[immibis]

Sure they could. You'd just have to answer subpoenas when the police are trying to identify a user, same as in the USA.

You might get a few more of them. Recently a bunch of French people received jail time for repeatedly posting how the president was a pedophile and his wife was a man. Because, you know, harassment is illegal in many European countries. But the only obligation by the service provider, if asked, would be to delete the posts and give the user's IP address.

The EU Digital Services Act is actually a much wider liability shield than the USA's Section 230. I suggest reading it. ISPs ("mere conduits") have basically absolutely immunity, and caches merely have to ensure they make an effort to delete the cached object when the original object disappears (i.e. they have a reasonable expiry time) to be immune. Social media, since it's a content publisher, has more obligations, of course, but they are also not that onerous and things like automated scanning are only required if your site is big enough to afford them.

[mk89]

The second paragraph is exactly why people don't trust when a platform is based in EU.

I never heard of American presidents going after individuals on Twitter or other platforms. Neither Obama, nor Biden and also not Trump who is receiving so much hatred and bad words, without even touching the assassination attempt. Which is probably the only reason why they threatened to go after people, but that seems to be understandable - and I think that's the line you should not cross in a forum/platform.

The mindset is completely different.

[immibis]

Europeans are generally okay with bullying and harassment being illegal.

[mk89]

We should not mix random unknown person being bullied online with VIPs or politicians being made fun of.

Even during the Roman Republic people could make fun of or heavily insult politicians, and also with ugly things that we could never say today. Even Julius Caesar was mocked heavily (the famous "every woman's man and every man's woman")

...unsurprisingly, this changed when the Republic ended and the Empire started.

And here we're today thinking about our sensitive politicians :)

[iamnothere]

Exactly, the right to mock one’s rulers should be considered fundamental in a modern society. It’s part of the price of power and an important release valve for social tensions.

[immibis]

In a lot of European countries you don't have the right to mock or insult anyone.