There's a lot of discussion of Mississippi's age verification law for social media today, after Bluesky announced they're blocking the state.
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How come plenty federated stuff is also blocking people then? Apparently that alone does not help?
ActivityPub instances can do whatever the hell they want, the point is that no CEO decided who has access to all of it.
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If you run any instance that is federated and has users that could sign in from that state it makes complete sense to block their IP addresses. Why on earth would someone running a Mastodon instance take on risk unlless they were in another country where there was no risk of repercussions.
If you're just hoping that small fish won't get fried that's possibly true. But admins likely won't want to find out if they will just on principles.
You need to explain why a mastodon instance in a state without those laws care what a different state does
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Other apps can ignore the geoblock. From the Bluesky announcement:
This decision applies only to the Bluesky app, which is one service built on the AT Protocol. Other apps and services may choose to respond differently.
Its cute how they pretend at protocol is being used by anyone not named bluesky
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You need to explain why a mastodon instance in a state without those laws care what a different state does
I don't need to explain anything. If you want to host something with content that is illegal in another state and you choose to not put up any protections to block users from accessing the content in that state, you very well may be sued some day. If you block users from signing up from those states and/or block those IP addresses from accessing your site, you likely would have grounds for it to be dismissed before ever having to do anything. State lines do not protect you against lawsuits.
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You need to explain why a mastodon instance in a state without those laws care what a different state does
Because extradition?
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Its cute how they pretend at protocol is being used by anyone not named bluesky
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I don't need to explain anything. If you want to host something with content that is illegal in another state and you choose to not put up any protections to block users from accessing the content in that state, you very well may be sued some day. If you block users from signing up from those states and/or block those IP addresses from accessing your site, you likely would have grounds for it to be dismissed before ever having to do anything. State lines do not protect you against lawsuits.
Yeah, don't listen to anybody who says "they can't fine me or sue me if I'm in a different state" or "they can't do anything about it if they win." Of course we don't know who they'll target when they start enforcing the law, and it's possible that the law will be found unconstitutional ... still, they can fine you, and they can sue, so if you decide not to geoblock them yet make sure you're thinking through the risks.
I haven't seen anything yet on how strong a defense geoblocking Mississippi will be in practice. Bluesky obviously thinks it puts them in a stronger position than not geoblocking, but at this point we really don't know.
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ActivityPub instances can do whatever the hell they want, the point is that no CEO decided who has access to all of it.
Each instance still has an owner. Just like the Bluesky CEO, they need to decide whether the (legal) risks are worth it to them and whether they can cover the (legal) costs if needed.
For any individual instance owner, this changes nothing.
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I agree 100%, BlueSky is not decentralized.
Of course, but whether you're decentralized or not has nothing to do with whether you as someone running a service has to decide for themselves whether to block Mississippi users or risk legal consequences?
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Of course, but whether you're decentralized or not has nothing to do with whether you as someone running a service has to decide for themselves whether to block Mississippi users or risk legal consequences?
Glad we agree that BlueSky is a centralized service.
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It's ignorant how you don't realize that Spark and Blacksky have built their own stacks on AT Protocol.
oh wow.... two
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I don't need to explain anything. If you want to host something with content that is illegal in another state and you choose to not put up any protections to block users from accessing the content in that state, you very well may be sued some day. If you block users from signing up from those states and/or block those IP addresses from accessing your site, you likely would have grounds for it to be dismissed before ever having to do anything. State lines do not protect you against lawsuits.
they literally do? what do you think state lines even do?
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Because extradition?
lol yeah ok buddy
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Each instance still has an owner. Just like the Bluesky CEO, they need to decide whether the (legal) risks are worth it to them and whether they can cover the (legal) costs if needed.
For any individual instance owner, this changes nothing.
yeah but mastodon has thousands of owners and bluesky has one so its different see
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they literally do? what do you think state lines even do?
wrote last edited by [email protected]https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIV-S1-5-1/ALDE_00013024/
If you are fined in one state they will ask your state to enforce the penalty and they are usually legally required to do so by the federal government.
The part of Mississippi saying it may have criminal punishments as well may have more leeway, as you won't get extradited if it isn't a felony in most states. But we don't know what the criminal charges would be. At 10,000 per user signed up from their state though, I'd be weary.
Just be careful, I'm just saying it's risky. I can see them ceasing your assets in another state because it follows the current laws. Otherwise if you found someone guilty in a state court you would just move to another state and be fine, which we know doesn't work, or people like the my pillow guy would just move out of Minnesota where he was found guilty, to say Texas.
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Have you blocked the UK as well then? Same sort of thing here.
Otherwise why can't you ignore Mississippi but can ignore the UK?
Depends where you reside ?, if you are in the US and dont block a US state you can be prosecuted but what will the UK do ? See the current 4chan brouhaha with the UK for example.
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Glad we agree that BlueSky is a centralized service.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yeah? Why was that ever in question in this context?
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Yeah? Why was that ever in question in this context?
It wasn't.
