Use this page to describe and discuss how laws and regulations in different jurisdictions affect the deployment and management of ATproto systems
Here is some background on how the largest closed social media platforms (such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Tiktok) might be required to enable interoperability with smaller platforms which request it, enabled (or not) on an opt-in per-user basis.
As decentralised ATproto communities become more common, operators of Personal Data Stores in particular (since they act as hosts) should be aware of their legal trust and safety-related obligations. This guide (to the Fediverse and the EU's Digital Services Act) is a good starting point. Other component operators might look at Cloudflare's musings on legal obligations for infrastructure operators.
ATproto component operators concerned about the impact of over-broad surveillance laws and technologies on their users (such as those of the US government under the Trump administration) should read this first.
As with trust and safety, decentralised ATproto component operators should be aware of their potential obligations under privacy and data protection laws, such as the European Union's (EU) well-known General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Over 170 countries (including the 30 EU+EEA states and Switzerland) have adopted this type of broad law.
Privacy and data protection are two related but distinct concepts in EU law. Data protection protects all related human rights (eg freedom of expression and association, as well as privacy). A network of national enforcers, plus the European Data Protection Supervisor, enforces the GDPR (and the specialised communications services e-Privacy Directive, which the 30 EU+EEA states have turned into national laws).
US federal privacy law is relatively strong in relation to the federal government, but weak indeed in relation to most industry sectors (with specific exceptions, such as for health information under HIPAA.) However, states -- notably California, but including others -- have much strong private-sector regulation, and regulators with teeth to enforce it.
Please add similar summaries of other high-impact jurisdictions here, such as China and India.
Here is a guide to "data protection obligations, challenges & pitfalls for Mastodon Users & Instance owners / Admins." And here is a helpful privacy policy generator.