Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Darnell Clayton :verified: (darnell@one.darnell.one)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 23:40:13 JST Darnell Clayton :verified:

   • Electronic Frontier Foundation

   Good news: the @eff replied to my email!
   Bad news: they declined the idea of providing legal protection for Instance Admins for $10-$50 per month.
   I will search out other viable options (hopefully international ones & not just North American & European solutions).

   • Embed this notice
     Kris Nóva (nova@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 23:39:51 JST Kris Nóva

     in reply to

     • quintessence :blobfoxflooftea:
     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • Peter Bronez
     • christian holt

     @PeterBronez @darnell @christianholt @eff

     Happy to volunteer community.hachyderm.io which I have a vision turns into the arch wiki of mastodon.

     CC @quintessence who is calling the shots on that one

   • Embed this notice
     Peter Bronez (peterbronez@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 23:39:52 JST Peter Bronez

     in reply to

     • Kris Nóva
     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • christian holt

     @darnell @christianholt @eff we need a wiki somewhere to collect these perspectives and ensure they’re available to folks like @nova who are pondering the next rev of the legal structure for their instances. DMCA registration is another key issue I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere.

   • Embed this notice
     Darnell Clayton :verified: (darnell@one.darnell.one)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 23:39:59 JST Darnell Clayton :verified:

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • christian holt

     @christianholt @eff That is an excellent analogy! I think in the end finding a local lawyer might be the best option.

   • Embed this notice
     christian holt (christianholt@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 23:40:06 JST christian holt

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @darnell @eff These are general considerations outside of my expertise and someone with experience in the liability and tax implications of online communities should weigh in. Laws differ from country to country and (in the US) state to state.
     But to evaluate what risk you’re comfortable with - I think it’s fair to extend the analogy of a Mastodon instance to an email server. If you ran an email server and offered accounts to people, what would you do to stay out of trouble?

   • Embed this notice
     christian holt (christianholt@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 23:40:07 JST christian holt

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @darnell @eff The bottom line is you can’t set up an organization with members and expect the law not to treat you like one. If someone felt that a member of your instance had defamed them, they could sue you or the member and drag you into court to conduct discovery.
     It’s possible that Section 230 might shield you from paying damages, but you’d still have to hire your own lawyer to defend you from something one of your members did. An insurance policy would probably cover that.

   • Embed this notice
     christian holt (christianholt@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 23:40:08 JST christian holt

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @darnell @eff If you ran a private social club out of your house as an individual, you would still have exposure if a member of the club used club resources and caused an injury to another party.
     By thinking of a mastodon instance as an entity that takes some form, whether individual, an unincorporated association, or an incorporated entity, that may help to identify what exposure each server admin has and how to protect from that risk. (Not legal advice, etc.)

   • Embed this notice
     christian holt (christianholt@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Dec-2022 23:40:09 JST christian holt

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @darnell @eff It sounds like you’re really describing a business liability policy; I’m sure EFF would love to support instance admins, but I don’t think they’re in the business of selling insurance.
     If the goal is to create an online community analogous to a social club, it might make sense to treat instances that way. For example, SDF.org operates as a nonprofit social club (with a mastodon instance) and is organized that way as a corporate entity and for tax purposes.

   • Embed this notice
     Peter Bronez (peterbronez@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 08-Dec-2022 00:01:38 JST Peter Bronez

     in reply to

     • Kris Nóva
     • quintessence :blobfoxflooftea:
     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • christian holt

     @darnell @christianholt @eff neat, thanks @nova ! Hey @quintessence - the current doctree is all Hachyderm specific. If expanding the scope to "Arch Wiki of Mastodon", recommend some additional namespaces. Perhaps (1) Hachyderm Docs (2) Fediverse Operations Manual ?

   • Embed this notice
     Kris Nóva (nova@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 08-Dec-2022 00:10:29 JST Kris Nóva

     in reply to

     • quintessence :blobfoxflooftea:
     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • Peter Bronez
     • christian holt

     @PeterBronez @darnell @christianholt @eff @quintessence

     Go easy on us. I haven’t even told her about my “vision” yet. Maybe we just need to break it out into different sections somehow? Have a hachyderm specific area?

   • Embed this notice
     Peter Bronez (peterbronez@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 08-Dec-2022 00:40:15 JST Peter Bronez

     in reply to

     • Kris Nóva
     • quintessence :blobfoxflooftea:
     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • christian holt

     @nova @darnell @christianholt @eff @quintessence ? no rush! Massive respect to you & your team for the work you're putting in on this, just excited ? To whit, here's a pull request for consideration: https://github.com/hachyderm/community/pull/184