@effElectronic Frontier Foundation @taylorlorenz @404mediaco404 Media @system76System76

Friends in #colorado and any organizations that can help. A misguided bill (HB26-1255) from people who's hearts are in the right place just passed the last committee before going to the state house floor. This bill will essentially criminalize any #fediverse instance with at least one user in Colorado.

This bill does three particularly scary things:

1. Removes the existing 100,000-user lower limit for the definition of "Social Media Platform" in Section 6-1-1601 (4) of the Colorado Revised Statutes. This means that any of the tens of thousands of small #ActivityPub instances that happens to have a single user in Colorado at any time would be subject to this bill and any others that reference Section 6-1-1601 (4) of the Colorado Revised Statutes.

2. Adds a requirement for a staffed 24/7 hotline for each "Social Media Platform" to be available for law enforcement. This would require a minimum of four part-time staff, even for a Mastodon instance with two people on it that is run off of a Raspberry Pi in a bedroom closet in another country by someone in their spare time.

3. Requires notification of law enforcement within 24 hours of a flag of a threatening post. With VPNs, tunnels, Tor, etc., how do I know which law enforcement agency to reach out to? What if I don't keep any location data on my users? How do I decide what is credible and requires notification?

The ACLU has thankfully already voiced opposition.

the bill: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/HB26-1255

testimony from last night's committee in opposition (starts at 7:12pm): https://sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00327/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20260318/-1/18310