Link: https://connectedplaces.online/federation-has-a-european-legal-problem/

What the Russmedia ruling means for ActivityPub and atproto.

Had to click because of the thumbnail, it looks disgusting and creepy

So they just killed federated social media? Or am I misreading this whole thing? Sounds to me like they killed it.

Looks like a disembowelment.

Even after getting the actual picture it took me a few seconds to figure out what the hell I was looking at. Why are sausages laying in this hay??? - my brain, probably

Concrete worms in mating season

It does sound like that but my eyes glazed over after a while and I couldn't keep going. I guess we'll never know.

So...

Some troll put together a fake ad, put it on a ad-sharing site saying someone was a prostitute, and the site took down the ad about an hour after the someone complained. But in that hour some other trolls copied the ad elsewhere, and so the someone sued saying the ad-sharing site should have stopped the other trolls.

The upset someone sued in file-sharing site in Romania, and rather than getting laughed out of court like a NFT dork complaining about right-clicking they got a favorable ruling, and now both halves of the fediverse are unlawful in the EU.

They didbt kill it. They issued a court ruling about how two conflicting laws interact whose interpretation could drive federated social media underground if commercial social media don't lobby for a sane regulation that doesn't treat the modern Internet like pre-internet print media.

I think it's some kind of synthetic material rather than sausages, there's a serial number or something stamped onto one on the bottom left, they don't look like they have any kind of skin and no oil/moisture/rot

Yeah, I know. Once my brain got over its initial shock, it could tell they were weighty. I did a quick AI query and it turns out they are pandrol railway clips.

oh damn, I figured it was some kind of rubbery material but its metal

and now both halves of the fediverse are unlawful in the EU.

The last part is a suspicion the author has, not legal fact. Please do not help create rumors.

The author thinks that this ruling could affect Federation:

This is an uhhh, slight bit of a problem, when European legal rulings make it very unclear if federation itself is in compliance with GDPR.

AFAICS that's as far as their argument goes.

thanks! all the cover photos are made by my dad, and i usually pick the ones i like, often nature or buildings. I had this one lying around for a long while that i never used, because as you say, it does look disgusting and creepy, and that described my feelings pretty well with the topic of the article

yes this. The current problem right now is that it is very unclear what the status of federation for GDPR compliance is, this ruling strongly suggests that it is not compliant. But this is a single ruling, that technically only right now affects a single Romanian marketplace.
So a lot depends on how other courts will respond to this ruling, which parts they pick up on, and if this type of argument will become more broadly used beyond this single Romanian site.
But that the german courts specifically paused a major cause about Meta to wait for this ruling, and that they have said that they will read it broadly, and that a prominent German legal scholar predicts that they this ruling will apply straightforwardly to Meta, are not encouraging signs. But yeah, thats future predictions, and that is still highly uncertain.

Ah, so it's your blog. Thanks for acknowledging that these are indeed just your thoughts right now.

But - maybe you can see it from the comments: people take it further and next thing you know they post "GDPR made Fediverse illegal" or some such bullshit.

That's the power of publication. Not necessarily a good thing.

It's a problem for any kind of social media, not just federated.

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/04/eus-top-court-just-made-it-literally-impossible-to-run-a-user-generated-content-platform-legally/

thanks!

😁

There is simply no way to comply with the law under this ruling.

In such a world, the only options are to ignore it, shut down EU operations, or geoblock the EU entirely. I assume most platforms will simply ignore it—and hope that enforcement will be selective enough that they won’t face the full force of this ruling. But that’s a hell of a way to run the internet, where companies just cross their fingers and hope they don’t get picked for an enforcement action that could destroy them.

There’s a reason why the basic simplicity of Section 230 makes sense. It says “the person who creates the content that violates the law is responsible for it.” As soon as you open things up to say the companies that provide the tools for those who create the content can be liable, you’re opening up a can of worms that will create a huge mess in the long run.

That long run has arrived in the EU, and with it, quite the mess

We're all fucked I guess.

Yup. I remember in the 2000s and early 2010s it was very widely agreed that websites that allow user generated content are a good thing and politics should advance their existence, not try to pass laws making it harder.

Nothing about the facts has changed since then. Politicians' attitudes meanwhile…

yeah i get what you mean, its been something ive been thinking about. the title itself is already deliberate, because the legal problem already exists: while it is uncertain what the Russmedia ruling does for federation and social platforms regarding GDPR, that uncertainty itself already does pose a major problem.

in the article itself i have an entire section on the uncertainty, and what might limit Russmedia's reach. A lot actually hinges on what the outcome of the Kunast case will be.

thats why i published it now, and with this title. Because right now federation does have a legal problem, with the problem being the uncertainty itself. After Kunast there might either be a much bigger problem (Russmedia confirmed to generalise to social platforms) or a much smaller problem

technically only right now affects a single Romanian marketplace

Not quite. The point of the ECJ is to make sure that European laws are the same all across Europe. When a national court is not quite sure how to interpret EU law, they must ask the ECJ.

What the ECJ says that GDPR means, is what it means all across Europe.

There has always been a tension between GDPR and the Fediverse; more generally, between European laws and the Internet. That's why Europe doesn't have the Big Tech companies. Europe demands a lot of control over the sharing of data. That's difficult to reconcile with the decentralized nature of the Fediverse, or the Internet as a whole. The Künast case is really only one example.

This is just FUD. The ruling has nothing to do with federation, and there is no reason why GDPR would prevent content sharing when the user has explicitly agreed to their posts being shared with other servers.

The US legal system is precedent based. Is EU law also precedent based? I don't think so. In other words, while still being a precedent, this ruling doesn't have quite the same power as it would have in a predent-based legal system.