Online Safety Act, action required by 16th March 25

[nekomatic]

I recently came across this which describes new UK regulations that  apply to sites like this one, and thought I’d flag it up just in case the team weren’t already aware. Hopefully it shouldn’t require doing anything more onerous than carrying out a risk assessment and documenting the result. 
 

There’s also this page which is offering a mailing list for people running similar sites to help with compliance and possibly making collective representations to Ofcom about it. 
 

HTH

[Kiwi]

Thanks @nekomatic, it's really helpful to know about these changes.   I'm no stranger to risk assessment and, as far as I can tell from a quick skim, we have systems in place where it counts and in other aspects our risk is low.  But it's always useful to have the paper work in place just in case someone decides to get nasty. 

[digitalscream]

On 18/12/2024 at 12:25, Kiwi said:

Thanks @nekomatic, it's really helpful to know about these changes.   I'm no stranger to risk assessment and, as far as I can tell from a quick skim, we have systems in place where it counts and in other aspects our risk is low.  But it's always useful to have the paper work in place just in case someone decides to get nasty. 

I wouldn't be so sure of that - the OSA appears to require sites to proactively prevent such content being posted, not just respond to user reports of potentially-illegal content. And, if you make a determination that something's fine when somebody in Ofcom decides differently - eg when a disgruntled ex-member inevitably reports it - the fine is 10% of global revenue or £18 million, whichever is greater. There's also the age-gating requirement, which isn't 100% clear at the moment, but will likely require the use of identity-verification services.

 

Worse than that, you can actually be held in violation of the OSA for over-moderating too - you have to have an appeals process, and if too many appeals are successful you can also be fined because this is such an ass-backwards law.

 

The law doesn't really provide definitions; those are yet to be published by Ofcom, but can also be changed by Ofcom at any point without any involvement from Parliament, so you have to keep an eye on Ofcom constantly. Oh, and there's fees too - which aren't yet published, but they're to cover the cost of enforcement (as if the fines don't do that already), and aren't necessarily related to revenue.

 

EDIT: No, apparently the fees will just be for the largest sites, so at least that's something.

 

Incidentally, it doesn't just apply to current content; it applies to all historical content too, so you're going to need to find a way to scan every post on the site and document the results.

 

The kicker, after all of this, is that it includes private messages too. Proactive moderation of PMs means, basically, that they're no longer private.

 

It's vastly more onerous than just knocking up risk assessment documentation.

 

When this was going through Parliament, I put all these concerns to my MP at the time - his response was a variation on "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear".

Edited Thursday at 15:31 by digitalscream

[Bilbo]

The trouble with the nothing to hide nothing to fear argument is that, even if you have nothing to hide, you may have something to fear when the next enforcement regime comes along e.g. if you share information about your sexuality, religion, trade union membership etc. All innocent enough under one regime, catastrophic for individuals under another. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. Law making has got very slapdash during my lifetime and there are so many unforeseen pitfalls created as a result.

Edited Thursday at 17:20 by Bilbo

[Kiwi]

18 hours ago, digitalscream said:

I wouldn't be so sure of that - the OSA appears to require sites to proactively prevent such content being posted, not just respond to user reports of potentially-illegal content.

OK but we have a moderating team specifically for that purpose.  If you want to talk about the other aspects, I'm happy to do that offline.  I'd like to avoid giving every man and his dog the opportunity to jump in with their various opinions regardless of the level of insight applied.    

[fretmeister]

10 hours ago, Kiwi said:

OK but we have a moderating team specifically for that purpose.  If you want to talk about the other aspects, I'm happy to do that offline.  I'd like to avoid giving every man and his dog the opportunity to jump in with their various opinions regardless of the level of insight applied.    

 

Aren't the mods reactive rather than proactive?

Or are they going to have to approve every post in advance now?

 

I know you are in China and Ofcom wouldn't be able to enforce a fine against you personally but, but they still could order UK ISPs to block access to BC.

And of any UK part owners of BC would carry the entire can - fines for regulatory breach are always 'joint and several' so if there's a massive fine and only 1 person in the jurisdiction, they get pursued for it all even if there are dozens or even hundreds of owners in other jurisdictions.

 

I hope it works out. I love this place.

[Kiwi]

13 hours ago, fretmeister said:

 

Aren't the mods reactive rather than proactive?

Or are they going to have to approve every post in advance now?

 

I know you are in China and Ofcom wouldn't be able to enforce a fine against you personally but, but they still could order UK ISPs to block access to BC.

And of any UK part owners of BC would carry the entire can - fines for regulatory breach are always 'joint and several' so if there's a massive fine and only 1 person in the jurisdiction, they get pursued for it all even if there are dozens or even hundreds of owners in other jurisdictions.

 

I hope it works out. I love this place.

Yeah I'll have to do a deep dive after Christmas and do the paper work in order to get any kind of actual clarity over what our actual exposure is.