"Lemmy" doesn't do ANYTHING. Lemmy is server software. It has no agency whatsoever.
Individual Lemmy sites might be beholden to the GDPR (or not, if individually run). But any site hosted outside of the EU can wave its ass in the faces of EU officials trying to enforce the GDPR.
Know what? I think I'll just link instead of list because I can't be arsed to type out all the names.
So it's "international" as a technicality, but the context he was using it in implied he meant "universal". And it barely qualifies even as international against the sheer weight of non-EU, non-US states.
Deletion of entities is optional in ActivityPub. That, by definition, makes known-removal of an account and all its posts in one go impossible, because a server can just ignore the deletion activity.
I ... think you have a deep failure to comprehend even the basics of how the software you're on works.
"Lemmy" is not a fucking web site. Lemmy is a piece of software. It can be running on a site in the EU, in which case the GDPR applies absolutely; those running it on sites outside the EU ... not so much.
You may not be directly using it, but this is part and parcel of the entire point of federated social media. Other software will be accessing the pool.
They can't fine the "lemmy devs" (nor any other Fediverse devs). They can fine the operators of servers, and even there only those operating servers in the legal jurisdiction of the EU (which is checks notes the EU).
It does not apply to servers running in, say, Canada¹. Or China¹. Or South Africa¹. (If you try to claim European law is extraterritorial to non-European citizens, be prepared for the Nelson Muntz meme.)²
The very nature of the protocol in use makes any content anywhere on the Fediverse, no matter what the software, distributed. (It's almost like that's the very point of it! Almost...) And it could well be distributed into a jurisdiction where the GDPR is best used as toilet paper¹. If this bothers you, fuck off back to sites hosted entirely in Europe where the GDPR holds sway.²
Only wait! That's not true either! Because that other protocol you're likely to be using—HTTP(S)—also allows anybody who has access to the site from anywhere in the world to store it without being beholden to the GDPR!¹ Oopsie! Better make sure that site blocks any kind of access from outside of the EU as well!²
Only wait! That won't work either because VPN's are a thing as well! I can be sitting here in China with my IP address coming at you from, say, the Netherlands. (It doesn't. It comes at you from the USA 'cause that's where my Great Firewall-crossing back door is hosted.) And again, any post you make, were I to go to your web site in Europe through my (currently-hypothetical) European VPN endpoint, could be stored and held permanently with the GDPR being able to do precisely a) Fuck and b) All to about it.¹ Because European laws are not, in fact, extraterritorial to non-EU citizens, no matter how much wanking the EU parliament does about it.²
So it sounds like you should just shut off your Internet access. Or, you know, you could post knowing the reality of the world and moderate your content accordingly.
¹ Note: I am emphatically not saying that the GDPR is a bad thing. I think the GDPR's goals are laudable. It's just that the GDPR is ludicrous in the face of how literally every piece of technology used in web sites of any kind actually works. It is a regulation that is a nice idea but that has absolutely no meaningful way to get enforced. As the EU will find out over the years. Hopefully not the really hard way.
² Any claim of EU legal extraterritoriality is risible and needs to be rebuffed in the strongest possible way up to and including punching EU politicians who claim it in the face with a spiked gauntlet.
Yes. Six of them. Only one of which exceeds 150km/h in speed and none of which exceeds 30km in length. So impressive and totally better than high speed rail that routinely exceeds 250km/h over distances measured in hundreds to thousands of km.
Dude, I live in China. I've taken the Shanghai maglev a few times. It's a white elephant. It only exists because it's "face" for them to have it. It's heavily subsidized and is still ridiculously expensive (40RMB cheapest one-way ticket, with peak price of 100 one-way).
Perhaps you should have read a bit further along in your little article here:
Despite over a century of research and development, there are only six operational maglev trains today — three in China, two in South Korea, and one in Japan.
Of these:
The Shanghai one operates at 300km/h most of the time. It's about 30km long.
The Changsha one runs at 140km/h over a length of about 19km.
The Beijing one runs at 100km/h over a distance of about 10km.
The Linimo one runs at 100km/h over about 9km.
The Incheon one runs at 80km/h over about 6km.
(I can't find a reference to a second commercial maglev in South Korea, so if you find it, you can place it in that list.)
For reference, the Jinghu high-speed railway between Beijing and Shanghai operates at 350km/h cruising speed over a length of more than 1300km. And 250km/h rail lines are now common like borscht here in China.
So, yes maglev trains exist, but this does not make them economically viable. The evidence shows that most of them are slow (even by traditional rail standards, not to mention HSR), expensive, only run short distances, and in the case of the single high speed one runs only because it is heavily subsidized (despite the ludicrously overpriced tickets).
Maglevs are economically unviable in the absence of room temperature superconductors. So being in the "sci-fi" camp isn't really the flex you think it is.
Likely a popular opinion: @whosiearth@lemmy.ca is mostly a troll who seems, in his history, to adopt contrarian views just to get a response, thus disguising from himself the emptiness that rings hollowly where he once had a life.
My father was a German emigrant. He became a Canadian citizen. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces. He was stationed in Germany, where I was born.
Take note of that: I was born abroad because my father was stationed abroad at the behest of the Canadian government in whose service he was.
Because of sheer luck in timing, my son, born in China, is an automatic Canadian citizen. But my son's children would not be because I was born abroad ... and again I was born abroad because my father was following the orders of the Canadian Armed Forces while serving his adoptive country.
The world is a metric fuckload more complicated than the simplistic view you're seeing here. Perhaps you should, you know, listen instead of speaking.
Thankfully it sounds like this ruling will correct things for my son.
An "obvious" typo you missed when you wrote it. When you read it back after posting. In a post where you were putting on airs of being smarter than everybody.
I fucking love it when that happens and love to rub it in.
"Lemmy" doesn't do ANYTHING. Lemmy is server software. It has no agency whatsoever.
Individual Lemmy sites might be beholden to the GDPR (or not, if individually run). But any site hosted outside of the EU can wave its ass in the faces of EU officials trying to enforce the GDPR.