Will Basschat survive the Online Safety Act?

[fretmeister]

I wasn't aware of the extent of the incoming regulation.

 

Thread on thefretboard - https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/276080/have-forums-reached-the-end-of-the-road/p1

 

Digitalscream is the owner of thefretboard.co.uk and he's done a deep dive into what the rules would mean - and that basically means the end of forums like this:

Quote

The long answer: it's almost impossible to tell exactly what the problems are going to be. The Online Safety Act, and its enforcement, depends entirely on documents that have not yet been published. Ofcom says that it will publish its definition of "Illegal Harms" in December 2024...and it still hasn't emerged, with a week to go before everybody buggers off on their Christmas break. It also relies on "secondary legislation" which still hasn't been published, and probably won't get through Parliament before the Act comes into force.

As for what it means for this site...there will have to be some significant changes. Off the top of my head...

1 - Private messages will no longer be private; as the owner of the site, I'll have a duty to (at the very least) scan all of them for harassment/hate speech/etc.

2 - Politics & Economics will have to go, and probably all of the off-topic areas too, given the number of times people have claimed racism/sexism/etc - it only takes one of those to be reported to Ofcom by a disgruntled member, and I'm bankrupt for the rest of my life. Of course, includes Friends in Need, which is core to the sense of community here and has been of enormous help to so many people.

3 - I'll have to find some way to automate the scanning of every single word posted on here for potential violations, which means some form of AI. And,
somehow, I'll have to do that at almost zero cost.

Basically, the site will no longer be a community. The effect of this legislation will be to push all communities towards Facebook or Discord, which is hardly an improvement.

Ironically, the fact that the inept Conservative government that thought this up has been kicked out of office means that there's no point in me contacting my MP about it - this is a staunchly Conservative area, so she's basically powerless to do anything with Labour in power (if she even bothered responding to my emails, which she hasn't).

The net result of all this is that, unless something drastically changes in the legislation and Ofcom's approach to enforcement, this website will go read-only the day that the legislation comes into force, and that will only change if the law changes. I love this site, but ultimately I'm not willing to destroy the rest of my life to keep it going. 

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It's an extremely poorly-drafted law, but only from the perspective of the individual. From the government's perspective, it's f***ing wonderful - there's a great write-up here:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17577632.2024.2361524#d1e388

Basically, Ofcom are expecting service providers to bypass the law entirely by over-moderating - proactively preventing the posting of any content which looks like it even might be illegal under the Online Safety Act.

On top of all that, there's the age-verification requirement, which means there would have to be integration with some sort of identity verification service for every single user, thus entirely removing any anonymity on the Internet for users of UK services.

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This place, and thefretboard is very important to me. I'd hate for them to go.

 

Does BC have a plan?

 

[Lozz196]

Looks alarming, likewise Basschat is very important to me, hope we`re not affected by this

[Hellzero]

Is it a joke?

 

Is it 1984?

 

Are those politicians really even more stupid as they really are?

[fretmeister]

1 minute ago, Hellzero said:

Is it a joke?

 

Is it 1984?

 

Are those politicians really even more stupid as they really are?

 

As Lee (Digitalscream) says in that thread - he wrote to his MP about it (different to the current one) and the MP basically said that if thefretboard didn't want to comply clearly they are doing something illegal!!

As for Labour being of assistance - their position in the debates was that the Act didn't go far enough...

[ped]

It'll probably end up being like the cookie policy where we were told unless you had a banner about cookies you'd be thrown in jail

[Burns-bass]

37 minutes ago, ped said:

It'll probably end up being like the cookie policy where we were told unless you had a banner about cookies you'd be thrown in jail

 

Hopefully your legal status as a Ltd company should exempt you from personal liability and any insurance should cover the (very small) risks.

 

[fretmeister]

1 hour ago, Burns-bass said:

 

Hopefully your legal status as a Ltd company should exempt you from personal liability and any insurance should cover the (very small) risks.

 

 

The bit on fines makes it clear that fine levels for non-compliance are not linked to site revenue.

Limited Company status doesn't usually protect from regulatory compliance failure. 

 

Even Mumsnet are taking this seriously and they have about £6M in the bank.

[diskwave]

As usual Nut..Sledgehammer.  So, hows about banning all young people up to the age of eighteen from owning any sort of tech that can access the internet? Or at the very least ban all children up to the age of sixteen from owning a phone?  Because kids will find a way around this... you can bet.

[fretmeister]

10 minutes ago, diskwave said:

As usual Nut..Sledgehammer.  So, hows about banning all young people up to the age of eighteen from owning any sort of tech that can access the internet? Or at the very least ban all children up to the age of sixteen from owning a phone?  Because kids will find a way around this... you can bet.

 

Quite - and these days a huge amount of school work relies on phones and tablets for internet access so that won't happen.

 

Amusingly, the EU has planned regs to stop this sort of draconian over-reaction.

[Happy Jack]

Does it really have to be The End Of Civilisation!!! every bloody week?

 

[Lozz196]

5 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Does it really have to be The End Of Civilisation!!! every bloody week?

 

With an Eastenders style duff-duff at the end?

[fretmeister]

10 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Does it really have to be The End Of Civilisation!!! every bloody week?

 

 

I was going to say that if forums all die out then at least the drummer forums will go as well. Every cloud...

Then I remembered they can't read, let alone code! This law won't affect their cave wall scratchings.

 

 

[Happy Jack]

I'm pretty sure that they're trying to sneak through the legislation while we're all binge-watching

 

Hidden Secret Mysteries of the Lost Nazi Gold on the Titanic. With Dinosaurs. And Vikings.

[paul_5]

...IN SPACE!!

Edited December 19 by paul_5

[Beedster]

If it doesm't it'll save me a bloody fortune and give me around 2 weeks a year back 🤫

[asingardenof]

Have the Invision Community owners given any indication of how they're planning to work with forum owners to help comply with the new Ofcom regs?

 

Is it time to start thinking about a Basschat Discord server or something to replace this site in the event that the worst possible outcome occurs and it has to close?

[12stringbassist]

I run a Slade forum and I'm extremely worried that the talk of mirrored top hats on there breaks some Ofcom rule or other.

[binky_bass]

Ban everyone, from every demographic, from everything. Problem solved. Humanity will die out within a week or so and the world will carry on happier without us. 

Edited December 19 by binky_bass

[Obrienp]

I guess this is going to create a market for forum hosting services that provide a complete turnkey solution, including compliance enforcement. At least I hope so, otherwise it is going to drive everything onto Facebook and similar. I can see AWS, etc, providing this kind of service but how much it would cost and where the buck stops for legal liability, could be real issues for the likes of Basschat. Unintended consequences of well intentioned but rushed legislation?

 

P.S. I don’t suppose this is actually going to stop the hate/perv forums. It will just drive them onto the dark web instead of mainstream media. At least that will stop the unwary straying onto them on main stream media channels but it looks like their will be thousands of perfectly innocent forums that have to close down.

Edited December 19 by Obrienp

[Burns-bass]

2 hours ago, fretmeister said:

 

The bit on fines makes it clear that fine levels for non-compliance are not linked to site revenue.

Limited Company status doesn't usually protect from regulatory compliance failure. 

 

Even Mumsnet are taking this seriously and they have about £6M in the bank.

I get all that. I meant that Ped won’t lose his house!

[asingardenof]

1 hour ago, Obrienp said:

P.S. I don’t suppose this is actually going to stop the hate/perv forums. It will just drive them onto the dark web instead of mainstream media. 

I would be very surprised if the majority of them weren't there already. All this legislation will do is catch the low-hanging non-tech savvy fruit.

[chris_b]

As long as they're protecting me from you nasty people, I'm OK with it.

[Hellzero]

Take an address in Ireland and move the site their, as it seems to be a Britico-British issue: problem solved.

[prowla]

These attempts to control people are really annoying; all they do is make things difficult for ordinary folks whilst the actual criminals just move on to something else.

[Wolfram]

Of course forums won't disappear - this is only UK legislation - people in the US, EU and rest of world are not affected by this nonsense. But the post from the owner of thefretboard.co.uk is absolutely right: under the current proposed legislation, it will become almost impossible to run any kind of online forum from the UK, and international forums will just block all IP addresses from the UK. The risks are just too severe - a fine of up to £18 million and a criminal conviction for the owner / managers.

The legislation was drafted with only large, commercial, multinational companies like Facebook, X etc. in mind; if the legislation is enforced as it stands, those will be our only option in the UK for any kind of online discussion, unless we use VPNs to access international forums based abroad... which we all will... which will make the legislation utterly pointless, apart from having destroyed a large number of UK businesses.