If a government declares its internet regulations to be global in reach, how much should we care?
There were three news items recently:
IFTAS has published
a guide for complying with the EU's Digital Services Act. According to IFTAS, "If your server has member accounts in the EU, or is publicly viewable in the EU, your service is most likely impacted by this regulation, even if you are not based or hosted in the EU."
Canada is
about to pass the Online Harms Act to regulate social media services, which are defined as "a website or application that is accessible in Canada, the primary purpose of which is to facilitate interprovincial or international online communication among users of the website or application by enabling them to access and share content".
Russia's "Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (ROSKOMNADZOR)"
sent a notice to a German Mastodon instance, lgbtqia.space, demanding that they delete the Russian-language Queer Media Rainbow channel. They refused, and their site is now blocked in Russia.
I hope it's obvious why I listed all three of these items together. EU and Canadian regulations are less awful than Russian regulations, but the underlying issue is the same. I'm in the US. I'm not in the EU or Canada or Russia, and I have no business connections there. Why should I care what any non-US regulations require? Is IFTAS going to issue a report on complying with Russian law too?