UK Online Safety Regulations and impact on Forums

Yes I think plenty of moderators will help you comply. Lack of moderators was an issue for me with only a fairly small group posting regularly. New members would also post regularly but not always be part of a regular group. There is the requirement to "take something down swiftly" if it's inappropriate.

I did consider that with excellent spam protection, removal of sharing links (ie to X and Facebook etc), no youtube videos and links going for manual moderation and exif data removed from photos, it might just be ok with two moderators. But finding a second reliable moderator would have been a problem. No one wants the responsibility or commitment. So couldn't meet the "take down swiftly" easily.
 
One add-on that I think can be useful is Crowd Moderation tool from Xon, it's not exactly what I wanted but it does most of what I wanted. In essence you can set a threshold of reports for posts after which they are placed into moderation - so say a post gets 2+ reports it is pulled into the moderation/approval queue. You can be more nuanced and essentially assign different weights to different groups of users - so maybe your trusted old users have a higher weighting when they report something, etc. It seemed a sensible add-on ($15) to additionally help mitigate someone posting a load of rubbish on the site during a quiet moderation period. Hopefully anything really bad would be reported by several people and it'd at least not be public by the time a moderator came by to take a look.

I'd love to see categories for reports, Xon does have a queues system for reports which I think kinda does a bit of what I want and there is this, which I must look at. Anyhow categories and deadlines for reports and a way of escalating them through a priority scheme would round out functionality nicely for me on that front. We already use Report Improvements and Warning Improvements as standard so I do slightly forget what the out of the box experience is like.
 
"No YouTube videos" ?

Am I right in thinking that YouTube still allow all and sundry regardless of age to create and upload videos to share, and for others to view?

What's their take on the OSA?
 
webbouk said:
"No YouTube videos" ?

Am I right in thinking that YouTube still allow all and sundry regardless of age to create and upload videos to share, and for others to view?

What's their take on the OSA?
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I wondered that too. Not sure if it's classed as "user to user" or not. People do leave comments on videos but don't actually "chat.

As you can see from the above embedded video though, people can just click on the word "Youtube" bottom right and watch the vide in youtube, bigger screen - which then shows up various other videos to watch - and technically they (children) could access anything. There is a "youtube kids" version, but that is a setting a parent sets on a kids' device (which kids can easily turn off again - no login required).

So an embedded youtube video is a link to a site which isn't suitable for children. Not something that ever occurred to me before this act came out. But prior to the act, it was up to parents what their kids did.
 
Mr Lucky said:
But would you not then be losing a lot of members? With something like that having children as members is doing good for the hamsters because children may get properly educated and advised on looking after an animal.

Surely your only main issue is to check all current hyperlinks.
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You have a point there. If no spammers and hyperlinks were checked, then the only real "risks" would be if anyone posted a photo of an injured animal - not that likely if rules say not to. But if it happened overnight and someone complained ........so the main issue there is not being able to say there are enough moderators to "take something down swiftly". Don't really want photos going for manual moderation.

In trying to "automoderate" as much as possible, it dumbs the forum down quite a bit.

While it would be a shame in some ways, to limit it to over 18's. Nearly all members previously were adults anyway. I guess if a child wanted to view as a guest, they could just ask a parent to sign up. Then it's up to the parent what they let them view.

Hence I thought age verification was the best solution. Which it would be, if it was free!
 
sport_billy said:
We'd be undertaking the risk assessment and state the mitigating measures we have in place. We have a team of one owner, myself, 4 mods and several mini mods who can remove posts from view were they to contravene laws. DMs was ,my huge concern.
Pondering making all posted links hit approval queue using spam phrases.... posts containing these need approval - unsure how could retrospectively check a link posted over past 14 years is safe though.
Don't think there is a way of putting photos into approval - sadly
Have turned off unfurl URLs to avoid them showing anything dodgy on screen.

i am hoping as long as ofcom can see you have tried to mitigate risk as much as possible then they would be cool...

Post counts are slower than many years ago the community is very good and they do report anything slightly 'off'

I used to own the site but a fellow admin took over 3 years ago. So i still feel quite invested in the community...
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What are your thoughts on the topic of pets dying and memorials to pets who have died and owner sadness etc. I had assumed I would have to remove that section if doing a child risk assessment as well. Which I don't think would have been popular.
 
webbouk said:
"No YouTube videos" ?

Am I right in thinking that YouTube still allow all and sundry regardless of age to create and upload videos to share, and for others to view?

What's their take on the OSA?
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As things currently stand I doubt YouTube's policies are compatible with the Online Safety Act.

They allow age-restricted content if it doesn't violate their policies. While you can't for example provide instructions on how to manufacture a firearm, you can show one in use. That would be considered inappropriate content for under 18s but the only barrier is either a setting within your account or guest browsing which is not much different to how the majority of adult sites operate.

With the possible exception of OnlyFans I've yet to see any of the large social media or adult sites implement compliance with OSA. I'm also pretty sure they will be OFCOM's first port of call so for me right now, it's a wait and see. I have carried out a risk assessment for all my sites and disabled personal message on some. Other than that I doubt I'll be taking further action until the dust settles.
 
zappaDPJ said:
As things currently stand I doubt YouTube's policies are compatible with the Online Safety Act.

They allow age-restricted content if it doesn't violate their policies. While you can't for example provide instructions on how to manufacture a firearm, you can show one in use. That would be considered inappropriate content for under 18s but the only barrier is either a setting within your account or guest browsing which is not much different to how the majority of adult sites operate.

With the possible exception of OnlyFans I've yet to see any of the large social media or adult sites implement compliance with OSA. I'm also pretty sure they will be OFCOM's first port of call so for me right now, it's a wait and see. I have carried out a risk assessment for all my sites and disabled personal message on some. Other than that I doubt I'll be taking further action until the dust settles.
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Are you able to avoid the child risk assessment as well? I'm not even sure youtube comes under the OSA if it's not a "user to user" site. Which would be an irony! If youtube doesn't have to comply with the OSA but any user to user site with links to youtube - it could be seen as a risk to children!

Apparently I'm wrong there though. AI says this

"As a video-sharing platform, YouTube is subject to the same duties and obligations as other user-to-user services under the Online Safety Act. "

I haven't noticed youtube asking for age id .........
 
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Alvin63 said:
What are your thoughts on the topic of pets dying and memorials to pets who have died and owner sadness etc. I had assumed I would have to remove that section if doing a child risk assessment as well. Which I don't think would have been popular.
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The OSA is allegedly there to protect children from harm, not wrap them up in cotton wool. I'd argue the life cycle of a beloved pet provides a child with preparation for life (and death). If you remove that you are more likely to create the potential for harm in the long run.

Alvin63 said:
Are you able to avoid the child risk assessment as well? I'm not even sure youtube comes under the OSA if it's not a "user to user" site.
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Because some of the sites I manage are customer services orientated I'm obliged to act within current legislation. Right now that means conducting a risk assessment, nothing more. At least that's my understanding.

Adult sites are not user to user but they certainly fall under OSA's remit so I think it likely the same will apply to YouTube.
 
sport_billy said:
i am hoping as long as ofcom can see you have tried to mitigate risk as much as possible then they would be cool...
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That is certainly the impression they are trying to convey at the moment.

They are a typical quango though, and will follow the bureaucratic process which means you will have to have completed the various risk assessments and other documents and started implementing any necessary mitigation processes. If you have done and shown you are following them I think you will be fine. If you haven't you will fail at the first hurdle and they are likely to be less forgiving.

A lot of what most of us running forums have to do is just a laborious paper exercise. We already have many of the mitigation systems in place with comprehensive reporting and moderating functions.
 
Alvin63 said:
But if it happened overnight and someone complained ........so the main issue there is not being able to say there are enough moderators to "take something down swiftly".
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It had occurred to me that it would be quite neat if any automated moderation tools had a concept of "opening hours" for a forum. So you could perhaps have it set that overnight (UTC) any posts with links in or images, etc went into the approval/moderation queue, etc. Annoying granted for your members on the far side of the planet (but maybe you could mitigate that for users who have been "good" for a long time). Not a fully coalesced thought yet so would appreciate thoughts...
 
Another possibility would be if there was an add-on similar to the Facebook Moderation Alerts where posts or comments can trigger moderation alerts based on certain words or phrases.
If this could include DM's then in effect all bases are covered.
The alerts would go into the normal moderation queue, or where DM's are concerned an 'admin' only queue

Would that work?
 
webbouk said:
If this could include DM's then in effect all bases are covered.
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There's already an addon for DMs, and provided you adjust your privacy policy I believe this can work very well.

Ozzy47

Thread '[OzzModz] Conversation/DM Keyword Monitor [Deleted]'

Ozzy47 submitted a new resource:

[OzzModz] Conversation/DM Keyword Monitor - Monitor conversations/direct messages for keywords

Requirements:
XenForo 2.2+

Description:
This addon will scan each pm/dm as it is created for keywords you specify in the addons options. This is useful for ensuring your members are not engaging in illegal or unscrupulous behavior on your forum without your knowledge.

If keyword(s) are detected, a report will be created in the forum you have specified in the addon options detailing the message contents. It has an option to set the...
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Good find.... (y)

Description:
This addon will scan each pm/dm as it is created for keywords you specify in the addons options. This is useful for ensuring your members are not engaging in illegal or unscrupulous behavior on your forum without your knowledge.
.....
This addon is also integrated with our conversation search addon. So if you have that addon installed, there will be a link in the report thread that will take you to view the entire conversation. This is necessary if you want to handle the conversation if there are indeed some illegal or unscrupulous behavior going on in the pm/dm. You want to be able to protect your members, especially underage people.
 
If it gets to this point.. Does anyone know a way of disabling media embeds and just leaving them as links? E.g Youtube videos
I found the option to stop the auto embed of these. But people can still embed them from the editor.
 
chillibear said:
It had occurred to me that it would be quite neat if any automated moderation tools had a concept of "opening hours" for a forum. So you could perhaps have it set that overnight (UTC) any posts with links in or images, etc went into the approval/moderation queue, etc. Annoying granted for your members on the far side of the planet (but maybe you could mitigate that for users who have been "good" for a long time). Not a fully coalesced thought yet so would appreciate thoughts...
Click to expand...
I also think that would be good and had assumed I would have to keep manually changing permissions every night and morning, which didn't appeal at all. An "auto" function would be good. And yes members from the US and Canada wouldn't be that impressed but - it could be explained and they were in the minority, so often didn't get a response till next day anyway. Although some might give up posting .........
 
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