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?

  • hardypart@feddit.deEnglish
    64·
    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
      8·
      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
        3·
        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.

      • hardypart@feddit.deEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        Now if you want to change that, you’ll have to request a GDPR deletion from every instance you posted it to.

        That’s the interesting point. Do I really have to do that or should I be able to rely on my instance owner that’s located in the EU to take care of that? I’m pretty sure none of us can answer this question. Decentralized services like the Fediverse are probably a new challange for GDPR experts.

        • Scaldart@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          1 year ago

          I’m not supposing to have any answers either, but from a personal standpoint it seems rather selfish to even entertain the idea of making an instance owner do that. It’s not like these people are getting paid for a service (aside from donations, in some cases); they’re hosting in the spirit of the fediverse. Why would I pawn legal work off to them?

          • hardypart@feddit.deEnglish
            21·
            1 year ago

            it seems rather selfish to even entertain the idea of making an instance owner do that.

            I think you truly underestimate the GDPR, which is fine, because you don’t run a huge Lemmy instance. I just hope the admins of the big instances are taking it more seriously, otherwise this could indeed blow up in their faces one day.

          • infamousbelgianOPEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            You and I are not. But if a certain giant site that is currently making not the… euh… best decisions goes in to action with a large legal team…

              • infamousbelgianOPEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                True… But if it should come to that, I think that people will pull the plug with a 20 million euro fine above their heads… 20 million seams to be the number that works, if you see the reaction of Christian from Apollo…

          • hardypart@feddit.deEnglish
            42·
            1 year ago

            Sure, but I in the end it’s not their responsibility.

            You guys sound so confident, it’s not even funny. GDPR is a huge topic and everyone who already had to deal with it even marginally knows that OP’s fear is absolutely plausible. The GDPR doesn’t give a shit about causing major inconviences or huge workload for platform admins. Ever heard about the GDPR nightmare letter?

              • hardypart@feddit.deEnglish
                11·
                1 year ago

                edit: In the end, though, of course this is my opinion. IANAL.

                Same here. I’m not sure if I’m right, but neither should anyone else here be sure about this topic.

                But I also know that essentially all serious issues with GDPR are because of companies wanting to violate your privacy, not because a user is using a product as intended.

                What if the product is designed in a way that violates the GDPR? Again, I’m not sure about that, just like OP. We will see how things will turn out… But as an admin of a large instance I’d be carful for sure.

                  • hardypart@feddit.deEnglish
                    1·
                    1 year ago

                    Which I completely disagree with.

                    I never said that Lemmy is designed in that way, I just say that we can’t be sure.

                    If this violates, then every tweeting software, every reddit third-party app would also be “designed to violate”,

                    Where and how do Twitter or Reddit third party apps store personal data?

            • greeen_tomato@feddit.deEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              It is a pain for sure if you have to deal with that. I had to read a bit about gdpr back in my old company and I always thought it is more about the protection of personally identifyable information (PII). Like name, IP Adress, email, etc.

              I’m not sure if the gdpr applies to social media posts tbh. Another question is if a pseudonym would be regarded as a PII.