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by omer9 487 days ago
So, what makes the UK Online Safety Act close the forum?
3 comments

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

What happens with cross nation access? Will international sites start to refuse accounts to brits?
I believe lobste.rs is one site that's going to geoblock the UK as a precautionary measure at least
I thought that was a tech site, are they hosting porn now? I'd have thought they'd already police hate crimes, encouraging suicide, self-harm, and such?? Perhaps they have a special section where they encourage kids to huff glue?
You’re missing the point. The law is so vague and broad that it could be interpreted as covering even far more innocuous content than the few extreme examples you listed here.
The 'if they have nothing to hide' argument? Really?

I look forward to reading your fully compliant risk assessment before interacting with this comment, lest it be judged to contain offensive, inappropriate, or pornographic content.

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.

Couldn't they wait for some kind of inquiry from UK Gov and then closed the forum reactively if it was an unreasonable financial burden?
> The costs required to operate any website covered by this act (which is effectively all websites) is grossly excessive

That depends what you count as the costs. If you're a small site[0] and go through the risk assessment[1], that's the only costs you have (unless pornography is involved in which case yes, you'll need the age verification bits.)

[0] ie. you don't have millions of users

[1] Assuming Ofcom aren't being deliberately misleading here.

they don't want to reengineer the forum...