TO OTHER ADMINS IN THE UNITED STATES:

If you have ANY users following ANYONE from this instance, at THE MINIMUM, purge your image caches IMMEDIATELY.

You are opening yourself to severe legal liability if you do not.

Safe harbour provisions have been ruled not to apply to moderated forums.

This legal climate is far too hostile not to take precautions.

@Elizafox Well, the issue being that clearing cache doesn't help having the data still on the HDD, it's just marked as deleted so future writings may use this space. The problem is when this really gets overwritten on your drive.
@Elizafox
This advice applies to the UK too.

@Elizafox This is, btw, not limited to the US. Admins in Germany should do the same.

However, I don't know how to deal with the situation. I simply cannot crawl through hundreds of mastodon instances, to check if they are all legally "ok" in my country's jurisdiction. :\

@Elizafox hi Elizabeth: I work for the EFF, though I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice, and more of a question. Do you remember where you got the idea that the CDA 230 safe harbor doesn't apply to moderated content? It was originally drafted specifically to permit moderation by hosts, so that interpretation surprises me.

(Note that this isn't about CP, or simulated CP which -- because of the potential for criminal prosecution -- is covered by different laws.)