this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
2 points (75.0% liked)

Lemmy

12538 readers
5 users here now

Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.

For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to !meta@lemmy.ml.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

top 21 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] sab@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

I'm not an expert in GDPR and will leave the technical side to those who are, but the fact that the EU actively present at the Fediverse with among others the @EU_Commission represented at their official Mastodon instance, I would be surprised if the GDPR was suddenly weaponised against it.

GDPR was written with the intention of empowering users over corporations. The Fediverse has the same goal.

[–] apfel@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"don't like GDPR"? What's not to like? Best thing that came out of EU regulation in a long time. And as others have noted you seem to be misinformed about what it actually says...

[–] BrokebackHampton@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I also can't wrap my head around “not liking” GDPR

As a relevant example, seems like only citizens covered by GDPR will be able to request Reddit to remove all of their data from Reddit's servers since comment deleting tools and scripts are being bypassed, with loads of comments and even entire profiles getting restored by Reddit admins

[–] infamousbelgian@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

Can you explain where I'm misinformed? I can surely be misinformed about the workings of Lemmy. However, for GDPR you will not "win" it with a simple TOS or something like that.

If even Google can't make their Workplace to follow rules in such a way that Workplace can be used according to the AVG rules in the Belgian (well, Flemish) schools, I'm pretty sure that just saying "it's in the TOS" is not enough...

But again, no expert so I hope that I am wrong.

[–] ulu_mulu@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

all personal data from EU users must remain in the EU

Create your account on a EU server, problem solved.

Lemmy (fediverse in general) doesn't send account data away, and posts don't qualify as personal data, when you publish something to the internet, it's public by definition.

[–] randomaccount43543@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

GDPR Art 4.(1) 'personal data' means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

Every post and comment in Lemmy qualifies as personal data because they contain the ideas and opinions of an identifiable natural person (by their user handle). Therefore the Lemmy instances are handling personal data and must comply with the GDPR.

[–] ulu_mulu@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ideas and opinions are NOT identifiable information, unless you're so smart to as openly writing your personal data on a public forum (something noone should ever do, it's even bannable on reddit), your comments and posts do NOT contain and personally identifiable info, only your account does.

[–] randomaccount43543@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Personal data is not identifiable information. Personal data is information about an identifiable person. The identifiable information is your username (“online identifier”)

[–] ulu_mulu@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is no way someone can link your username to who you are in person, unless it's you who write it out.

Laws don't protect people from themselves.

[–] sunaurus@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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!

[–] hardypart@feddit.de -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe not IP addresses, but every post and comment you make is your personal data.

[–] sunaurus@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.ee 1 points 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).

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] wintermute@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] hardypart@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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?

[–] curiosityLynx@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You are indeed wrong. The email and IP addresses and passwords for example don't get copied. I'm not well versed enough about how it works to go into more detail.

[–] hardypart@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You are indeed wrong. The email and IP addresses and passwords for example don’t get copied.

I never said that IP addresses and passwords were getting copied.

The thing that no one seems to understand here is that all my posts, comments and votes and everything are my personal data. 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.

load more comments
view more: next ›