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Comment by pushcx | Hacker News Reader

Hi, I'm the forum admin who banned Sizovs for suckpuppeting a few years ago: https://lobste.rs/s/s67tjc/don_t_learn_too_many_things#c_nfn...

I know this is pure whataboutism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism), but I don't have any duty to keep the secrets of sockpuppeting spammers; the forum privacy policy is short and unambiguous. No members have expressed concerns over me banning his accounts in 2019, in 2020 when he spammed us again, or me talking to 404 Media. As a responsible journalist, Sam Cole asked if I had evidence of his abuse and I pasted from my log, though I redacted the exact IP address.

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You did the right thing. Thanks.

Your privacy policy or lack of thereof does not override the duties set to you by legislation such as GDPR.

Is lobste.rs under EU jurisdiction? It appears to be run out of Chicago.

GDPR very specifically has a public interest/journalist exemption which would obviously fall under this scenario given that this was for the sake of uncovering fraud being committed by an individual.

I believe this is the relevant text, from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679 :

> Member States law should reconcile the rules governing freedom of expression and information, including journalistic, academic, artistic and or literary expression with the right to the protection of personal data pursuant to this Regulation. The processing of personal data solely for journalistic purposes, ... should be subject to derogations or exemptions from certain provisions of this Regulation if necessary to reconcile the right to the protection of personal data with the right to freedom of expression and information, as enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter. .. In order to take account of the importance of the right to freedom of expression in every democratic society, it is necessary to interpret notions relating to that freedom, such as journalism, broadly.

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