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?

  • sunaurus@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    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!

      • sunaurus@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        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 😅

        • hardypart@feddit.deEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • sunaurus@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            1 year ago

            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).

            • hardypart@feddit.deEnglish
              0·
              1 year ago

              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.