Comment on Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws

• MudMan@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It doesn't matter, though. They all have the same choice to make: comply, shut down in that territory... or be fined an insane amount.

  Eugen argued... well, pretty much what you are arguing now. The question Bluesky guy posed to him is what Mastodon.social would do and how would the presence of smaller instances prevent the issue, especially for instances without the resources to comply at all in the first place.

  Eugen did not respond to that, but Mastodon.social just did, and the answer is... Mastodon.social will do the same thing as Bluesky and so will every other instance.

  Because of course it's pretty obvious that having a decentralized platform doesn't help with stupid regulation, because stupid regulation applies to every instance. There's no reason decentralization would bypass a blanket requirement unless the legal requirement has carved an exception for smaller platforms (and even then there's a question of what counts as a platform in that scenario).

  And the thing is... I'm okay with you not having though that through, but Eugen certainly must have. Right? I mean, they had a pretty well thought out answer for Techcrunch in 24 hours, they must have given it some thought. It's an unforced communication error.

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  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And who are they going to address that fine to? Tell them to shove it up their fucking arse as their laws mean nothing to you if you don’t live there.

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    • MudMan@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yeah, well, remind me not to do business with you under any circumstances.

      Self hosting is cool and all, but if you think decentralized networks and services are a get out of jail free to bypass regulations applying to their centralized counterparts you shouldn't be hosting decentralized networks and services.

      For one thing if you have no understanding of legal compliance I don't want you to store any of my data at all.

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      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I don’t need to comply with American laws as I am not American. Their law literally does not apply to me

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  • Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Why are we focusing on mastodon.social? I’m just talking about the Fediverse. Sure ATProto can theoretically avoid this too but they don’t have as many choices for instances.

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    • MudMan@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We are focusing on mastodon.social because you jumped on a thread about mastodon.social confirming they won't be complying with Mississippi's age verification law, which in turn is a follow up to coverage of Bluesky doing the same thing. And also because Eugen Rochko jumped into that announcement to claim that Bluesky stepping away from that territory was an example of how Fedi's wider decentralization was an advantage, even though it turned out to no be an advantage at all.

      Why would we be talking about anything else? That's literally the topic. You may be looking for a different thread. If anything, the uncontrolled impulse to talk about the ways in which AP is more decentralized than AT whether that's relevant to the conversation or not is the exact communication mistake Eugene made. Which makes that weirder.

      To be clear, it doesn't matter where your instance is hosted. Mastodon.social is not hosted in Mississippi, either, it's hosted in Berlin. You're still taking on a TON of potential liability if you don't comply with their age verification or block that territory from access if the law stays in the books, just like you're risking a ton of liability if you breach GDPR even if your site isn't in the EU.

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      • Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        The title says Mastodon, not mastodon.social, and it appears that Eugen was talking about the Fediverse or Mastodon, not mastodon.social specifically (hence the word decentralization, the discussion was not centralized on mastodon.social).

        I think people are mixing up the discussion between Mastodon vs mastodon.social too much.

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