Good thread: mastodon.social/@Gargron/11507…
@Gargron was dogpiled by Bluesky shills but he's right about everything.
Imagine claiming that you're a decentralized network and then adding a geoblock because of some draconian "law" in some random country.
Technically, you're probably also breaking laws in Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and so on. The question is, do you care? I'm not a lawyer, so I can't answer that for you specifically, but 10.000+ fediverse operators across the world get to make that decision for themselves.
Emelia 👸🏻
in reply to silverpill • • •Eugen Rochko
in reply to Emelia 👸🏻 • • •Emelia 👸🏻
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •my point being that we are not above the laws in which we operate, just because we're the fediverse. If someone wants to provide a service to residents in the UK, then yeah, you'd need to follow OSA for those users, or in other jurisdictions' age verification or content laws.
So far we've mostly not been a large enough target for law enforcement or politicians, but eventually we hope that will change (right?), but Bluesky is such a target. We can't rely on being small to be our get out of jail free card.
Like, you can totally still use alternative apps that interact with AT Proto that don't follow various laws, which is that app developer's risk to take. Just like that risk is currently on everyone hosting ActivityPub servers like Mastodon.
IFTAS has published guidance on OSA for Mastodon operators, connect.iftas.org/library/lega…
They've also published more general guidance on age verification: connect.iftas.org/library/lega…
Online Safety Act 2023 (UK) - IFTAS Connect
IFTAS