If there is any lawyer / legal expert in the room, are remote users subject to an instance Terms of Service?
See this post for context: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/39648805
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A noncommercial website can surely exclude whoever they want. A list of reasons they'll do it is more of a courtesy.
What's the alternative, here? That neo-Nazis on another instance can't be told to get bent, if their own instance is cool with them?
Are you comparing one of the worst moderated Lemmy instance being shitty towards a kid with blocking/defederating from neo-nazis? Are you for real?
Absolutely they can exclude anyone they want to (as long as it's not because of discrimination as that opens a whole other legal field) but the point is that they claimed the user broke their ToS and therefore that's why they were banned. But a ToS doesn't apply to remote users (in my opinion, im not a lawyer etc etc). They could have literally said for any other reason they wanted, or not even given a reason, but they specifically claimed ToS which is what we're trying to understand here.
If lemmy.worlds ToS applies to remote users, then every single fedi servers ToS apply to every single person in the fediverse.
... yes, in fact, that's exactly how the fediverse works. Other instances can and will ban you, from their service, according to their terms.
Y'all are getting caught up on how contract-shaped these tend to be. But a heads-up about what shit they'll ban you for, on these noncommercial pseudonymous forums, is never going to see the inside of a courtroom. It's just a formality. The stakes are microscopic. Your actual agreement is not required, because they'll just do what they want.
Fortunately, the whole point of the fediverse is - that power is limited to their instance. One site holding every last user accountable for e.g. their opinion of pineapple on pizza can only result in some weird modlog messages. lemmy.pineapplefucker.golf can't stop you from posting on your own instance. Or anyone else's. So if .world wants to pretend there are no teenagers on the internet, oh well.
Pseudo-legaleese FUD is not necessarily intended to be used in court (where commonly it would not have a chance).
This is another instance of .world trying to deflect critisism for their choices by invoking "the law". Last time they claimed to have consulted a lawyer.
The problem is not that they can actually "enforce their tos" nor that they can ban you. Its that they try to steer Lemmy as a platform to their preferred directio, this time apparently against teen users, using false pretenses.
That's in fact not how the Fediverse work. Remote users aren't subjected to other instances' Tos, that would be a legal nightmare. You're only subjected to the TOS of the server that host your account.
The kid didn't break .world TOS because he didn't join the server as a minor nor did he pretend to be an adult in order to join.
.world admins broke it the moment they didn't use the tools available to limit and cut federation accordingly with servers that allow minors in or that otherwise allow content agains their TOS.
If .world wants to pretend teens don't access the internet is their responsibility to blacklist and whitelist accordingly in order to defederate from intences that allow teenagers to join.
It's not the job of common user, especially not of remote users, to do the job of moderating a server, to decide which servers federates with. No matter if rule three before the no minors thing basically says "we won't do our job, you are on you your own", that would still only apply to direct users, accounts hosted on the server and not to remote users.
Adding to all that, there's no reason to block minors from accessing the site other than hatred towards teenagers; content that could be dangerous for them is also against . world TOS.
If that type of content in practice is allowed on the server, once again, the admins aren't doing their job and are the first ones not upholding their own TOS
Garbage previously addressed.
A TOS is not some serious contract. It's a notice. 'By using this site, you agree to...' and any site has carte blanche to put whatever they want, to decide they don't want you using that site. To whatever extent you're 'using' LW by being on a federated instance, LW has rescinded that, for this user. Whoop de shit. His local account is fine, other instances don't care.
You will inevitably catch hands from one cagey instance or other for completely stupid reasons. Or at least from crank moderators, drunk off the tiniest mote of power. That's all that's happening here.
Citing the TOS linked at the bottom instead of the rules in the sidebar makes no difference.
That neo-Nazis on another instance can’t be told to get bent, if their own instance is cool with them?
The context is completely different here, see the OP
I'm aware of the context.