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?
This. Federation doesn’t transfer private data of the user, just their public facing profile and posts. There is no expectation of them being private.
The admin of a site, not only fedi ones but any site, can only control what’s in their reach. A user could ask as per the GDPR to have their profile and history removed, but data not in the control of the admin is not their responsibility.
Consider it from the perspective of a traditional site, if someone takes a screenshot of something you post and puts it up somewhere else the originating site has no means to control that or to remove the data from a third party location. The same issue has been fought since the dawn of the internet, people trying to erase past events that have spread far and wide. There are even proffesional services available to try and scrub such things, but in the end if all they can do is send takedown requests to another jurisdiction it’s going to be an impossible task.
ITT: People that don’t undertand the difference between “personal” and “private”. My posts and comments are my personal data, even if they’re public, 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.
Personal data according to gdpr is data that can identify you or be tied to you as an individual. Such things are e-mail addresses, phone numbers, names and so on. Posts and comments does not necessarily fulfill this. If you post your name, yes, but this comment that I’m making now would not be classified as personal data.