“The SCOPE Act takes effect this Sunday, Sept. 1, and will require everyone to verify their age for social media.”

So how does this work with Lemmy? Is anyone in Texas just banned, is there some sort of third party ID service lined up…for every instance, lol.

But seriously, how does Lemmy (or the fediverse as a whole) comply? Is there some way it just doesn’t need to?

  • tyler@programming.dev
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    2 months ago

    Lemmy isn’t social media. Ignoring that though, the law actually says:

    According to the Texas Office of the Attorney General, this new law will primarily “apply to digital services that provide an online platform for social interaction between users that: (1) allow users to create a public or semi-public profile to use the service, and (2) allow users to create or post content that can be viewed by other users of the service. This includes digital services such as message boards, chat rooms, video channels, or a main feed that presents users content created and posted by other users.”

    Which literally applies to every single site on the entire planet that has a comment section. This law is incredibly unenforceable.

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yep. This is another dumbass politicians trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist with a solution that doesn’t work.

      • SyntaxTerror@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        It’s a social news aggregator. I assume the difference is, that this is to follow mainly news, whereas social media is to mainly follow people. In my 10 years of reddit and now Lemmy I never followed any account, I was just there for the niche topics and news aggregation.

        • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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          2 months ago

          I don’t know about you but I’m here for the comments sections, i.e. to socialize. That counts as social media IMO. Socializing with random users and not followed accounts, is still socializing.

        • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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          2 months ago

          I guess I disagree with “social media is to mainly follow people”. I think social media is for socializing, regardless of who it’s with. Sorry for the double reply.

        • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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          2 months ago

          I totally disagree on both counts: forums are social media, and Lemmy is not a mere forum. Lemmy is a platform where people can create forums, and many of those forums (communities) exist mainly to socialize.

          I’ll give you that some forums (both on Lemmy and otherwise) that have a clear defined topic - such as tech support for a particular thing - are somewhat different from “social media”, but even in those three are often regulars who use the forum to socialize with each other. Any forum with an “off-topic” subforum is social media in my book, in a very real sense (not just technically).

          But hey, we can disagree on this and it’s fine.

          • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 months ago

            To clarify why I think Lemmy is not a forum: in my eyes, forums are set up by the admins, only the admins can decide which subforums exist and what’s allowed in them. Lemmy and reddit are not simple forums because they allow any user to create a subforum and make those choices and decisions, that traditionally are reserved for admins. It’s an extremely important difference and makes Lemmy much more of a general social platform and not a focused forum.

            • tyler@programming.dev
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              2 months ago

              Lemmy has the ability to lock down forum creation, like on programming.dev which is the 8th largest lemmy site.

              Social media has always been defined as being about people, not topics. People just don’t even try to use the right words though so you get ridiculous things like people calling something coincidental or unfortunate “ironic”.

          • tyler@programming.dev
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            2 months ago

            By your definition every single news comment section is social media, which is clearly a ridiculous suggestion. Webchat, irc, literally anywhere there’s a comment section. That’s just clearly incorrect and so broad as to be a completely useless definition.

            • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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              2 months ago

              There are degrees to social-media-ness. News comment sections have a very low amount of this. Lemmy has a lot.

          • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Engaging with people does not make it a social media platform.

            A bathroom wall covered in graffiti messages is not social media.

            an email is not social media.

            text messages are not social media.

            a brick with “Fuck You” written on it, thrown through a window, is not social media.

            A restaurant you go to with friends is not social media.

            A webforum is not social media.

            IMs are not social media.

            Just because you socialize on/in/at something, does not magically make it social media… Because Social Media is a very specific type of thing.

            Stop trying to make everything into freaking facebook.

            • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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              2 months ago

              facebook is social media, therefor friendica is social media

              instagram is social media, therefor pixelfed is social media

              twitter is social media, therefor mastodon is social media

              at the VERY least, all these platforms can interact with each other via activity pub, as can lemmy. by interacting with lemmy, you’re making interactions with social media

              social media isn’t just big tech - social media is a way of interacting with a system

              is reddit social media? most people would say yes it definitely is… and this makes lemmy firmly social media

              • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Getting people to agree to a mistaken, misinformed premise does not mean you are right.

                Lest you also believe the world is a flat pancake and other various nuttery.

                Also, you clearly know what the difference is, since your list of examples is nothing but social media.

                Again. Stop trying to make everything social media. You have all the social media you need to fuel your need for attention, as is. You don’t need to make non-social media into more of it.

                • tromars@feddit.org
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                  2 months ago

                  Wikipedia: „Lemmy (social network) - Open source social media software“

                  Also: „Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongst virtual communities and networks.“ How does Lemmy not fit that description?

    • ExFed@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      It probably boils down to the definition of “user” vs. owner/admin/host … But I wouldn’t be surprised if those definitions were unclear or missing entirely.