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Linux Is Best Jul 13

@Gargron

I want to step in and point out that there’s a lot of misinformation circulating.

Some people have been incorrectly claiming that if one country passes a certain law, then everyone — everywhere — must comply with it.

That’s not how jurisdiction works.

You’re responsible for following the laws of your own country. Your government can’t impose its laws on the entire world, and neither can any other government.

For example, if Russia suddenly requires that anyone signing up for a website must pay $5 and submit a DNA sample — but your site, and you are based in France — you’re under no obligation to comply. Russia can make whatever demands it wants, but you’re not Russian, and it’s not your responsibility to enforce their laws.

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Max Lee

Jul 13

@Linux
While you are not wrong this simplifies the situation a bit too much imo.

If you want to do business in other countries you are going to have to honor their laws. And offering a service is doing business, potentially even if it's offered for free.

Of course the consequences and how impactful they are will depend on the country, a simple block wont hurt someone who doesn't want to make money in that country, but international cooperations tend to want to make money at least in the rich countries.
And if there are trade agreements in place you might even be able to get sued in that other country and your country being required to enforce that. (Something that most western countries and especially the EU member states have between each other to varying degrees)

So imo. it's definitely not as clear cut as "all laws end at the border" these days and it's a bit shortsighted to not take the real complexity of international trade into account, especially on the internet.

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Linux Is Best

@the_moep

As I said in another post, I’ve supposedly violated the laws of several countries in the past when I ran a forum community. I was allegedly summoned, sued, and even "lost" cases simply because I didn’t acknowledge them or show up. But I couldn’t care less then, and I still don’t — because it was all political theater. I wasn’t a citizen of those countries.

Back in the day, my forum had over 20 million users. I focused solely on following the laws of my own country — not the laws of every country on the planet.

No single nation — or any nation, for that matter — rules the world or gets to dictate how you run your website on the other side of the planet. There’s certainly a strong push to make people wrongly believe that’s how it works, but that’s simply not the case.