This seems to affect us and is causing a lot of forums to shut down. Has anyone planned for it here? https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-saf...uk-online-safety-regulation-comes-into-force/
ehh I think the mods we have can keep up with the 10 posts per day... I suspect its a far bigger problem for sites like facebook, twitter, youtube etc who have spent a lot of effort to make do with as little human moderation as possible.
We've not discussed it tbh. From a brief bit of reading the fine is based on revenue which we have... none. So not really sure how big the issue could be.
It always has been a “family friendly” forum, hence why you can’t say **** or ****. The reality, however, is that the core user base is almost exclusively comprised of middle-aged (or older) men. I try not to think about that too much. A certain amount of existential dread starts to set in when I think about how my account is not even the oldest active account on this forum, yet I work with people who have been alive for less time than I’ve had an account here… Ahem… anyway… In theory, young ‘uns can still sign up here, AFAIK there are no explicit age restrictions in the rules/terms of use.
@Byron C, as I was reading your post above, Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush came on the radio. I was 14 in 1978 when she released that and, as you probably know, I’m not the oldest member…
As Mason suggested, Bit is no longer run as a business, this is a privately run members only forum, 99% of which is transparently viewable to anonymous users, and the mods to active users ratio is insanely high so nasties are very much kept at bay. I'm not sure how this legislation would apply (or be enforced). Also, we're all old men
Just looking into this more and with the volume of stuff posted I think we're in the "low risk" or "Negligible or no risk" for pretty much everything. We could in theory moderate every single post and from a volume perspective it wouldn't be that much if we added a few new mods. Turning off signups could be an option as well and going through and removing any under 18s we currently have. The fine is 10% or 18 million, whichever is higher.
This all seems like mostly good news, and from reading the guidance I doubt we'd need to do too much. If you need some cash to get a legal opinion then I'm sure quite a few of us would chip in to make sure this place is safe. If we had to I'm sure we could move to closed signups and a short mod-led interview to join, like some communities do.
I am part retired and reading your response makes me feel young I was nearly called Heathcliffe as well LOL
There's a good summary (minus a few typos) here, which confirms that - as we have fewer than seven million users(!) - we're a "small, low-risk user-to-user service." That means we need: an individual accountable for illegal content safety duties and reporting and complaints duties a content moderation function to review and assess illegal and suspected illegal content, with swift takedown measures an easy-to-find and user complaints system and process, backed up by an appropriate process to deal with complaints and appeals, with the exception of manifestly unfounded claims easy-to-find, understandable terms and conditions the ability to remove accounts for proscribed organisations (Emphasis the author's original). I volunteer @MLyons as the first, we've already got the second, the "Report Post" button can serve as the third, we've got Ts 'n Cs here for the fourth, and we can remove accounts for the fifth. Should be golden!
We should be safe for the simple reason that anyone that young doesn't have the attention span to use a forum. We might have more signups if there was a way to swipe through content until they saw a tiddy.
