Codeberg Bans Cryptocurrency Projects

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1281550/codeberg-bans-cryptocurrency-projects

codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/pulls/1254

The rule is: “Content that harms the reputation of Codeberg, such as cryptocurrency related projects”

The interpretation that all crypto projects are banned is false, if you read the complete thread. The important part here is “Content that harms the reputation of Codeberg”. This was confirmed by a codeberg official.

https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/pulls/1254#issuecomment-19923979 and the 2 comments below.

If that’s supposed to be the correct interpretation, why does the top of the site now state, “Cryptocurrency projects are no longer allowed. View change”?

I don’t know, ask them. In the referred thread in the end it says:

We would also like to refer to the comment by @defnull concerning the interpretation of this amendment.

Defnulls comment says:

Context is important. The rule is: “Content that harms the reputation of Codeberg, such as cryptocurrency related projects” and it’s a part of the “You must not share any content that’s expressing hate or encouraging violence towards a person or group for any reason.” rule. If a project does not harm the reputation of Codeberg (e.g. by scamming people or doing other shady stuff) it does not fall under this specific rule. And if it did, it would be a TOS violation even before the change. Cryptocurrency (the scammy kind) was just added as an example here. With a lot of creativity and a complete lack of trust in Codeberg you could read this backwards as “All remotely cryptocurrency related projects harm Codebergs reputation, so they must be banned” , but that’s not what this rule actually says. Another common argument is that this rule could be abused to attack or harm ‘good’ projects. We all know how a bad laws (e.g. copyright) can be used as a weapon of suppression. For big platform, it’s way easier and also more safe to quickly act on complaints instead of investigating. Users are guilty by default and must prove they are not. Vague rules are very dangerous under those circumstances. The Codeberg TOS situation is fundamentally different though: > No one has any ‘right’ to get AI or crypto projects removed from Codeberg. Trolls cannot file false claims en masse and demand action to get someone else in trouble. If they do, then Codeberg mods can quickly dismiss those false claims, they do not have to disprove them. Banning a project is way more work than not banning it, so there will be no ‘purge’ and no mass-banning. No one has time for that. We just need to get rid of the worst and most obvious offenders, that’s all. Humans with brains will decide on a per-project basis.