Two important notes: (1) This guide is focused on legal risks that flow from hosting other people’s content, under U.S. law. In general, the safe harbors and immunities discussed below will not protect you if you are directly infringing copyright or defaming someone. (2) Many of us at EFF are lawyers, but we are not YOUR lawyers. This guide is intended to offer a high-level overview of U.S. law and should not be taken as legal advice specific to your particular situation.
U.S. Law applies in a lot more places than just inside U.S. borders. If you host your instance on AWS or Digital Ocean, or protect it with Cloudflare, then you’re dealing with U.S. companies, and thus U.S. law. Even if you host in a EU region of AWS for example.