In memoriam

From the Ofcom regulations (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/onli...):

> 1.17 A U2U service is exempt if the only way users can communicate on it is by posting comments or reviews on the service provider’s own content (as distinct from another user’s content).

A blog is only exempt if users communicate to the blogpost author, on the topic of the blogpost. If they comment on each other, or go off-topic, then the blog is not exempt.

That's why that exemption is basically useless. Anyone can write "hey commenter number 3 i agree commenter number 1's behaviour is shocking" and your exemption is out the window.

Nothing more reassuring than a vague “we’re unlikely to go after you [if you stay on our good side.]”

It’s clear the UK wants big monopolistic tech platforms to fully dominate their local market so they only have a few throats to choke when trying to control the narrative…just like “the good old days” of centralized media.

I wouldn’t stand in the way of authoritarians if you value your freedom (or the ability to have a bank account).

The risk just isn't worth it. You write a blog post that rubs someone power-adjacent the wrong way and suddenly you're getting the classic "...nice little blog you have there...would be a shame to find something that could be interpreted as violating 1 of our 17 problem areas..."

> So, we wanted to reassure those smaller services that this is unlikely to be the case

This is the flimsiest paper thin reassurance. They've built a gun with which they can destroy the lives of individuals hosting user generated content, but they've said they're unlikely to use it.

"... unlikely ..."

Political winds shift, and if someone is saying something the new government doesn't like, the legislation is there to utterly ruin someone's life.

You can try the digital toolkit and see for yourself if this is a realistic pathway for a small site (such as a blog with a comment function). Personally, I find it puzzling that Ofcom thinks what they provide is helpful to small sites. Furthermore, they make it pretty clear that they see no reason for a purely size-based exemption (“we also know that harm can exist on the smallest as well as the largest services”). They do not explore ways to reach their goals without ongoing collaboration from small site owners, either.

Ofcom need to change the law then.

Unless Ofcom actively say "we will NOT enforce the Online Safety Act against small blogs", the chilling effect is still there. Ofcom need to own this. Either they enforce the bad law, or loudly reject their masters' bidding. None of this "oh i don't want to but i've had to prosecute this crippled blind orphan support forum because one of them insulted islam but ny hands are tied..."

The Canadian government did the same thing when they accidentally outlawed certain shotguns by restricting bore diameter without specifying it was for rifles.

A minister tweeted that it didn’t apply to shotguns, as if that’s legally binding as opposed to you know, the law as written.

The use of "unlikely" just screams that Ofcom will eventually pull a Vader..."We are altering the deal, pray we don't alter it any further".

"Unlikely," I suppose if you don't have any significant assets to be seized and don't care about ending up in prison, you may be willing to take the chance.

The obvious solution is to have law enforcement enforce the law rather than private parties. If someone posts something bad to your site, the police try to find who posted it and arrest them, and the only obligation on the website is to remove the content in response to a valid court order.

How about:

Individuals and small groups not held directly liable for comments on their blog unless its proven they're responsible for inculcating that environment.

"Safe harbour" - if someone threatens legal action, the host can pass on liability to the poster of the comment. They can (temporarily) hide/remove the comment until a court decides on its legality.

How about have separate laws for CSAM and "hate speech". Because CSAM is most likely just a fig-leaf for the primary motivation of these laws.

The reviews/news side did, but the forums kept going until this.

In the text of the act, schedule 1 part 1 paragraph 10 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/schedule/1/para...

... unlike the issue of what size of service is covered, this isn't a pinky swear by Ofcom.

The trouble here is that the law is so crazy that third parties allowing users in the relevant jurisdiction to access the site could result in the site still be liable, so then they would have the same reason to block your proxy service if a non-trivial number of people were using it.

To do any good you don't want to cause grief for the victims of the crazy law, you want to cause grief to its perpetrators.

being unlawful is a vital tool for people to keep tyranny in check, I would hope that most people are incredibly strong supporters of lawlessness when the laws are wrong. To give an extreme example, I imagine you supported the hiding of jewish people during nazi germanys reign, which means you support unlawful activity as long as it's against laws that are against the people.

If GP is not a UK citizen and does not live in the UK, how would that be unlawful? They're not beholden to or subject to UK law. The UK's belief that they can enforce this law on non-UK entities is ridiculous.

they could impound you while on a layover in UK (not that you'd ever want to do that)

pg lives in Britain if I'm not mistaken.

I'm sure they can find a community elsewhere. Discord comes to mind... "Oh but it's illegal", trust me on this: Discord only cares if somebody actually reports the server and the violations are severe enough.

That is not the stated purpose of the law and there is recourse built into it. Too often folks view these laws as binaries where none exists.

The new rules cover any kind of illegal content that can appear online, but the Act includes a list of specific offences that you should consider. These are:

    terrorism
    child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) offences, including
        grooming
        image-based child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
        CSAM URLs
    hate
    harassment, stalking, threats and abuse
    controlling or coercive behaviour
    intimate image abuse
    extreme pornography
    sexual exploitation of adults
    human trafficking
    unlawful immigration
    fraud and financial offences
    proceeds of crime
    drugs and psychoactive substances
    firearms, knives and other weapons
    encouraging or assisting suicide
    foreign interference
    animal cruelty

I might be falling for what I've read second-hand but isn't one of the issues that it doesn't matter where the forum is based, if you've got significant UK users it can apply to your forum hosted wherever. You've got to block UK users.

The good thing about forums is their moderation. It seems like mostly what the law covers is already enforced by most forums anyways.

[flagged]

Putting in mitigations relevant to your size, audience and risk factors is not "no real effect".

If you've never considered what the risks are to your users, you're doing them a disservice.

I've also not defended it, I've tried to correct misunderstandings about what it is and point to a reliable primary source with helpful information.

> On my single-user Fedi server,

Then you don't have a user to user service you're running, right?

> And if someone can post pornography, your site needs age verification.

That's an entirely separate law, isn't it?