Stovetop

Obligatory IANAL, but…

Generally a search warrant needs to be issued by a local authority, and that requires the crime to be prosecutable in the place where it was issued.

So in theory, California is potentially able to refuse requests to search for things that are not illegal in California but may be illegal somewhere else.

That being said, it looks like there are specific practices in place making it easier to issue warrants for electronic data like this scenario, even across state lines.

And in this particular circumstance, the alleged offense is even illegal in California (abortion of a viable fetus), so it’s a bit of a moot point anyways. A Californian judge would have issued this warrant if a local police department requested one.

From the user perspective for sure. It’s much easier to join lemmy.world and it has a higher population of fledditors. I was just more acknowledging the role of lemmy.ml as something of a model instance because it is run directly by the developers of Lemmy.

It is the “default” one, though, and its admins are behind the Lemmy platform itself. Along with the Jerboa app, too.

But even then, however, what’s to stop an army of bots from just ChatGPTing their way through the application process?

I went to a website to generate a random username, picked the first option of polarbear_gender, and then just stuck that and the application questions for lemmy.ml into ChatGPT to get the following:

I want to join Lemmy.ml because I’m really into having meaningful discussions and connecting with others who have similar interests. Lemmy.ml seems like a great platform that fosters a diverse exchange of ideas in a respectful way, which I like.

When it comes to the communities I’d love to be a part of, I’m all about ones that focus on environmental conservation, wildlife preservation, and sustainability. Those topics really resonate with me, and I’m eager to jump into discussions and learn from fellow passionate folks.

As for my username, I chose it because I’ve got respect for polar bears and how they live with the environmental challenges they face. And throwing in “gender” is just my way of showing support for inclusivity and gender equality. Building a more just and fair society is important to me.

I don’t know the full criteria that people are approved or declined for, but would these answers pass the sniff test?

I’m just worried that placing too much trust in the application process contributes to a false sense of security. A community that is supposedly “protected” from bots can be silently infiltrated by them and cause more damage than in communities where you can either reasonably assume bots are everywhere, or there are more reliable filtering measures in place than a simple statement of purpose.

The Sync community turned toxic when the dev implemented an updated UI a couple years ago. The new UI was beautiful and much more in line with the evolving visual design of Android, but the average user hates change. The dev version spent a while on the new UI while it was being refined, but the free/pro version was not upgraded until I want to say probably a year or more later, the developer having gone radio silent for a while under all the criticism.

No, I mean Reddit runs entirely on subreddits for its business, and the infrastructure requires a moderator to exist to create them.

You sorta can. The difference in your scenario is that your neighbor doesn’t need you to mow their lawn, but Reddit requires moderators in order for the business of Reddit to function.

Here is a guide published by the state of California about whether someone should qualify as an employee of a company. Read through the first couple pages of checklists and ask yourself if a moderator fits the criteria they’re looking for.

For the first 3 questions, a “Yes” answer is an indictator that the person is an employee.

1. Do you instruct or supervise the person while he or she is working?

• I would say that likely counts as a yes, because moderators have a code of conduct which is mandated by Reddit, and they must follow it in order to keep their jobs.

2. Can the worker quit or be discharged (fired) at any time?

• Reddit does not have protections in place for moderators, who can be removed from their positions at any time. Likewise, moderators can walk from their job at any time.

3. Is the work being performed part of your regular business?

• This is definitely a yes, because Reddit relies on subreddits for its business, and subreddits require moderators.

For the next 3 questions, a “No” answer indicates that the person is an employee and not an independent contractor.

4. Does the worker have a separately established business?

• This is a bit of a gray area. For the majority of moderators, this would be a no at surface value, but some subreddits that concern a specific product/company sometimes have representatives from that company on the mod team. However another criteria of this category is that moderators have the ability to add/remove other moderators at their discretion, which is an indicator that they qualify as independent contractors and not employees. Should this go to trial, this will be an item that is argued.

5. Is the worker free to make business decisions which affect his or her ability to profit from the work?

• This would likely be a no for most moderators. To expand further, one of the example criteria is whether the individual is free to utilize their own tools/resources to do their work, and Reddit limiting API access is specifically one example of this not being the case. But if the subreddit is a front for a business (as in, the subreddit’s primary purpose is to sell/support a paid product or service), it likely would not qualify.

6. Does the individual have a substantial investment in their job which would subject him or her to a financial risk of loss?

• Similar to the above, I think this would be a no for most moderators. Reddit controls the platform and dictates what resources moderators are/aren’t allowed to utilize when doing their jobs, so there is no independent financial investment from the moderators that is at risk.

It’s not cut-and-dry, and I think that’s what might make this difficult to take to court, but the argument certainly exists and the case could at least result in better terms for how Reddit must work with their moderators.