Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

This list of requirements is excessive and nobody wants to read through endless documents and do endless risk assessments. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...

Children's access assessments - 32 pages

Guidance on highly effective age assurance and other Part 5 duties - 50 pages

Protecting people from illegal harms online - 84 pages

Illegal content Codes of Practice for user-to-user services - 84 pages

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#6

Post by nerdile » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

Summary: The UK has some Online Safety Act, any websites that let users interact with other users has to police illegal content on its site and must implement strong age verification checks. The law applies to any site that targets UK citizens or has a substantial number of UK users, where "substantial number" is not defined.

I'm going to guess this forum is UK-based just based on all the blimey's. Also the forum seems to have been locked from new users for some time, so it was already in its sunset era.

The admin could just make it read only except to users who manually reach out somehow to verify their age, but at the same time, what an oppressive law for small UK forums. Maybe that's the point.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#7

Post by mystified5016 » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 4:51 PM UTC

omer9 wrote: post #2

So, what makes the UK Online Safety Act close the forum?

Because the UK refuses to elaborate on who qualifies under the act, and the only "safe" way to operate a website that might hypothetically be used by someone in the UK is to simply not.

The costs required to operate any website covered by this act (which is effectively all websites) is grossly excessive and there are either NO exceptions, or the UK has refused to explain who is excepted.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#8

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 5:01 PM UTC

jonatron wrote: post #5

omer9 wrote: post #2

So, what makes the UK Online Safety Act close the forum?

This list of requirements is excessive and nobody wants to read through endless documents and do endless risk assessments. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c... Children's access assessments - 32 pages Guidance on highly effective age assurance and other Part 5 duties - 50 pages Protecting people from illegal harms online - 84 pages Illegal content Codes of Practice for user-to-user services…

[deleted]

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#9

Post by dv_dt » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

jonatron wrote: post #5

omer9 wrote: post #2

So, what makes the UK Online Safety Act close the forum?

This list of requirements is excessive and nobody wants to read through endless documents and do endless risk assessments. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c... Children's access assessments - 32 pages Guidance on highly effective age assurance and other Part 5 duties - 50 pages Protecting people from illegal harms online - 84 pages Illegal content Codes of Practice for user-to-user services…

What happens with cross nation access? Will international sites start to refuse accounts to brits?

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#10

Post by cricalix » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #4

What features are lacking from vBulletin that prevents being compliant? I suspect some details are missing.

It's not necessarily a technological problem that software has to solve. There's a bunch of processes around reporting and age verification that have to be in place.