Quote from: mikeywith on Today at 12:07:57 AM

Quote from: PrivacyG on December 02, 2023, 10:42:06 PM

I think it is not as important for the safety of theymos to BAN Mixers straight away as it is to rather promote a strong statement against the use of criminal funds with existing Mixers.

It all boils down to how much thought theymos gave this decision.

Let me highlight another very similar example in the shadows of mining pools, Mara pool (a U.S based pool) has been censoring OFAC listed addresses since 2021, on the other hand, Foundry (another U.S based pool 8 times bigger than Mara) does not censor those transactions, so what gives?

There are a few possible scenarios here, one of these two large corps has a bad lawyer who did not point them to the "right" direction, so it's either Foundry is in the wrong and is going to be in deep shit for not banning those transactions, or Mara sucked the government's dick for nothing.

Judging by the size of Foundry, I find it hard to believe that they do not know for certain that they are perfectly safe without censoring those transactions, or else -- it's a huge risk for not too much reward for them.

So now if we reflect this on the forum/theymos, I hope that if we have to bend over, we should at least do it while knowing that it's worth it and that any other option is not viable.

I hope that Theymos will do his best (assuming he has not) to evaluate the situation by consulting some good lawyers who would either point him to a complete ban or maybe just a warning and a set of rules that indicate using certain mixers that engaged in "laundering" criminal funds is against the forum rules and to delete and ban everyone who promotes those particular mixers but not mixers in general.

I asked AI about the legal status of forum content and its owner (ya may not the best place to ask but anyway)

Quote

In the United States, forum owners are generally protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). This law provides immunity to online platforms, including forums, from being held liable for the content posted by their users. Section 230 protects forum owners from legal action related to content moderation decisions, as well as from liability for the content itself.

However, it's important to note that there are exceptions, and forum owners may still be held responsible for certain types of content, such as intellectual property violations, federal criminal law, or violations of other specific statutes.

In practice, forum owners often establish and enforce terms of service that outline the rules for user behavior and content posting on their platforms. They may reserve the right to remove or moderate content that violates these terms. Additionally, they may cooperate with law enforcement if illegal activities are identified on their platform.

So there is still a slight possibility that the forum could get away with just

1- Banning all sanctioned/seized mixers.
2- Banning everyone who encourages the usage of mixers for criminal purposes.

Of course, going with the assumption that mixers (in their bare form are not illegal)

at least this shouldn't be an unconditional submission to the government: if theymos has concluded that retrieving is the only option here, we should accept it and remember the fact that while we as members are only subject to losing the forum, he could lose his freedom.

Mixers are a tool. Much like a hammer or a chainsaw.

You can do well with them or you can do bad.

So two got busted as they were misused.

Hackers cleaning stolen coins = bad.

So for the sake of safety shutting them down for a while is not that stupid.

USA will have their elections in 2024 so a year from now we may have a different leader and go in a different direction.

It is annoying but we can survive it.

Oh why does an honest person need a mixer. Simple honest guy came here in 2010 and owns 1000 or more coins.

He reports when he cashes some. Since he got his 1000 plus coins in 2010 value was 1000 bucks. He does not want them traced back when he sells a free.

So look below

Perfectly legal to do this in the USA:

1) Buy 1000 coins for $1000 bucks in 2010
2) when you need money send 10 to a second address
3) then send 5 to a mixer
4)then send 5 to coinbase pay tax. on a 1 dollar cost basis. 5 x 40000= 200,000 dollars cost basis of 5 bucks pay
your tax.
5) fully legit use of the mixer.
6)no crime repeat
7)no crime a clean mixer use.