UK Online Safety Regulations and impact on Forums

Alvin63 said:
So that suggests XF has the ability to filter out inappropriate language - is it a setting now?
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It's had that since the beginning I think, ate least since I've been running xenForo. Serach ACP for censor - you can censor words or phrases to either asterisks or other words. I've also censored emojis such as 💩 and 👆 so they show as 🌸 and 🦋
 
That's a weird article - so Ofcom are investigating them because they were checking users were over 20, but had said somewhere they were checking you were over 23. Given you only have to be over 18 to partake in the deep spiritual debates that I assume take place on OnlyFans where exactly is the issue Ofcom are investigating. "your being investigated for not breaking the law" ?! I wonder if they feel there need to be a few news worth pieces to show that the regulator "has teeth" so to speak?

FWIW generally the age estimation stuff I've seen seems to set the threshold at 25, ie under 25 in the eyes of the AI and you "fail".

I did look at Yoti as a solution, but they were a few hundred a month for something like 900-1000 check a month. One other I've just finished chatting with was agechecked.com. Their plans are more of an option for a reasonably busy site. With checks ranging from 30-40p each, but with a minimum of 100 checks per month (you essentially make up any shortfall). Waiting to hear back from one other, but they have already said they are an "enterprise" solution so are looking for clients doing 1000+ checks a month so I doubt their pricing will be affordable for the amateur. I have registered with Stripe now (which is a bit of an understandable faff since it's 'finance' and you need to tell them your life story), so I'll find a little time to test their solution at some point.
 
I was also quoted £200 a month for Yoti. I think that is the problem. Ofcom acceptable options are "enterprise" options so going to be expensive.

One thing that strikes me is - you either need age verification software OR do a child assessment. But they haven't released the child assessment yet so surely that means you have to have age verification software anyway! If they are already investigating sites (albeit big high risk ones).
 
Alvin63 said:
Obviously this is a high risk site but some info about accepted age verification software.
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I'm not too worried about age at this stage as my niche is predominantly for seniors. I could get kids register now and again, and I can't prove absolutely that they don't,

However, Hamsters are predominantly kids pets, (I think) So I imagine that a Hamster forum might be a hunting ground for pedo's and therefore the age verification is important.

The thing is, many forums struggle to get people to register as it is. adding age verification will not be conducive to growing a membership, but it might be significant for growing a safe one.
 
chillibear said:
That's a weird article - so Ofcom are investigating them because they were checking users were over 20, but had said somewhere they were checking you were over 23. Given you only have to be over 18 to partake in the deep spiritual debates that I assume take place on OnlyFans where exactly is the issue Ofcom are investigating. "your being investigated for not breaking the law" ?! I wonder if they feel there need to be a few news worth pieces to show that the regulator "has teeth" so to speak?

FWIW generally the age estimation stuff I've seen seems to set the threshold at 25, ie under 25 in the eyes of the AI and you "fail".

I did look at Yoti as a solution, but they were a few hundred a month for something like 900-1000 check a month. One other I've just finished chatting with was agechecked.com. Their plans are more of an option for a reasonably busy site. With checks ranging from 30-40p each, but with a minimum of 100 checks per month (you essentially make up any shortfall). Waiting to hear back from one other, but they have already said they are an "enterprise" solution so are looking for clients doing 1000+ checks a month so I doubt their pricing will be affordable for the amateur. I have registered with Stripe now (which is a bit of an understandable faff since it's 'finance' and you need to tell them your life story), so I'll find a little time to test their solution at some point.
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I think it was the Yoti site that does say something about how it works and you might need to select 23 to get a guaranteed 20 or something. Sounds odd.
 
JamesBrown said:
I'm not too worried about age at this stage as my niche is predominantly for seniors. I could get kids register now and again, and I can't prove absolutely that they don't,

However, Hamsters are predominantly kids pets, (I think) So I imagine that a Hamster forum might be a hunting ground for pedo's and therefore the age verification is important.

The thing is, many forums struggle to get people to register as it is. adding age verification will not be conducive to growing a membership, but it might be significant for growing a safe one.
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Yes it's a difficult one. Kids between 13 and 18 often have their own pet hamster and are fairly independent from parents in that sense and solely responsible - presumably the parent's decision to allow them that responsibility (until it comes to vet bills!). Previously the age limit was 13 and over. Surprisingly the majority of members who are owners were adults however. Under 18's were in the minority. Usually a parent signed up if it was a family pet. Popular pet with adults these days as well. Especially with the whole ethos of "rescuing" (plenty of rescues with abandoned pets needing homes). Sometimes members were vulnerable adults as well. With a "therapy pet".

But yes it could attract dodgy people.
 
I still can't see how age verification is an "alternative" to a child assessment anyway, because it only affects registered members, not those who view as a guest.... so is it expected to have no guest viewing also?
 
JamesBrown said:
The thing is, many forums struggle to get people to register as it is. adding age verification will not be conducive to growing a membership, but it might be significant for growing a safe one.
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This is my main concern. I quite understand their logic, but frankly who is going to want to have to upload their ID or similar to chatter about whatever random niche topic the forum in question is about - I can't say I'm keen to upload my own for testing the system! It was one of the reasons I generally dropped asking users for birth date - it's not data I "need" to run the forum (or well it wasn't!) - it was just more private data and not data I could validate. All I needed private data wise was an email address - which I could validate.

Alvin63 said:
I still can't see how age verification is an "alternative" to a child assessment anyway, because it only affects registered members, not those who view as a guest.... so is it expected to have no guest viewing also?
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If you have age verification and only let adults use your site (presumably you have either always had verification or you are retrospectively applying it) then you can't have any children using it so no need to do an assessment - or rather your assessment is very brief!

When a child is viewing it as a guest then there is no user-to-user account and it would appear (not a lawyer) that you are outside the scope of the OSA so it "doesn't matter" ... at that point it's just a website so as long as the content is legal (unless it is legal porn which is under OSA) presumably no problem!
 
Thanks. So guest commenting and reviews would need turning off (which is something I had already done anyway). And guests have no ability to do anything except read.
 
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What are others doing about the "prominent" complaints procedure? Would it be possible to just set up a link on the navigation bar? Problem I found was mobile users never got to look at the navigation bar - they just don't bother with the hamburger menu - it was only clear for desktop users.
 
This is presumably what they mean - Complaints - right at the top. In my mind, a prominent complaints link encourages people to make complaints!

Ofcom complaints.webp
 
It's section 21 of the Act. The link is below and has a lot more info about what people can complain about (and they can complain about a lot of things!)

"
1)This section sets out the duties about complaints procedures which apply in relation to all regulated user-to-user services.

(2)A duty to operate a complaints procedure in relation to a service that—

(a)allows for relevant kinds of complaint to be made (as set out under the headings below),

(b)provides for appropriate action to be taken by the provider of the service in response to complaints of a relevant kind, and

(c)is easy to access, easy to use (including by children) and transparent."

Online Safety Act 2023

www.legislation.gov.uk www.legislation.gov.uk
 
Alvin63 said:
This is presumably what they mean - Complaints - right at the top. In my mind, a prominent complaints link encourages people to make complaints!
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I think most people will naturally scroll to a footer for contact information so to me it seems the obvious place to have it along with your terms and privacy policy etc.
 
Alvin63 said:
Well it does need a complaints procedure.
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A procedure can be as simple as a documented manual process. I think that's all Ofcom require. Yes if you have a large forum you'd probably want the structure supplied by a software tool, but for a small well run forum where you may well never see a complaint just scribble down a few sensible steps in a document somewhere (theoretically Ofcom may request it) and I think you'll probably be good.

Pop a link in your footer and maybe privacy policy and so forth to a page outlining what people need to do to raise a complaint with your site and maybe a few details like your estimated response time and how to escalate to Ofcom if they are unhappy. That's pretty much all I'd been planning to do.
 
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