Perhaps we can make internet forums trendy again. Those are artisanal by nature. Only user generated content. Strict moderation.
Some countries like Germany also require legal contact information (an Impressum). Technically it even applies to sites outside Germany that Germans can visit, though they don't really have a way of enforcing that. So basically if you have a website you're required to doxx yourself. The old web is not just being destroyed by big tech but by the politicians as well.
It's kinda time for a semi-darknet free from all the legislation. Tor is a bit too dark for it but it would be good to have some kind of anonimised hobby net that can escape all this red tape. Basically the free for all that the internet used to be in the late 90s.
It's bad enough but not quite as bad as you claim. Article 19 of the DSA exempts small websites from the most onerous and expensive rules that big platforms have to comply with.
Overall there is very little in the way of exceptions for small businesses. Similarly with the EPR / PPWR changes that went into effect on the 12th of August, a lot of owner-operated microbusinesses have had to stop shipping to many EU countries due to the crazy costs of registration (which has to be done in each individual EU country no less, totally contrary to the idea of the EU): https://ppwrconnect.com/blog/ppwr-applies-12-august-2026-who...
Some artists send only one padded envelope to some countries (or none, in some years) and have to deal with hundreds of euros of registration cost for some countries. It's ridiculous. There's 2 little pieces of relief for microbusiness but most of the crazy red tape applies.
The problem with their regulation is that the big ones that were meant to be targeted (e.g. Google and Meta) have plenty of lawyers to sidestep all the regulation, and the small initiatives are all killed because they don't have such capabilities. We're still tracked by Google and Meta everywhere.
And then there was the 3 euro per product type surcharge on small packets, making it impossible for small artists to buy items that cost 20-30 cents a piece. Legislation lobbied for by the big buck chains like Lidl and Ahold.
To be honest I'm now strongly in favour of reeling in the EU project to simply some economic treaties and easy movement of people because they've become a stringpuppet for big business lobby. Definitely not some big federal state (we've seen where that path leads in America)
Absolutely, but the context was small online forums. I don't disagree with the gist of your general criticism.
A surprising amount needs to be unified in order to have fully free trade, and I see unwillingness to lose existing national structures as a big problem in today's EU.
Why are we all complying in advance with the broadest possible understanding of laws?
I don't understand people bitching about Impressum like its some sort of German-only thing.
I am sure if you looked at the legislation of many countries, you would find similar requirements for companies to identify themselves. Off the top of my head you have Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, UK ... and probably the rest of the EU/EEA states as well. IIRC it is also a requirement in a number of Asian countries.
In reality requiring an Impressum (or equivalent in other countries) is no different to having to put identification information on a company's old-school letterhead. Its just good manners so that your customers/suppliers can know who they are dealing with.
Personally I dislike the US attitude of trying your damnest to hide any trace of your company's identifying or contact information from your website. ;)
That's the (widespread) issue, treating personal websites and online communities like businesses. Some are, but that's not something to encourage or assume.
I live in the Czech Republic, where you can buy a SIM card anonymously and build a website without identifying yourself. I don't see a good reason for other countries to not give their citizens the same freedom, and am vehemently against reducing freedom just because "other countries do it".
I am not familiar with Czech Republic law but out of curiosity I asked an LLM:
§ 435 of the Civil Code (Act no. 89/2012 Coll.)
The law explicitly says every podnikatel (entrepreneur/business) must include on all business documents and on information made publicly available through remote access (i.e. their website):
- the company's name (firma),
- its registered seat (sídlo) or place of business,
- its identification number (IČO) — the Czech equivalent of a company registration number,
- and if registered in the Commercial Register (obchodní rejstřík), the registration details including the file reference and section/insert (spisová značka, oddíl, vložka).
This is the summary provisions that was previously found in § 13a of the old Commercial Code (obchodní zákoník) and is now codified in the Civil Code.
Consumer Protection Act (Act no. 634/1992 Coll.) — adds requirements when you sell to consumers online: business's name and address, ADR (out-of-court dispute resolution) body information, delivery/payment terms, and — for online marketplaces — how offers are ranked, etc.
My original comment was quite clearly about businesses, I wrote company/companies three times.
I was unaware German Impressum applied to a natural person who is not running a business. If that is true, then I agree that is unfair. But I was never seeking to comment on that anyway.
Then it seems we agree. I thougt you were commenting about both personal and business sites, given the original context being community forums.
Maybe look up what something is, before commenting about what you assume it is.
It doesn't.
it's a very naive thing to think that it's just "customers/suppliers" looking at who they're dealing with
not to mention if you're not paying enough for a whole company etc., you need to put your home address there iirc.
Its still no excuse.
Nobody forces anybody to start a business.
If somebody chooses to start a business then they should do grown-up things like having insurance and complying with the law – which includes publishing their business's contact details.
The legal and good manners reasons for publishing a business's contact details far out-weigh any negative ones.
I am sure I am not the only person on this planet who associates alarm bells with small/medium businesses that try to hide their contact details on their website. As a customer it rings alarm bells that they are going to be a pain the neck to deal with if something goes wrong – if a business is trying to bypass such fundamental requirements, then it makes you think about how they feel about e.g. consumer rights law in relation to handling returns.
I don't think that's true across EU. Seemingly very non-traditional forums, huge ones, stay online still today, many hosted within EU. Probably Flashback Forum is one of the oldest and biggest forums in Nordics, geared towards "freedom of speech" and still online today.
Sounds like it's very difficult in Germany indeed to host an anonymous or pseudoanonymous website/forum, but Germany is also not the entire EU or Europe.
You get a request for which data is processed from a user and suddenly you have to spend 8 hours in paper archives to find if the weekly charity mailing has ever mentioned this person by their full name.
In previous eras we'd just ignore laws like these. But in this era we have become, as they say, cucked.
It's pretty easy to do these days. I won't drop a link to it unless anyone really wants to discuss old Range Rovers, but it runs forum software called FlaskBB which is worth a play.
It is a slow, ugly, overcomplicated mess designed by people who do not know how threading works and don't know how to do email properly. Yuck.
True that.