Interesting topic. I see their point. It is exceedingly hard these days to run a community site. Its not just the fact that hosting has become more expensive and any tools/hardware/software to maintain the site increased in cost. Its more complicated in that gone are the days when you just needed some basic html & JavaScript knowledge. There is a growing list of rules and regulations that need a law degree to understand. Things that a site should have and things it shouldn't.
When GDPR was introduced, I spent a whole week or more plus an enormous amount of research into making sure that the site was as best compliant (based on interpretation of the rules) as was possible in time for 25/05/2018. Basically someone in parliament stood up and shouted 'these are the rules what we are going to legislate so that your data stays safe'. It was proposed by MPs who had no idea of how the Internet worked (iirc they constantly misused the term wifi) and how impossible the demands would turn out to be. But it was great because MPs were patting themselves on their own backs and harping on about how it would secure everyone's data privacy.
It turned out to be a bit of a nightmare for anyone who had a site or handled data. The rules were fuzzy, web masters unsure what they needed to do and how to overcome some nigh on impossible requirements... and like this Online Safety Act it caused the demise for a fair number of websites and data handlers because it was so time consuming without designating responsibility to a paid professional. I understand why non UK sites started blocking UK users for sign up, but it is rather annoying if you say follow a link to an American Newsgroup only to find you cant read an article because they use geo blocking.
GDPR was one of the main reasons Tony had to
close down MyDSL WebStats and I saw several SMF forum users lock their doors for good. It was rather hilarious that come 25th May even gov.uk site and many other prominent websites were not GDPR compliant and it began to sink in that whilst the intentions may have been good, it basically broke. TPTB had to spend another year or so tweaking the rules and ended up with something that wasn’t too different from the old DPA. My 2018 interpretation was stricter than the newer relaxed rules and there are actually things I no longer need to do under the right to be forgotten for data erasure unless that data contains personally identifying data such as address. Using an internet alias such as Noddy isn't and its acknowledged that block removal of posts breaks things. There is nothing more annoying than if someone signed up we spent a lot of time helping them, for them to then decide to delete the account and destroy info that may prove helpful to others. Its time consuming for me, missing posts make a thread unreadable and as Eric will confirm just about every single time it never goes smoothly and usually needs manual fixing in the database.
This UKOnline Safety Act sounds in a similar vein. Someone without full understanding shouting lets protect our kids. Yup thats good. BUT the current implication is open to various interpretation. and that it can seem to target help/community/charity sites. Its even acknowledged that the rules are fuzzy and communities are affected.
The damn annoying fact is that it doesn’t seem to affect the big Social Media sites, which IMHO is where the all the damage gets done. If we're not careful we are going to end up with an Internet filled with only the big boys like Facebook, YouTube and X and geo-blocked from the rest of the world.
As regards here, I did a quick audit - what got me worried at first was the fact we have private messaging. However SMF does not allow uploading of any content in PMs. You cannot upload or share content, such as images, videos, messages or comments, with other users. To share content you would have to move to another service.
Regarding actual forum content, we have always been family orientated, we dont allow adult content.
Personal attacks against adult users are frowned upon and we've been critised for being too lient 'protecting' with the few younger regs that we get such as WG or K. We have a clear set of rules below every single post there is a report to moderator button. We certainly do not allow pornography and we do not provide external search facilities.
At first glance it looks tough, but OFCOM does acknowledge this and its stated "
proportionality" is the key. As such its a shame if genuine help sites close down over what seems a catchall, but can be broken down into chucks that are workable. I suppose it depends on the forum topic and member activities.
