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Is this the first casualty of the Online Safety Act? An online cycling community web forum with over 60K users shutting down
(social.openrightsgroup.org)
this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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This seems like an over reaction. I looked through the OFCOM overviews and I can't see any reason why a small forum would need to shut down, they just need to do a little work to make sure they're complying. No money needs to be involved from what I can tell.
It looks like there is a lot to do even for small sites if you assess that you might be in the "multi-risk" category. How do you know if you're in the "multi-risk" category? Well, you're supposed to write a risk assessment, but if I were running a site as a hobby I wouldn't trust my own assessment, I'd want a professional opinion due to the significant legal liability for getting it wrong, and professional opinions cost money. If it turns out you're low- or single-risk it looks like you can skip a lot of the stuff that big sites have to deal with, but if it turns out you're multi-risk then it looks like you need to be sure all sorts of measures are in place, some of which may require building capabilities that you don't have yet, and there are additional requirements related to training and materials for volunteers, etc.
I don't even run a site and I'm getting stressed reading about it, I don't blame anyone for deciding it's not worth it.
Risk assessments are trivially banal.
I'd trust mine. I have been trained to do them though. But having been trained, I can see how little is needed for them.
The measures that are required are the kind of things which now seem basic. Like having a means to flag posts as problematic. If I ran a forum that didn't have such functionality, I'd be concerned regardless and probably take advantage of the kick up the arse.
Well that's the question isn't it. Is any particular forum worth bothering with. Clearly the cycling forum that's shutting down isn't. But I question whether that's due to the new legislation.
I assess that your assessment of the risk of mis-assessing a risk assessment may be amiss