Online Safety Act 2023

[Law's Bus]

Have any of the admin/mod team started thinking about how on earth TWF complies with the provisions of the Online Safety Act 2023 that comes into law on 17 March 2025? I'm trying to wrap my head around what it means for a different site that includes a Forum and a Wiki and it's just completely insane and will need serious thought rather than knee-jerk, which is why I'm mentioning it now.

For those who aren't aware, this is an absolutely appallingly written piece of legislation aimed at what people who know nothing about the Internet thinks happens on the Internet, and unfortunately it applies to every "user-to-user service" based in the UK, or who have a "significant number" of UK-based users.

So what's this got to do with TWF? Well, every single forum or Wiki or anything similar is in the net as a user-to-user service.

an Internet service by means of which content that is generated by a user of the service, or uploaded to or shared on the service by a user of the service, may be read, viewed, heard or otherwise experienced ("encountered") by another user, or other users. Content includes written material or messages, oral communications, photographs, videos, visual images, music and data of any description.

There is an enormous can of worms here - and we (and every other similar website) will have to get in place things like risk assessments, information about how we comply with the law, how we protect any under-18s (or alternatively stop them from joining in a robust manner), how we stop any potential bullying or harassment, etc etc etc.

Fines for not complying with the Act appear to be 10% of turnover or £18 million, whichever is the larger.

Check how to comply with the illegal content rules

The tool will be divided into four steps that follow Ofcom’s risk assessment guidance. Following these steps will help you to comply with the illegal content risk assessment duties, and the linked safety duties and record-keeping and review duties.

www.ofcom.org.uk

 

[KiwiWolf61]

That is very concerning - kudos for raising it.

 

[jlo]

Worth writing to your MP perhaps? Assuming there is no public consultations still open etc. Or if you don't trust your MP, I'm sure any one of us here could look around for an MP that is more effective and channel it through the constituency link

 

[Law's Bus]

Worth writing to your MP perhaps? Assuming there is no public consultations still open etc. Or if you don't trust your MP, I'm sure any one of us here could look around for an MP that is more effective and channel it through the constituency link

It's a bit late for that - it's already gone through.

My point is that TWF needs to comply with the Act as it stands, which is going to be a right PITA to achieve.

 

[jlo]

I was thinking more of getting clarification around how to comply, government tends to have avenues for that type of thing with community engagement but MPs are another route. I don't know the detail of the act though, you raise good points that I hadn't realised applied to forums.

 

[Sniffer]

Thank you for posting this @Law's Bus

Without have looked at it yet in too much detail will we be exempt based on TWF not having a significant number of users? I’m sure there will be a way that the numbers visiting the site can be evaluated.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Depends on how you define "user".

It isn't the same as "member". Look on the site logs at how many members and how many guests were online when we had a significant event (like say sacking a manager, or beating a Man United, which will have attracted interest from half of RAWK). The guests on those sorts of days massively outnumber the members, but they are still accessing and "using" the content. So I would imagine the legislation would therefore consider guests to be users.

EDIT - If it is on the statute book, the full text should be available at hmso website (I think it is gov.uk but it has been a while). There may also be compliance guidance notes as statutory instruments.

 

[Law's Bus]

Without have looked at it yet in too much detail will we be exempt based on TWF not having a significant number of users?

Unfortunately not. There are differences with "large service providers" needing additional items, but there's no actual definition of what "large" means in this context. I would seriously doubt TWF would be caught in this group, but we still need to get the basic requirements down. The whole thing is clearly aimed at the Facebooks and Twitters of the world, but with the utterly terrible wording it includes literally anyone with a forum.

Online Safety Act: explainer

www.gov.uk

The Act’s duties apply to search services and services that allow users to post content online or to interact with each other.

Ofcom are due to provide additional guidance early next year, but some of this stuff, like risk assessments and a named person to do that, really need thinking about beforehand, even if specific policies.

I'm not a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination, so hopefully someone who has experience in that field (Paddy?) can help out with working out the legalese.

 

[Tony Towner]

Depends on how you define "user".

It isn't the same as "member". Look on the site logs at how many members and how many guests were online when we had a significant event (like say sacking a manager, or beating a Man United, which will have attracted interest from half of RAWK). The guests on those sorts of days massively outnumber the members, but they are still accessing and "using" the content. So I would imagine the legislation would therefore consider guests to be users.

If you look now there are 27 members and 101 others, although a decent amount of the others will be tracking bots, not that I really understand that kind of thing

 

[Law's Bus]

Depends on how you define "user".

It isn't the same as "member". Look on the site logs at how many members and how many guests were online when we had a significant event (like say sacking a manager, or beating a Man United, which will have attracted interest from half of RAWK). The guests on those sorts of days massively outnumber the members, but they are still accessing and "using" the content. So I would imagine the legislation would therefore consider guests to be users.

EDIT - If it is on the statute book, the full text should be available at hmso website (I think it is gov.uk but it has been a while). There may also be compliance guidance notes as statutory instruments.

Yep, section 236 (apparently!) of the Act says..

Encountering (in relation to content) is defined as reading, viewing, hearing or otherwise experiencing content.

So yes, guests count. I still don't think we'd end up as "large" though, even on the busiest of days.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

I was a Chartered Secretary rather than a Solicitor. Not allowed to call myself a lawyer or I get a smacked bottom.

It was also a very long time ago. However, if I get chance to look on HMSO and find the full text it might make a bit of sense I suppose.

 

[darlowolf64]

I'm Risk Assessor trained with both my RMT health and safety role as well as my volunteering position but would need to know what is expected on the risk assessment before I could even think about putting something together (if I was asked to)

 

[Sniffer]

I'm Risk Assessor trained with both my RMT health and safety role as well as my volunteering position but would need to know what is expected on the risk assessment before I could even think about putting something together (if I was asked to)

Any help will be appreciated.

There is a link to what will be expected RA wise on the Laws Bus post which is copied below.

Quick guide to illegal content risk assessments

Under the Online Safety Act, most regulated services will have to carry out a risk assessment. Find out what this means for you.

www.ofcom.org.uk

 

[darlowolf64]

Any help will be appreciated.

There is a link to what will be expected RA wise on the Laws Bus post which is copied below.

Quick guide to illegal content risk assessments

Under the Online Safety Act, most regulated services will have to carry out a risk assessment. Find out what this means for you.

www.ofcom.org.uk

Cheers Sniffer.

That looks like a War and Peace style read coming up for me!

 

[visage]

Thanks for this. As we use Xenforo in its managed form I will reach out to them to discuss what features/tools they provide to ensure the sites they run remain compliant with the law.