anything with our software").

Also, about the account-related stuff people seem to be concerned about, it amounts to "don't give out your login details," which is fundamental good security posture and no cause for alarm. At least not by intent, but the wording is pretty funny (Oxford comma's a bitch).

mklxiv said:
Also, as I mentioned in the bug report thread, the language in the ToS regarding using site software doesn't match the actual software license terms for e621ng (which are BSD 2-Clause and not "you may not do absolutely anything with our software").

Unfortunately, this license is for the software side of it. It dictates nothing regarding the actual deployment of the solution, and how the end user of the deployed solution interacts with it. For that you would have wanted to find some version of the GPL from memory.

anotherfluffyderg said:
Unfortunately, this license is for the software side of it. It dictates nothing regarding the actual deployment of the solution, and how the end user of the deployed solution interacts with it. For that you would have wanted to find some version of the GPL from memory.

OK yeah, but it's kind of goofy given the actual software (as opposed to configuration side, like user accounts and permissions and tags and stuff) is not subject to that aspect of the TOS at all given its license, when it seems like it's targeted more towards the configuration but worded as if it were software, which it is not. It's about as much software as a JSON file is. The software deployed and the software you can get off of GitHub are also one and the same. Not screwing with a deployment is more clear than not screwing with mere software (more broad), especially software that's permissively licensed.

Also technically the GPL is not enough there, you'd need AGPL for that which better covers externally hosted software.

mklxiv said:
Also technically the GPL is not enough there, you'd need AGPL for that which better covers externally hosted software.

Cut me some slack, I haven't written software that needed me to pay attention to the license in a decent while 😿

anotherfluffyderg said:
Cut me some slack, I haven't written software that needed me to pay attention to the license in a decent while 😿

No worries, I'm just a FOSS nerd :P

hal_greaves said:
I want to stress that this is my own personal opinion and that this does not reflect on the staff as a whole or reflect any change we're going to do - but I personally feel like the writing is a bit on the wall on this one. I think most political entities are going to realize that site-level restrictions are basically worthless because anybody can simply VPN around them, and the next step here will be subjecting it down to the device level. While that of course takes a burden off my shoulders, the larger implications there are pretty obvious, but I can't see Microsoft or Google or any other company that controls the physical access points refusing to adopt device level implementations. And that's just going to be that, then.

Just saying this kind of "device-level verification" is a pipe dream of regulators that have no idea how that'd even be implemented from a software or hardware side, nor that you'd need some kind of certificate/token authority to validate it set up, in a similar vein to them not knowing how how VPNs work. Circumvention would be only slightly less trivial than just buying a VPN, instead you'd just buy a used device that has a token or simply forge a token. And I say this working in the IT department of a government agency: The average legislator has the tech literacy of a fucking caveman. They can make all the device-level verification laws they want, but they'll not design something that functions at a technical level because that's outside their realm of expertise.

So, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

I like that the TOS is accually put infront of you and you have to accept it.

although I really dont like that they changed it to some unreadable legalese, and OFC I dont like the forced arbitration but I dont like the idea of an opt out because that adds more "legitimacy" to it IMO if you dont opt out... or miss the window to do so.

Really its been sad to see this site decline in the past year or so and I wish they would make an effort to make the user experience better for all and have some morality when it comes to TOS and stuff.

i have mixed thoughts about the hiring of an lawyer,on one hand, it can represent an valuable defence of the site against illegitimate and semi illegitimate legal/govermental threas

in the other, it does make it far harder to understand for the average user

furviewingaccount said:
this person is very interesting but also we're not gonna get anywhere if we continue down this rabbit hole so may we just agree on a collective "haha ok buddy" and continue on as we were?

i think we should agree on an mass report of someone only on the site to start shit

eranormus said:
i think we should agree on an mass report

...I'm right here. Who do you think you'd be reporting them to?

Besides, I thought we agreed we aren't continuing this topic of discussion.

aacafah said:
...I'm right here. Who do you think you'd be reporting them to?

Besides, I thought we agreed we aren't continuing this topic of discussion.

pretending he does not exist does not mean he will go away, doing something about him will mean that he goes away

he started the derail, he is not here on good faith, and complaining about people pointing it out does not make the problem go away

for fuck´s sake, its praticaly half of why the united states and a lot of other countries is on this mess

either you mods ban bad actors like him and keep it healthy, or the site becomes fourchan or is falsely reported and shut down by people like him

or you ban people like me and signal to the whole site that you want it to become fourchan and/or get shut down due to false reports

or ban both of us and buy the site some more time before the whole becoming fourchan and getting shut down

eranormus said:
not talking about you

and pretending he does not exist does not mean he will go away, doing something about him will mean that he goes away

he started the derail, he is not here on good faith, and complaining about people pointing it out does not make the problem go away

for fuck´s sake, its praticaly half of why the united states and a lot of other countries is on this mess

1. I'm a mod. I handle your reports. I can see them. What are you reporting that I can't already see?
2. I'm not pretending they aren't there, I'm giving them an opportunity to stop it & move on. You are currently beefing your own, so I'd recommend taking heed.

eranormus said:
i think we should agree on an mass report of someone only on the site to start shit

eranormus said:
not talking about you

and pretending he does not exist does not mean he will go away, doing something about him will mean that he goes away

he started the derail, he is not here on good faith, and complaining about people pointing it out does not make the problem go away

for fuck´s sake, its praticaly half of why the united states and a lot of other countries is on this mess

My man, what
There are already staff here (he IS a moderator, he handles tickets), mass reporting isn't going to do anything
If anything mass reporting is only going to cause problems, and considering you're the one encouraging it, those problems would fall back on to you