UK Online Safety Regulations and impact on Forums

smallwheels · Dec 30, 2024

Mr Lucky said:
Misinformation and Disinformation: False or misleading content, especially around sensitive topics like health, that may lead children to make dangerous decisions or develop incorrect beliefs. This can include anything that may go against national or government safety advice in regard to pandemics.

Addiction and Excessive Use: Platforms that encourage excessive screen time or addiction to certain types of content, such as gaming or social media, which can interfere with a child's development, education, and well-being.

This can (and probably will) become interesting. While I applaude the general ambition to deal with these topics I see massive difficulties in practice: Forums in general do for a reason have the image not necessarily to be a reliable and trustful source of information - too many people claim the wildest things, with or w/o intention, that can (and must) often be considered factually wrong. About almost any topic imaginable. To draw the line between "opinion" and "misinformation/disinformation" is not always easy, the more as the people posting those are often not aware of the difference and on top of that expecially platforms like X/twitter and many others have become a mud hole of disinformation, by users also as by interested parties (i.e. spammers or armys of trolls or fake accounts).

Also, the business model of many social media platforms is based on addiction and excessive use: Doom scrolling is a thing and platforms like X/Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and many others make their revenue based on that.

Mr Lucky · Dec 30, 2024

smallwheels said:
draw the line between "opinion" and "misinformation/disinformation" is not always easy

This became very apparent during the pandemic when anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers surfaced. Not to mention the home-made cures.

Sim · Dec 30, 2024

alfaNova said:
And we cannot verify their age legally. So there is no clear action for this if they lie for their age.

This is a debate we're about to have in Australia.

The Australian parliament has already passed laws restricting social media to people 16 years or older.

The details about exactly how they intend to enforce that are yet to be determined - but I think there are some harsh realities they will face when it comes to privacy given the only reliable way to enforce it is to force all social media users 16 years and older to verify themselves using some form of government ID - thus rendering the "lying about their age" aspect irrelevant (in theory).

For now we're just waiting for details - but I don't think it's going to actually be enforceable and given most kids are tech savvy enough to set up a VPN and bypass the restrictions, I think the whole exercise is going to be largely a waste of time and taxpayers dollars.

JamesBrown · Dec 30, 2024

Mr Lucky said:
This became very apparent during the pandemic when anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers

Made all the more difficult when some of the conspiracy about vaccines and masks turned out to be true! These days, it can be difficult to know what is true and what is not. Making moderation so much harder.

smallwheels · Dec 30, 2024

JamesBrown said:
difficult to know what is true and what is not. Making moderation so much harder.

You can define in your Terms of Service that the moderator is always right - problem solved.

Mr Lucky · Dec 30, 2024

JamesBrown said:
These days, it can be difficult to know what is true and what is not. Making moderation so much harder.

The only way we could do this was (sadly) by defining what wasn't conspiracy by saying something like official health authority advice. It hurt me to write that but it did save a lot of arguing. And of course that could vary from country to country however it got us out of a tight spot.

I do remember when someone posted their own cure for COVID, I thought nothing of it as it seemed a bit obviously stupid, however got a nag from Google (Adsense) that we had contravened their TOS.

alfaNova · Dec 30, 2024

Sim said:
This is a debate we're about to have in Australia.

The Australian parliament has already passed laws restricting social media to people 16 years or older.

The details about exactly how they intend to enforce that are yet to be determined - but I think there are some harsh realities they will face when it comes to privacy given the only reliable way to enforce it is to force all social media users 16 years and older to verify themselves using some form of government ID - thus rendering the "lying about their age" aspect irrelevant (in theory).

For now we're just waiting for details - but I don't think it's going to actually be enforceable and given most kids are tech savvy enough to set up a VPN and bypass the restrictions, I think the whole exercise is going to be largely a waste of time and taxpayers dollars.

What will be the definition of social media? Will online forums be included in the social media category?

Some XenForo add-ons have been developed for Turkey where we can do identity verification using the government database. But this would require stricter GDPR rules, so I would hesitate to implement it. Likewise, from the user side, if a forum asks for my credentials, I would not sign up there.

Mr Lucky · Dec 30, 2024

alfaNova said:
What will be the definition of social media? Will online forums be included in the social media category?

I think they have to be. How can you define then to be any different to social media?

alfaNova · Dec 30, 2024

Mr Lucky said:
I think they have to be. How can you define then to be any different to social media?

Then any system users can comment should be considered as social media.

Mr Lucky · Dec 30, 2024

alfaNova said:
Then any system users can comment should be considered as social media.

Not really. People can comment on a blog, but are blogs social media?

zappaDPJ · Dec 30, 2024

It'll be interesting to see how messaging services and social media in general which employs end-to-end encryption complies with the Act. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if more services actually move towards end-to-end encryption in order to preserve privacy thus making it easier to hide the very content the Act wants to prevent.

In my experience prohibition is never the right answer to a problem and the results of it can often be farcical as anyone old enough to remember the UK's Mary Whitehouse will know well.

alfaNova · Dec 30, 2024

Mr Lucky said:
Not really. People can comment on a blog, but are blogs social media?

They can still use inappropriate language on the comments, right? Same like online forums. Only content creating method is different between blogs, forums, even News web sites.

rogerl · Jan 1, 2025

Online Safety Act 2023

Mr Lucky · Jan 1, 2025

Thanks that could be really useful. However although there is an overview there doesn't seem to be an easy to follow 1 page doc saying what small forums need to do and how. I would ask my legal department to read all those documents, but they (=me) are now on my second glass of wine after a hard day.

I'm not interested in anyone's "interpretation" - I want something from Kier telling me in plain English what to do.

Arantor · Jan 1, 2025

Mr Lucky said:
I'm not interested in anyone's "interpretation" - I want something from Kier telling me in plain English what to do.

That would also be an interpretation though.

The full guidance isn’t published yet. I expect it to be a total grit show, like other things wrought by the tail end of the previous govt.

Mr Lucky · Jan 1, 2025

Arantor said:
The full guidance isn’t published yet.

So why are people talking about closing their forums, or stopping having their sites available in the UK or UK members on their forums?

Lee · Jan 1, 2025

Mr Lucky said:
So why are people talking about closing their forums, or stopping having their sites available in the UK or UK members on their forums?

People did the same thing when the GDPR happened.

Lee · Jan 1, 2025

Mr Lucky said:
Thanks that could be really useful. However although there is an overview there doesn't seem to be an easy to follow 1 page doc saying what small forums need to do and how. I would ask my legal department to read all those documents, but they (=me) are now on my second glass of wine after a hard day.

I'm not interested in anyone's "interpretation" - I want something from Kier telling me in plain English what to do.

Does Kier have some insight that the rest of us do not?

Arantor · Jan 1, 2025

Mr Lucky said:
So why are people talking about closing their forums, or stopping having their sites available in the UK or UK members on their forums?

Because those that have, have already read the law as it stands (this is published), and have decided that the burden of compliance will be too high for them to meet. In an era where forum use is, generally, seen as declining, if you’re already in a declining space this could well be the proverbial straw on the camel’s back.

Mr Lucky · Jan 1, 2025

Arantor said:
and have decided that the burden of compliance will be too high for them to meet

I can’t see anything at the moment that seems too onerous.

It just seems to me all you need do at the moment is a risk assessment. It took me about 15 minutes, and it would seem that is a better option than closing the forum down.

That and requiring age verification, but it seems there may be more to that than just getting people to say how old they are.

Whether it’s enough remains to be seen but I’m certainly not going to close a forum down because of it. Of course maybe I would think otherwise if my forum relied on illegal or harmful content

UK Online Safety Regulations and impact on Forums

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Online Safety Act 2023