@alexia @green but that’s because of the pressure, not because of any actual action, no? i think that’s different

@bunnybeam @green

That is from the pressure of it starting to be enforced on larger players.

The thing with laws like this is that there’s usually a place to report stuff, and those will inevitably be used for abuse and harassment of whoever is running the instance

I also heard from many other instances that just geoblock the UK instead

I do also want to clarify that Matrix servers will probably be exempt when it comes to encrypted communications, because after being screamed at by like every single E2EE messaging app in existence they decided to “not enforce [the E2EE-breaking parts of the OSB] until it becomes technically feasible to do so”

of course it never will, because basically none of these projects will build intentional backdoors into their encryption, but this would also mean any E2EE matrix comms are exempt. Public unencrypted communications may not be though

And of course, I am not a lawyer, I am just a massive nerd when it comes to this kind of stuff

@alexia @green doesn’t the OSA only apply “if the service you provide has a significant number of users in the UK, or if the UK is a target market”?
that shouldn’t apply for most (small) fedi instances, unless i’m misunderstanding
source: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/guide-for-services, see “Who the rules apply to”

@bunnybeam @green went through the quiz on that very website which was linked

Hover to show content

@alexia @green i went through the quiz and got No, because i believe (in the cases of the instances that i use) the answer to the first question is “No”. what were your answers, if i may ask?

@bunnybeam @green well I already closed the tab so I’d have to take it again….

@green @bunnybeam it did say “unsure” only when I selected “don’t know” on the first question, and “no” when I selected, well, “no” on the first question

but with fedi it’s kinda difficult not to have something to do with the UK somewhere by design

@alexia @green either way, i think the most important question is the first one, being whether or not the service “has links to the UK”
to which i believe the answer is “no”

@bunnybeam @green I mean, still, lots of instances that just plain died were in the UK and that country is now no longer safe to host a fedi instance in at all, even if you just live there and the server sits somewhere else

like no matter how you spin it this is just bad and I can understand why many just plain left despite the fact they didn’t want to

@alexia @green if you open up the “More information” box, it elaborates on what “links to the UK” means
specifically, as mentioned earlier, it means either:

• it has the UK as a target market (which is not the case for non-profit instances)
• or it has a significant number of users in the UK (which is not the case for smaller instances)

@bunnybeam @alexia it’s also unclear, if in case of fedi, users means

1. your users
2. randos visiting the unauthenticated web frontend
3. all users of fedi

if it’s (3) then the act would be impossible to comply with. even an ip block wouldn’t do it. because even if you ip-block all uk users, you will still have users in the uk, who can see your content

@green @bunnybeam yeah it just depends on whether “federating with every other server” is considered a part of your service that you’re responsible for or not, I guess

In the sense of, do they consider “fedi” as a whole or just individual servers

@alexia i don’t think instances dying pre-emptively is indicative of actual risk on its own
i can totally understand people doing that as a precaution, particularly if their instance is large, but people’s reaction based on predictions doesn’t necessarily reflect what will actually happen

don’t get me wrong, i’m not arguing that the act isn’t terrible - it is - but with my limited funds, i’d like to avoid having to take precautions such as using a paid VPN if possible, so an accurate assessment is more helpful than a cautious one

@bunnybeam I honestly forgot this thing started with VPN recommendations

yeah my point stands, Proton is generally trusted you’re just gonna have like 3 countries total or whatever and the servers can get pretty full unless ya cash out which stinks