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Since there seem to be a lot of knowledgable folks in these threads, I have a question about GDPR's impact on decentralized or federated social networks like Di
by josecastillo 8y ago
Since there seem to be a lot of knowledgable folks in these threads, I have a question about GDPR's impact on decentralized or federated social networks like Diaspora[1]. On these networks, users can create a profile on any server, and be connected with users on any other server via a federation protocol[2].
All the ideals of user control and data portability are there and central to the Diaspora project; but technically, the underlying protocol involves passing users' posts and comments from one server to another. This seems like it would fall afoul of guidelines against passing data to third parties, and the same technical constraint seems to be fundamental to other federated services like Friendica[3] and Mastodon[4]. I'm really curious how the GDPR would affect services like this, especially as someone who's quit Facebook and is looking at decentralized networks as an alternative.
[1] https://diasporafoundation.org https://diasporafoundation.org
[2] https://diaspora.github.io/diaspora_federation/ https://diaspora.github.io/diaspora_federation/
[3] https://friendi.ca https://friendi.ca
[4] https://joinmastodon.org https://joinmastodon.org
- narrator 8y agoBlockchain is also a problem.
- jacquesm 8y agoThat's a good point and I will research this because I also would like to know exactly how this influences such networks. I consider them a positive development, and as such would like to know exactly what the impact is. From the top of my head it would require the software to implement the various GDPR principles, and it would be wise for operators of servers to verify that they are not exposed. Better yet if EU residents connect to EU servers and let the federation take care of the connections across legal boundaries. That's smart for a variety of non-GDPR related reasons too.