@neil @privacat is my sense that this is problematic right? Or does the default mastodon instance collect+distribute so little information that there’s no GDPR problem??

@luis_in_brief @neil @privacat I'm going to be really cheeky here and point to what @neil responded to me when I mentioned Threads and GDPR compliance: "The GDPR doesn't bite merely because an organisation is processing personal data of people in the EU - Article 3(2) GDPR is much narrower than that."

mastodon.neilzone.co.uk/@neil/

@krisnelson @luis_in_brief This response makes me really nervous because it smells an awful lot like "I'll know noncompliance when I see it, says the auditor."

- I don't know if providing posts from my users to the users on another node (who are in the EU) counts as "the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union"

- I don't know if receiving toots made by an EU data subject counts as "the monitoring of their behaviour." My turn-your-head-and-squint analysis suggests it does; you can infer a lot from a person (likely timezone, for instance) based on post patterns, without even getting into the question of "Stuff people post explicitly about themselves on social media."

Broadly speaking, I get squicky about GDPR because it feels a lot like the protection for small operators against getting smacked by the full force of the law is "Don't worry; the law is crafted to control the FAANGs, not you," which... I mean, we can look at the US's War on Drugs for an example of what happens when a law that criminalizes tons of regular activity is left up to enforcement discretion.

@mtomczak @krisnelson yes, I think that concern is correct, and why I raise it now: lots of people have jumped to the conclusion “Meta isn’t doing Threads in the EU because they take too much data”, but I think it’s equally plausible Meta isn’t doing Threads in the EU because federation and the GDPR are (at a very deep level) incompatible.

But I’m not a GDPR attorney by any stretch!

Sign in to participate in the conversation
CleverLibre Social

CleverLibre Social is an inclusive social instance for open discussion, learning, and community.
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.