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Online Safety Act 2023 & TST

I'll admit to the grooming thing. Lesson learnt. Never scroll through forums whilst trimming your eyebrows.

Sorry.

Anyway, it looks like one of those well intended pieces of legislation, but completely hashed. The fact that it's just weeks away now and there's a need for this discussion in the first place to make sense of much ambiguity says a lot.

Attempting to stop absolute monsters from pulling live foxes out of their sets so that they can enjoy watching hounds tear them apart was well intended. 2 decades later the fox hunting ban is still a car crash and it's still happening.

Millions were spent by retailers 2 years ago adapting to HFSS. Trying to discourage unhealthy eating choices (like the sugar tax which I wish was expanded as it's massively effective) sounds great doesn't it? Never heard of a single retailer even being inspected, let alone prosecuted. I bet your local Aldi or Sainsbury's had chocolate coins next to checkouts and pallets of Pringles at the ends of aisles all over Christmas. Not hard to see why nothing materialised. Bran Flakes, bad for you so hide them away, 12 can of Strongbow Dark Fruits, fill your boots! Chocolate doughnuts will make you fat, send the exact same product in Frozen and whack a date label on manually and sell sell sell. Can't have ice cream freezer there as it makes someone buying their now perfectly healthy cider and chocolate doughnuts want to also buy a Magnum, move it slightly to the left 3mm and bang, Magnum purchase avoided. Laughable.

Point of this is, there are evil people out there harming children, inciting hate riots, and manipulating and harassing people to the point of suicide. All crimes, and easier to detect and prosecute in-person, by post, or via established media formats. Yet many online platforms sit back and watch the advertising cash roll in, whilst continuing to publish the crimes of others on their domains with impurity. The content may be user generated, but it's these for-profit platforms that provide them with the means in which to do it. A foreign owner of one of these platforms is even actively engaged in interfering with our democracy.

Publish - prepare and issue (a book, journal, piece of music, etc.) for public sale, distribution, or readership.

They prepare and issue user generated content for distribution and readership through their platforms, by providing users with a suite of tools they have created, and on domains that they own, in the pursuit of profit. They are publishers, and should be treated as such. They can choose to moderate, but they don't because it's logistically difficult, costly, and even if they did, some nobody on GBNews will be shouting "It's the leftie Wokes taking away our freedom of speech!" at the 7 viewers it attracts during peak time. The fact that they've let the genie out of the bottles their problem, not the parents of a dead child.

Problem is, this legislation looks like some sort of well intended mess of a compromise and failure to understand the problem, timidly focusing on the symptoms rather than the root cause of them.

I've found the moderation of this forum rather good. I've seen some rare stuff, including some behaviours towards children, and the **** that sometimes gets through overnight. Been told off myself for being a *** a few times. But there's remarkably almost always a moderator around, and the only 2 times I've ever felt strongly enough to report anything (normally, as long as not hate fuelled, if you're over 18 and can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen), action was swiftly taken. So this and other similar environments will not be the target or focus and not intended to be.

It's not draconian, just looks more sloppy to me. Applying a sticking plaster to Facebook with one hand, whilst throwing the baby and the bathwater all over smaller settings with the other. It'll be interesting to see what comes to fruition. If a moderator has stated they don't know and aren't concerned.
 
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Sorry to bump, but on a somewhat similar note to the legislation mentioned prior, it increasingly sounds as if a social media ban for under 16s could be coming into force soon, with a Lords amendment on the issue apparently referring to social media as any site with “user to user” content.

Could this affect the site at all if it comes into force?
 
Couldn't happen here Matt...if this site was social media...I wouldn't be here!
As with many of these things, I think that depends on the small print. And in this case, I think how broadly we define “social media” is the sticking point.

If they target the legislation towards big, algorithm-driven giants like Facebook and Twitter, then the site will likely get off scott-free. But if social media is defined as “any site allowing user-to-user content”, I feel like the site could get caught up in that.
 
If they target the legislation towards big, algorithm-driven giants like Facebook and Twitter, then the site will likely get off scott-free. But if social media is defined as “any site allowing user-to-user content”, I feel like the site could get caught up in that.
I feel like they’d have to be heavy handed with their definition. The internet is such a huge, vast, gargantuan place, they’ll need to be very general to make sure nothing sneaks through. However, I fear the great swatches of internet will make any attempt, even the most heavy handed to be ineffective. Genuine forums with caring moderators (quite like this one) will, in wanting to comply with the law and to continue the existence of their passion project, will submit to it and make the changes.

The problem comes in when some - lets be extreme here - fascistic death cult that advocates for pedophillia comes online with a forum and then does not comply with the law, instead hiding itself amongst the vast web that is the internet. Sure, it would be a risk, but they could be fairly confident in remaining undetected as the internet is so humungous the laws may bever be enforced on them as officials could never find them!

Do tell me if my concerns are misplaced or if I’ve misinterpreted all this but I can’t help but feel the worst of the bunch will still remained untouched. Of course, this will help with some larger sites even if it is heavy handed, but the nasty sites you hear about in sensationalist tabloids that probably informed this whole thing will remain scott-free.

On this “over 16” law, as much as I’ve been raised on the internet and I think I’ve turned out okay(?), something tells me the sentiment is probably a good shout. It’s all in the execution though. A tickbox will change nothing and presenting documents will be a huge privacy and safety breach.

I don’t envy any lawmakers, I’ll give it that.
 
It is worth looking at the Australian legislation, which is currently serving as the blueprint for the moral panic, to see just how disjointed the thinking actually is.

The Australian ban bafflingly exempts Discord, WhatsApp and online gaming platforms like Roblox... where even with the strictest parental control settings, your avatar too can experience being cyberbullied, aggressively murdered, sexually assaulted and shat on (to quote The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/games/2...-children-child-kids-safety-parental-controls).

The legislators have decided that the harm comes from the "algorithmic feed" (scrolling through TikTok or Instagram), rather than the "user to user" interaction. This ignores the reality that Discord and encrypted messaging apps are often where the most significant safeguarding risks, grooming, radicalisation and bullying, actually take place.

Banning a 15 year old from Instagram, but allowing them unfettered access to unmoderated Discord servers, is rather baffling.

If the UK Lords amendment follows the same "user to user" definition found in the existing Online Safety Act, however, it is much broader than the Australian legislation. As we have discussed previously, this forum is a user to user service. If a blanket under 16 ban were enforced based on that definition, TowersStreet would legally have to age gate every user.

I do not agree with the prevailing narrative that this proposal fundamentally breaks the internet, however.

Under these proposed rules, under 16s would still be able to access the vast majority of the web's information. They could still read the discussions on TowersStreet and they could still watch videos on YouTube. What they would lose is the ability to log in, the ability to be fed by an algorithm, and the ability to interact.

They would effectively be accessing the internet in "read only" mode. Able to absorb human knowledge, but legally prevented from contributing to it. Whether that is a necessary protection or an infringement on their development is a matter for debate, but the internet itself remains intact.

If Gen Z and Gen Alpha think that the 1990s are so cool, let them experience the World Wide Web before the advent of Web 2.0.
 
Sorry to bump, but on a somewhat similar note to the legislation mentioned prior, it increasingly sounds as if a social media ban for under 16s could be coming into force soon, with a Lords amendment on the issue apparently referring to social media as any site with “user to user” content.

Could this affect the site at all if it comes into force?
Yes it will, but we’re talking about a potential law change as it stands. If and when it came into force we’d assess and make changes then. There’s a while to go before that, with lots of consultation and then waiting for OFCOM to scribble up their guidance. So for the time being it’s a what if that we’re keeping an eye on more than anything else. Basically…

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A reminder though that this discussion is more intended to talk about how the OSA in its current form affects TST rather than getting into general wider discussion about potential law changes. We have topics in News, Life and Sport for that 🙂.
 
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