UK Online Safety Regulations and impact on Forums

Alvin63 said:
One if the recommended measures was prohibit the various child harms in the TOS specifically (as mentioned in one of the examples of a negligible determination). So if you prohibit it in TOS, it lowers the risk?
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I think it just shows how unrealistic the OFCOM rules are. Because everyone reads the TOS don’t they? Thoroughly, and memorise them for later recollection. Before asking what kind of lettuce to give their hamster. 😄

And anyone who was likely to post that sort of harm is unlikely to give a stuff about the TOS.
 
Alvin63 said:
The Terms are getting longer and longer - who is going to read it all?!
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Nobody, ever. Or at least that's my experience. I have it in the T&Cs of my longest running forum (18 years, 3 months) that a $100 Amazon voucher is there for the taking by any forum member who wants to claim it. No one ever has which suggests to me that no one ever reads T&Cs.
 
I might try that one 🤣 How about "anyone who can memorise paragraph 3 and recite it live on video, wins a £100 Amazon voucher. Expensive if someone actually did it though.

The whole Ofcom process is like an exam. Next thing they'll be asking us to test users on the TOS like a driving theory test.
 
Seriously, unless you are Elon Musk or Zuckerberg and eliminate your entire moderation department, I guess we all can go pack and go home :mad:
 
mimezine said:
Seriously, unless you are Elon Musk or Zuckerberg and eliminate your entire moderation department, I guess we all can go pack and go home :mad:
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It's not that bad. Just tick some boxes over the moderation side. It's the amount of paperwork that gets me. Did you see the thing above about the AI content moderator addon? Having said that, I have had to invest a bit - maybe not a lot but it's still money.
 
Alvin63 said:
These examples of a "negligible risk" scenario are quite helpful though (although they seem to contradict the child risk factors description of how to assess risk level which suggests hardly anything should be negligible.
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I've very much been feeling that in reading the guidance I come to one conclusion, then I read an example and the example is much laissez faire about assigning a risk level. I keep going back over things changing my mind.

Alvin63 said:
I was thinking the same 🤣 The Terms are getting longer and longer - who is going to read it all?!
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I'm sure in the guidance it talks about making your T&C accessible and easy for children to understand and not making them long winded and full of waffle. Not quite sure how you do that if you need to outline some - what is it now - 25-30 specific harms across adults and children?

I do like the hidden voucher idea - lovely story.
 
I doubt it! I'm sure there are others who have read the lot (which I haven't - I've read most bits I think I need). Looking at that example of negligible though - I think I will still need to stay as "low risk" for a CRA due to the 13+ age range and teenagers on the site.
 
Since my site has been up and running again, surprisingly I'm still getting regular new memberships signing up and posting, as before.

However some new members are using bbcode links or pasting links from other media sites, not knowing what the procedure is on my site (obviously haven't read the rules). Now I had turned off media embedding for everything except youtube. And set a censor for the names of some other media sites and so on so any links wouldn't paste or be clickable. However, today someone did manage to post an Imgur link via BBCode linking. (If that's the right terminology) where they click on the link icon, paste the link and use text for the link). So clearly I can't stop people posting links off site and word censor doesn't work for that. It's not that important but it was part of my risk assessment that the only media links were to youtube, and those embedded and didn't lead offsite.

Wondering if there's a way round that.

Incidentally, adding d.rugs to the spam filter seems to catch some of the "Meaning of life" type religious posts.
 
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Hamster eating cockroach - scientific or "animal cruelty"? Couldn't allow it anyway because some people keep pet cockroaches.
 
I know but I didn't want any complaints - you'd be surprised. It's the sort of thing that happens all the time on nature programs but as it's my site ........... just didn't want complaints. It was a live cockroach.
 
Suzanne O said:
Disformation = false information.

I know you're losing your mind over this.
But remember some of the dodgey covid info that was given out by people?
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I don't give a ****, the laws of England are irrelevant in America. I have almost half a million users on a 15 year old forum, Ofcom, the clot shot and Chinese virus labs can all kiss my ass., take a ticket.
 
D.O.A. said:
I don't give a ****, the laws of England are irrelevant in America. I have almost half a million users on a 15 year old forum, Ofcom, the clot shot and Chinese virus labs can all kiss my ass., take a ticket.
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You mightn't give a rat's backside about it. But gee whiz, I do with my site and crew. I don't allow anyone under the age of 16 on my forum. It stops minors from looking at it and joining.
Not only that, Australia have put a ban on u/16's from looking at social media. Why? Because it supposedly affects their life.
As for covid, just don't get it mate. I had that last year and was sick for a whole month.
I"m also vaccinated have had 5 vaccines for it. All work wonders. Didn't get vaccinated last year. Got sick last year.
So maybe your views need to be educated when it comes to something so serious. Then you will give a rat's backside.
 
Is everyone done now? With all risk assessments? Finally finished my Child Risk Assessment yesterday and saved. So done for another 11 months now (until first risk assessment needs updating). But I have some slightly larger annual bills now also! Thinking of doing affiliate links. Any tips for good sites for that would be appreciated.
 
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