I was looking at the lists of instances and where they’re hosted, weighing up migrating. Part of that was to figure out which servers might be best for connectivity issues with my region. But looking at the terms of service for some of the possibilities, I noticed that they often just say something like “This instance and your use is subject to the laws of <country>”.

But lots of countries have unusual laws I couldn’t know about. Some of them might affect data privacy, some of them might affect what can be said or shown in pictures, some might be seemingly random to a foreigner. Some of the laws might be beneficial to random people, others won’t.

Obviously different instances decide how they choose to enforce their interpretations of those laws, rightly or questionably, but there’s also the question of what happens if they receive a subpoena from their regional law enforcement.

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to post anything that I think would be illegal in any country. But, for all I know, there’s a law somewhere that says I have to spin around three times and then stand on one leg while writing any comment.

So, what regional laws should a user know about before choosing an instance? Bonus points for the unusual ones that will take me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. I offer you a non-digital unusual law in return: Since 1313 it’s illegal to wear a suit of armour in the UK Houses of Parliament.