UK Online Safety Regulations and impact on Forums

eaststandboy said:
How far OFCON take this is anyone's guess. With SO MANY small forums, they may just take the stance on they will take action if any content is reported to them and found to be "harmful" or they could just go to town on us all!
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Another problem who will judge if the content is harmful or not :) This will be a quite subjective decision and can change for each person.
 
The Online Safety Act Explained event, 3-5 February 2025

We are pleased to invite you to our hybrid/virtual conference “The Online Safety Act Explained: How to Comply” taking place on 3-5 February 2025, 14:30 – 17:30 GMT each day. This conference will include a mix of short practical information sessions and deep dive sessions into topics to support providers on their path to compliance.
 
rogerl said:
Age verification details released now and not good news

www.ofcom.org.uk

Age checks to protect children online

Children will be prevented from encountering online pornography and protected from other types of harmful content under Ofcom’s new industry guidance which sets out how we expect sites and apps to introduce highly effective age assurance.
www.ofcom.org.uk www.ofcom.org.uk

  • All user-to-user and search services – defined as ‘Part 3’ services[4] – in scope of the Act, must carry out a children’s access assessment to establish if their service – or part of their service - is likely to be accessed by children.
  • Unless they are already using highly effective age assurance and can evidence this, we anticipate that most of these services will need to conclude that they are likely to be accessed by children within the meaning of the Act.
  • any age-checking methods deployed by services must be technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair in order to be considered highly effective;
  • confirms that methods including self-declaration of age and online payments which don’t require a person to be 18 are not highly effective;
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Seems silly that OFCom will not publish children risk assessment guidance until April 2025 giving folks only 3 months to meet July 2025 deadline for assessment. Why not publish it now to give folks more time to prepare?

I've updated my template but as a separate branch for now
Also would be great if we also call out OFCom on any hypocrisy by finding UK government sites/forums that also do not meet their own guidelines as well. IIRC GDPR laws had a few examples of where UK government sites also breached their own rules.

Wonder how many folks can afford to role out a properly age verification system. I recently signed up for a financial service which needed ID verification and they use GBG which also offers age verification services https://www.gbgplc.com/en/business-need/age-verification/. Looks like ID3 Lightning KYC service is the one https://www.gbgplc.com/en/products/id-verification/
 
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chillibear said:
The workflow is illustrated by Ofcom:
View attachment 317543
So basically if you can't be sure it's only adults accessing (and to be sure you need to be using one of the approved age checks - which very few will do - "tick I'm 18+" checkboxes or T&C statements are not good enough) then you have to assume children may be accessing the service/site.
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Which basically means you have to prove that you don't have minors in your forum for not having to implement age checks. And to prove that you have to implement age checks because there is no other way to prove it.

In theory I would be affected, too:
• I do run a forum
• it is accessible from the UK (but not hosted in the UK)
• Ofcom say their "law" would have to be followed world wide
• so - according to Ofcom - I have to assume that a relevant part of my forum users are minors from the uk
  • despite my forum is not in the UK
  • it is in German, not in English
  • the forum topic is not of any interest to minors
  • as to my knowledge I do not have a single minor in my forum (independend of nationality - the majority of my users are indeed grumpy old men :p)
  • not in the least my forum has any topic or threads that are connected to "filthy stuff"
  • nor do we have a forum culture that would allow that or any form of harassment

But as we have PNs activated in theory a huge crowd of British minors could register on my forum along with evil minded grown ups that harass them via the PN system. According to Ofcom this is what I have to assume is the case (despite there's absolutely zero probability for that let alone any hint or a proof) and therefor I would have to implement silly stuff - which would leave my no choice but to close my forum due to cost, effort and risk. Because of a brain fart of some useless overpaid foreign buerocrats with phantasies of world domination and his own relevance. This is completely ridiculous.

Luckily I am not in the UK so I will simply ignore that bull****. If there were constructive and sensible measures that would really promise to solve a real world problem I would happily implement them if possible, even if I would not need to do so legally. But what they do and demand is the exact opposite of that, making clowns of themselves, threatening people around the world and doing harm to culture and peoples interactions. They should rename themselves to "Offcom - taking communication offline worldwide as a profession".

Someone should sue them (or the British government) for harassment of their business, threatening innocent people and doing harm to mankind. The people responsible for that should be fired on the spot due to not only being incompetent and useless but for being actively destructive and dangerous. And as a consequence these people should be banned from using the internet completely - the only way of communication they should be allowed to use for the next 30 years is fax machines, absolutely nothing else. That would possibly teach them a lesson.
 
While the law does make the distinction for “children might be viewing”, my non-lawyer understanding is that there is that detail about whether it is likely that kids will be present. The whole deal is thst you make a risk assessment whether it is likely/reasonable that kids are present. (That’s why it’s a risk assessment.)

If your site discusses, say, Minecraft - fair chance kids are present. Ditto Lego. But if you’re doing something like, say, high end astronomy discussion (where the discussion material has a very real cost attached), you can probably say that kids wouldn’t be likely to be there. The framework such as it is, is woefully blunt hammer but it does put it in your hands to judge what you think is likely. I’m basing this on how I’ve seen Ofcom do things before, as well as the general regulation landscape in the UK. I feel confident that the clarifying guidance that’s coming will be fairly clear that “if your subject matter is not interesting to children by default, you can note that in your risk assessment and be on your way” because it’s simply not viable to mandate every venue do age gating and even Ofcom isn’t that stupid.

(And it is clear that Ofcom won’t suddenly smash you over the head with the top penalty immediately, because they actively talk about going through the risk assessment etc. Not that Ofcom has significantly extra resources to deal with any of the complaints that will inevitably happen.)

Honestly, I’d be more worried about the geniuses that will post the material that isn’t allowed then report you to Ofcom just to get you taken down.
 
eva2000 said:
Also would be great if we also call out OFCom on any hypocrisy by finding UK government sites/forums that also do not meet their own guidelines as well. IIRC GDPR laws had a few examples of where UK government sites also breached their own rules.
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Afraid they are explicitly exempt from the OSA ... public bodies are one of the exempt categories, so if Ofcom for example decide to start a forum on their website for talking about children's television, cuddly toys and explosives open to everyone none of this applies to them! Sorry they are one step ahead!

Arantor said:
Honestly, I’d be more worried about the geniuses that will post the material that isn’t allowed then report you to Ofcom just to get you taken down.
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I think in some ways that's the more realistic risk. Annoyed trolls. As to how efficient Ofcom will be with dealing with reports it's hard to know.
 
chillibear said:
Afraid they are explicitly exempt from the OSA ... public bodies are one of the exempt categories, so if Ofcom for example decide to start a forum on their website for talking about children's television, cuddly toys and explosives open to everyone none of this applies to them! Sorry they are one step ahead!
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Always a good sign if you release rules that are only valid for others but not for yourself. Makes life much easier and also easier to decide for very strict rules that are complex and far from practice - if you are not affected by the weirdness you dictate others to suffer from.
 
chillibear said:
Afraid they are explicitly exempt from the OSA ... public bodies are one of the exempt categories, so if Ofcom for example decide to start a forum on their website for talking about children's television, cuddly toys and explosives open to everyone none of this applies to them! Sorry they are one step ahead!
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Dam - definitely a messed up law then if they realise how difficult it is to implement on their own sites
 
Think of those tv ratings you see when you're watching movies.
If you are promoting NSFW then that is R rated with a purely Adults only registration.
If you find it harsh then look at having an M15+ rating where kids can be accompanied by an adult.
It's all in the registration restrictions.
 
eva2000 said:
Dam - definitely a messed up law then if they realise how difficult it is to implement on their own sites
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I’ve mentioned elsewhere about dealing with other introduced-last-year laws, and in that arena the enforcement body isn’t compliant because they decided it was too difficult to do so - but everyone else still has to be compliant and the enforcement body is genuinely amazed anyone figured it out at all. But that’s the cool thing, it’s then about being the only vendor in a marketplace…
 
alfaNova said:
We need better than that. Look at the crime list. Is saying we have to control everything.

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There can be some additions to the above addon maybe to review the content and report it to the admins.

NOTES TO EDITORS
  • The Online Safety Act lists over 130 ‘priority offences’, and tech firms must assess and mitigate the risk of these occurring on their platforms. The priority offences can be split into the following categories:
    • Terrorism
    • Harassment, stalking, threats and abuse offences
    • Coercive and controlling behaviour
    • Hate offences
    • Intimate image abuse
    • Extreme pornography
    • Child sexual exploitation and abuse
    • Sexual exploitation of adults
    • Unlawful immigration
    • Human trafficking
    • Fraud and financial offences
    • Proceeds of crime
    • Assisting or encouraging suicide
    • Drugs and psychoactive substances
    • Weapons offences (knives, firearms, and other weapons)
    • Foreign interference
    • Animal welfare
www.ofcom.org.uk

Time for tech firms to act: UK online safety regulation comes into force

People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online, as tech firms are now legally required to start taking action to tackle criminal activity on their platforms, and make them safer by design.
www.ofcom.org.uk www.ofcom.org.uk
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LOL! What exactly is a "hate offence?" I hate brussel sprouts. I also hate people who back into parking spaces. ;)

Also... what is a "weapons offence?" Especially ONLINE? A picture of a knife? OMG! OMG!

THIS is why my forum is cut off to all UK and EU countries. I have neither time nor tolerance for such silliness.
 
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eva2000 said:
Also would be great if we also call out OFCom on any hypocrisy by finding UK government sites/forums that also do not meet their own guidelines as well. IIRC GDPR laws had a few examples of where UK government sites also breached their own rules.
Click to expand...

chillibear said:
Afraid they are explicitly exempt from the OSA ... public bodies are one of the exempt categories, so if Ofcom for example decide to start a forum on their website for talking about children's television, cuddly toys and explosives open to everyone none of this applies to them! Sorry they are one step ahead!
Click to expand...

smallwheels said:
Always a good sign if you release rules that are only valid for others but not for yourself. Makes life much easier and also easier to decide for very strict rules that are complex and far from practice - if you are not affected by the weirdness you dictate others to suffer from.
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And there you have it.... the VERY definition of tyranny. You get what you tolerate, eh?

Rules for thee, none for me.
 
The very definition of tyranny uses words like “cruel” and “oppressive”. I don’t actually feel oppressed by the requirements for content moderation per se (because realistically they’re 99% the same as what I’d be moderating for anyway, not least of which that half the illegal content stuff was already illegal anyway!) - but I do feel the bureaucracy of it is a much bigger deal than the moderation rules etc.

I’m not sure “death by bureaucracy” is covered under any country’s or dictionary’s definition of tyranny - and unlike you I actually live here and deal with other parts of the system.
 
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