Just going to remind you that we STILL don't have the fancy Instagram messaging in the UK because of the GDPR. Not sure how exactly the GDPR is hampering us being able to react to a message with more emoji than just a heart, or be able to reply to specific messages - but thats what Instagram claim is the reason it's not available anywhere that has the GDPR
I was seeing a lot of people saying that Threads was going up to be the real Twitter killer now, but if it can’t launch in the EU, that’s going to hamper it a lot. But we’ll see - the two biggest twitter markets are the US and Japan, and it’s launching in both. That might be enough to give it a foothold before it can fix it for the EU.
The article doesn't go into detail, but looks like US and UK will get the same version... one that can't be "safely" deployed in the EU (without risking huge fines again).
So I'm guessing we're getting a version that makes - or at least tries to make them look like they're compliant with their "privacy efforts". Assuming they need EU-only datacenters and infra etc.
I guess we're getting it "later".
This is good, but I wonder how they're going to handle ActivityPub federation in the meanwhile? Defed all EU instances?
But I am a citizen that is covered by the GDPR in the UK. I have an account on allthingstech.social which a US server, so they would be breaching GDPR by ingesting my data. They can't know where any user comes from just by the server that user is attached to - which is going to a lovely fun headache for them to deal with 😂
so they would be breaching GDPR by ingesting my data
If they were processing your data without consent, yes, but I think in this case you've given them your consent (I hope) and they're allowed to process whatever data they need for their service (but not more than that). The question is what they do with my data (the federated copy, which now lives on their servers, since I'm talking to you), since I've not given them my consent, and I'm EU citizen.
It's murky waters and I'm (thankfully!) not an layer or Data Protection Officer, so I've no idea how that works legally. But I think the fediverse and ActivityPub will at some point have to think about solutions for better data privacy - or maybe the U.S actually regulates something that is compatible with GDPR and then we get same protections across the board (the big problem at the moment is Schrems II)
Because the GDPR requires explicit consent, you need to informed what data Meta will collect about you, and how they will use it, and then you have to click something saying that you are OK with that. The GDPR specifically rules out implicit consent, which is what Meta would be claiming "Well they are posting to the fediverse, so it is fair game"
The article doesn’t go into detail, but I am surprised they can launch in the UK but not EU, since the UK took the EU regulations on after Brexit? I was under the impression currently privacy law is identical still with UK and EU
I'm surprised by that too, although reading between the lines of the article suggests to me that it's a result of some specific engagement with the Irish regulator that has led to them pausing the EU launch - so it's not a result of a prima facie reading of the law (which should be the same), but rather some Irish regulatory action taken in GDPR's name.
In other news of the day, the Court of Justice of the European Union ( #CJEU ) declared that a shitty attempt by Meta to avoid abiding to GDPR was unlawful, and that they have to actually comply and not just add some bullshit loophole into the terms of service.
I read this as Meta's response: "Fine, you won't get to participate in our brand new shiny social network then". Joke's on them, the EU is already on the Fediverse running its own Mastodon instance.
To get people out of cars, it's absolutely to get the elderly on bicycles. I'm not talking about people in their 90s; but getting the 50-to-80s cadre cycling will change society. It will end forever the image of the cyclist as an arrogant young man, and make cycling obviously what it is: functional, sensible, the most essential way to save our climate, and to save our health
This seems to be some toot posted to mastodon.ie - if you somehow saw it on the EU instance it's just because they're federated. The purpose of the instance is for EU institutions to have accounts to post from, it's not really intended for casual surfing. :)
Add comment