It would probably be something like: "any social media site made available to US users must verify user identities and legal name and age and comply with US agencies' requests for user information. Violators will be subject to penalty, including but not limited to economic sanction and imprisonment"

Yes, there would be ways around it and yes, there would be nations who would not enforce it, but there being legal barriers to operating an instance would basically kill its adoption for normal users. I'm really tired of people saying 'you can just get a vpn' as if most people would go to any length at all to share memes with friends. The fediverse is already too complicated for most people to adopt before having to circumvent region blocks.

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Australia is already trying something like this, under the guise of protecting kids. Under 16 year olds are banned from social media starting in December, which is effectively the same as forcing identity verification. Don't know if Lemmy will be affected or not. But I'll ditch this account over giving my ID to "random dude running an instance".

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 points 9 hours ago

UK occasionally talks about this kind of thing too. Recently had something come in that caused some web forums to shut down as it was unenforceable for a small forum but the big companies will either comply, pretend to comply or pay/ignore the fines.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I feel like that would probably Streisand effect

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 5 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Which would increase their effort to chase it down and make regular people avoid it.

Not that it would deter you, but the network would essentially stop growing and no longer be a real competitor

[–] DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Couldn't have social media without Americans.

Actually wait yes can we apply this to Lemmy?

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 2 points 15 hours ago

Ordinarily I would be sensitive to accusations of america-centrism, but the US has a tendency of bullying their allies into following their regulatory measures so I don't think this is just a US problem.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 1 points 17 hours ago

I guess we will see, maybe.