Comment on How are you dealing with the UK's Online Safety Act, that comes into effect this March?
Olap@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Simple. Don’t be a company. Companies exist to sell stuff: the fediverse doesn’t. There are a few other structures in the UK alone to circumvent this potential law, which is designed to combat large social media companies. And it won’t affect outside the UK either, and with brexit - will anyone else bother enforcibg?
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
that’s the thing. You don’t have to be a company or resident of the UK.
If you have a community (classic forum, lemmy, masto etc) that caters to a “significant part” to UK users, you are target of the act.
And depending on where you live, extraditions to the UK for criminal charges exist.
Will anyone bother doing that? We’ll see
Olap@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I don’t believe it would target any of the fediverse currently. No instances have significant volumes of users or target markets. This is designed to target facebooks, tik-toks, and twitters. Services that do influence populations. Essentially, making these services actually responsible for their algorithmic output and akin to publishers in the UK
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
intended target and possible target are different things.
The law, as it exists, targets any and all communities with “a significant number of United Kingdom users”. There is no minimum size requirement.
It might be possible that the law turns a blind eye on smaller communities. But it might not. They are in their right to go against a 20 user fediverse instance the same way as they are against facebook
Olap@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So with british law, the intent of the law is as important as the written texts. Listen to the debates which can and are used by judges from the commons and the lords to decide upon intent. It’s not for tiny forums, but I’m also not a lawyer. Significant most likely relates to not just user count, but also other reporting from other media, it’s significance of significant users, anonymity, and ability to break bigger stories. Try codifying any of that (and more!) in a law