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> It doesn't matter what country you run your server in or where your company is based; if you're providing public signup to a chat server then the countries (UK, AU, NZ etc) which require age verification will object if you don't age verify the users from those countries. (This is why Discord is doing it, despite being US HQ'd).

Whether it matters depends very much on what sort of organization you are.

Discord is a multinational for-profit corporation planning an IPO. It takes payments from users in those countries, likely partners with companies in those countries, and likely wants to sell stock to investors in those countries. Every one of those countries has the ability to punish Discord if it does not obey their laws, even if it does not have a physical presence there.

The situation is likely quite different for most of the 23,306 Matrix servers that federate widely. The worst thing Australia, for example could do to one of their operators is make it legally hazardous for them to visit Australia.

by hparadiz1 hours ago|

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The Matrix server is open source. https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse The Element client is also open source. https://github.com/element-hq/element-web

It does not actually need to be configured in a federated state and frankly scales better when it's not. The login can be tied to anything or use it's own. From a modern SAML SSO to an old school forum.

You can run one for a few friends and it scales just as well as a private discord for a few friends. Just need persistent storage for media uploads if people are sharing video a lot.

by HNisCIS2 hours ago|

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I think the internet needs to get much more comfortable with protest through noncompliance.

We need more stuff hosted through obfuscated channels (Tor, I2C, etc) and more user friendly access to those networks.

by Alive-in-20254 hours ago|

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I appreciate that answer, it makes sense that it is based on the country. What I'm hoping to avoid is having to give my actual identity to all services on the internet. It will just allow terrible monitoring and oversight that isn't helpful for democracy. I don't trust the current us administration to know everything I say, everything I do, I don't really trust any government to have that power (and I want to stop crime and abuse..). I like some privacy. We are heading to that already with the Texas and Florida age requirements on the internet today.

This matrix discussion here is missing the point - many people don't want ubiquitous tracking of everything we do on the internet. You and matrix are seemingly not honestly addressing that point, because matrix doesn't seem different discord (in the requirements).

by Arathorn4 hours ago|

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We're taking it for granted that people do not want to be tracked on the internet, and certainly don't want everyone to have to verify themselves on every site they use. I personally spent ages of time campaigning against the legislation (and lost) - e.g. https://matrix.org/blog/2021/05/19/how-the-uk-s-online-safet... and https://element.io/blog/the-online-safety-bill-an-attack-on-... etc.

The difference with Discord is that Matrix is a protocol, not a service. It's made up of thousands of servers run by different people in different countries. Public instances may choose to verify users in affected countries to abide by the law; others may choose to run a private instance instead.

by j-bos4 hours ago|

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For hosts in the US, wouldn't this apply? https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118565/witnesses/...

tldr, means for American firms to sue due to burdonsome regulations, also some contitution stuff.