So, I’m kinda new to this Lemmy thingy and the fediverse. I like the fediverse from a technological standpoint. However, I think that, if we gain more and more traction, Lemmy (and by extend the entire fediverse) is a GDPR clusterfuck waiting to happen. With big and expensive repercussions…
Why? Well, according to GDPR, all personal data from EU users must remain in the EU. And personal data goes really far. Even an IP-address is personal data. An e-mail address is personal data. I don’t think there is jurisprudence regarding usernames, so that might be up for discussion.
Since the entire goal of the fediverse is “transporting” all data to all servers inside the ActivityPub/fediverse world, the data of a EU member will be transported all over the place. Resulting in a giant GDPR breach. And I have no idea who will be held responsible… The people hosting an instance? The developers of Lemmy? The developers of ActivityPub?
Large corporations are getting hefty fines for GDPR breaches. And since Lemmy is growing, Lemmy might be “in the spotlights” in the upcoming years.
I don’t like GDPR, and I’m all for the technological setup of the fediverse. However, I definitely can see a “competitor” (that is currently very large but loosing ground quickly) having a clear eye out to eliminate the competition…
What do y’all thing about this?
And personal data goes really far. Even an IP-address is personal data. An e-mail address is personal data.
Thankfully, Lemmy instances do not transport this kind of information about their users to other instances!
Maybe not IP addresses, but every post and comment you make is your personal data.
Public posts and comments are, well, public (and there’s no expectation from users that their posts and comments would be private, considering the nature of what Lemmy is).
The only way to not transport public posts and comments to the rest of the internet (including but not limited to other Lemmy instances) would be to completely disconnect an instance from the internet 😅
You’re confusing “private” with “personal”. My data can be public, but it’s still MY data and I have the right to decide what happens with it and if it should stay public. That’s what the GDPR says and that’s exactly what OP is referring to.
You are able to edit and remove your posts on your Lemmy instance. Other Lemmy instances may or may not also reflect these changes, but your instance admin does not have any authority or responsibility to ensure that your previously public posts get deleted anywhere else in the world other than the instance they run.
That’s exactly how it works everywhere, it’s not a Lemmy specific thing. For example, if you write a public blog post on some public blog service, and later delete it, then it won’t be the responsibility of the blog service owner to remove your post from elsewhere on the internet. It will be your own responsibility to manually request removal from other services which have copies of your post (like archvie.org etc).
your instance admin does not have any authority or responsibility to ensure that your previously public posts get deleted anywhere else in the world other than the instance they run.
Please back up this claim. I’m sure not even the best GDPR consultants out there could answer this question with confidence at this point in time.
For example, if you write a public blog post on some public blog service, and later delete it, then it won’t be the responsibility of the blog service owner to remove your post from elsewhere on the internet.
This is a completely different thing. We’re talking about the automatic replication that happens between the different Lemmy instances, not about someone copying your comment and posting it somewhere else.
Again, I think you guys are handling OP’s topic way to leasurely. The GDPR is a beast with teeth and it’s going to bite your ass if you don’t take it seriously enough.
Since the entire goal of the fediverse is “transporting” all data to all servers inside the ActivityPub/fediverse world, the data of a EU member will be transported all over the place.
It doesn’t work like that, think of your instance being a proxy to the fediverse
Is it? I read somewhere that data effectively gets “copied” to the different instances? But that might be wrong info :p
Then it should be the responsibility of the EU people to avoid joining the fediverse. I do not see a practical way to align with GDPR. The effort is non-trivial and the rewards are extremely minimal.
From your perspective, what should be the way out?
Then it should be the responsibility of the EU people to avoid joining the fediverse.
The instances are providing their services in the EU, so it’s legally up to them to comply with the GDPR.
From your perspective, what should be the way out?
Honestly, no idea. I’m not even sure if Lemmy in its current shape violates the GDPR in the first place, but if I were the admin of a large feddit instance in the EU I would make sure to get advise from a GDPR consultant.
the entire content of that community is going to be copied to the feddit.de server
That’s not true. The text is being copied, the media is not. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can put tracking pixels on Lemmy posts at any time to log user data. Regardless of the instance used to read it.
OK, remove the media from my “everything” statement. The rest is still lots of personal data that is being copied to foreign instances.
But when a lemmy.world user subscribes to a feddit.de community, the entire community will be copied to the lemmy.world server, or am I wrong?
sure, but no personal data like email/ IP
I think you, being an admin of a huge Lemmy instance, would be well advised to educate yourself on the difference between “public” and “personal” when it comes to GDPR compliance. All the data I create here is my personal data, no matter if it’s my IP, my mail address, posts, comments or votes and the GDPR says that it’s my right to decide what happens with my data and if it should stay public. The fact that I post something publicly doesn’t make my data non-personal.
I think you, being an admin of a huge Lemmy instance, would be well advised to educate yourself on the difference between “public” and “personal” when it comes to GDPR compliance.
I’m quite well advised, maybe I`m using wrong terms as EN is not my native language.
OP said
Since the entire goal of the fediverse is “transporting” all data to all servers inside the ActivityPub/fediverse world, the data of a EU member will be transported all over the place.
and says that’s a GDPR nightmare (and he’s right according to my understanding of the GDPR).
You said:
sure, but no personal data like email/ IP
Which implies that email addresses and IPs were the only personal data that’s relevant in terms of the GDPR, which is simply not true.
I think decentralized services like the Fediverse are a new challenge for the GDPR and that OP is absolutely right in expecting this to blow up one day.
Again, please stay educated and up to date about this whole topic. We don’t want you to get into trouble for providing something beautiful.
