Comment by constantcrying
7 months ago
This isn't how laws work. If you give a layperson a large law and tell him that, if he is in violation, he has to pay millions, then it pretty much doesn't matter that there is some way where, with some effort, he can comply. Most people aren't lawyers and figuring out how to actually comply with this is incredibly tedious and risky, as he is personally liable for any mistakes he makes interpreting those laws.
Companies have legal departments, which exist to figure out answers to questions like that. This is because these questions are extremely tricky and the answers might even change as case law trickles in or rules get revised.
Expecting individuals to interpret complex rulesets under threat of legal liability is a very good way to make sure these people stop what they are doing.
>This isn't how laws work.
The law worked the same way yesterday as it does today. It's not like the website run in Britain operated under some state of anarchy and in a few months it doesn't. There's already laws a site has to comply with and the risk that someone sues you, but if you were okay with running a site for 20 years adding a report button isn't drastically going to change the nature of your business.
You don't get it. The law is completely different for people and corporations. A corporation has the resources to figure out how exactly the law applies to them and defend that at trial. An individual does not.
It is plainly insulting to say that "adding a report button" is enough, obviously that is false. And investigating how to comply with this law is time consuming and comes with immense risk if done improperly. The fact that this law is new, means that nobody knows how exactly it has to be interpreted and that very well you might get it completely wrong. If a website has existed for 20 years with significant traffic it is almost certain that it has complied with the law, what absolutely is not certain is how complying with the law has to be done in the future.
I do not get why you have the need to defend this. "Just do X", is obviously not how this law is written, it covers a broad range of services in different ways and has different requirements for these categories. You absolutely need legal advice to figure out what to do, especially if it is you who is in trouble if you get it wrong.
> A corporation has the resources to figure out how exactly the law applies to them and defend that at trial.
A very large fraction of corporations are run on minimal margins. Some of them still do try and keep up with regulations and that is then (often) a very large part of their operating costs.
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But in 2025 the law will change. It is this reason that the site will shut down the day before the law comes in.