Huffman has said, “We are not in the business of giving that [Reddit’s content] away for free.” That stance makes sense. But it also ignores the reality that all of Reddit’s content has been given to it for free by its millions of users. Further, it leaves aside the fact that the content has been orchestrated by its thousands of volunteer moderators.
touché
I will grab my popcorn the first time someone seriously tries to pursue a GDPR erasure request for their fediverse content. I don’t think it’s even possible to honor such a request in theory, let alone in practice, given that nodes can come and go from the network and when they go, they could easily keep their local copies of everything.
In theory you’d have to send a GDPR request to every instance.
I do share the same view that GDPR is completely broken if it is interpreted in such a way that it breaks the social contract we agree to when we post in a public form. The concept of leaving public statements in the public eye is enshrined in millenia of precedent that public information remains in the public forever.
However, I have to admit that it has tooth where it matters: consumer protection against large data processors who may be using personal information about you in ways that discriminate for the sole purpose profit.