Here in Peace

[Merovingian]

Hi Saints fans.

It's brett from thepompeyforum. Whose the owner of the site these days, wanted to chat you about the online safety bill.  

This is from Sunderlands ready to go board, I have concerns about football forums after taking advice.

A check on the OfCom site said my forum is subject to the law. 

Happy Christmas to you all. 

Unless something changes in the Online Safety Act that is, as it is due to take full effect in March 2025.

RTG despite being relatively small falls foul of the majority of the conditions and continuing to provide the service will simply not be practical with the resources we have (both people and monetary wise).

In a nutshell, we have to do lots of risk assessments before that date, have lots of written procedures in place to deal with them, delete any content which is illegal, but also have a complaints process in place so that anyone who complains about their content being removed has that addressed promptly. We will also have to prevent children accessing the platform and put age verification measures in place and will have to scan uploaded content to check it isn't harmful. There is a whole lot more to it than that but hopefully you get the idea - it will all just be too onerous. The potential fine for not complying is £18 million or 10% of company turnover whichever is greater.

 

 

[BILLYDO]

Would that apply if the website was for members only? So welcome as you are, folk who are not members would have to register with the Administrators. They would or could screen out the very young(although that could be a large wedge of contributors). So does it only apply to "open" forums?

[Nolan]

Hundreds of websites to shut down under UK's 'chilling' internet laws

 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

The Dark Web in 2025

Where people fight for freedom against totalitarian regimes, buy and sell bank details and drugs and share Saints gossip. 🙂

[hypochondriac]

Not sure about this. I regularly got exposed to tubgirl pictures on here as a younger man and it never did me any harm. 

[Toadhall Saint]

20 minutes ago, Nolan said:

Hundreds of websites to shut down under UK's 'chilling' internet laws

 

That’s a little concerning tbh. Censorship by means.

[Gloucester Saint]

10 minutes ago, Toadhall Saint said:

That’s a little concerning tbh. Censorship by means.

Came in pre-Election on statue book https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

I wouldn’t get too concerned though, OFCOM struggles to deal with GB News and a bit of language on Channel 4, they hardly have capacity to be closing loads of websites.

There’s not much posted on here that would bother a regulator.

You see far worse on Next Door apps! It won’t be football sites, it’ll be websites promoting suicide pacts, extremist ideologies covered by existing legislation eg Prevent. At most, the site admins might need a minimum age limit of 18 to register accounts. 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[hypochondriac]

Just get someone to host the site overseas and use a vpn. Sorted. 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

Welcome Citizen! You have selected to participate in the SaintsWeb 2025 forum.

The Saints

Our last performance was (select one)

Doubleplusgood
Doubleplusgood
Doubleplusgood

The Lounge

Our government is (select one)

Doubleplusgood
Doubleplusgood
Doubleplusgood

We thank you for your comment in our lively community of opinions.

We thank the online safety bill for using alarmist red herrings to finally grant us control of online platforms.

[Gloucester Saint]

Steve Grant as far as I’m aware is still running the site, no idea if Baj still involved.

[Nolan]

37 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Came in pre-Election on statue book https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

I wouldn’t get too concerned though, OFCOM struggles to deal with GB News and a bit of language on Channel 4, they hardly have capacity to be closing loads of websites.

There’s not much posted on here that would bother a regulator.

You see far worse on Next Door apps! It won’t be football sites, it’ll be websites promoting suicide pacts, extremist ideologies covered by existing legislation eg Prevent. At most, the site admins might need a minimum age limit of 18 to register accounts. 

 

yet forums have already announced theyre shutting down, as they cannon risk the laws being applied as they appear on statute

 

 

[Toadhall Saint]

41 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Came in pre-Election on statue book https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

I wouldn’t get too concerned though, OFCOM struggles to deal with GB News and a bit of language on Channel 4, they hardly have capacity to be closing loads of websites.

There’s not much posted on here that would bother a regulator.

You see far worse on Next Door apps! It won’t be football sites, it’ll be websites promoting suicide pacts, extremist ideologies covered by existing legislation eg Prevent. At most, the site admins might need a minimum age limit of 18 to register accounts. 

 

But this gives them the power should they get arsed no?

[Gloucester Saint]

20 minutes ago, Toadhall Saint said:

But this gives them the power should they get arsed no?

Hard to say, GDPR also has some quite draconian potential penalties but rarely used to anywhere full extent by the ICO unless there’s been a wholesale and totally foreseeable issue/breach. Suspect this similar and aimed at the very worst/radicalising/grooming behaviours and activities. Not the same thing as someone posting on a football forum say a piece of YouTube shit by Laurence Fox about cloud seeding. 

Home Office, right to work and recruitment - different story and will revoke licences to hold and apply for/fast track visas if you slip up on running your checks and hire someone ineligible. Some activities with Chinese/Iranian partners in commerce and R&D if they are on the UK/US sanctions list or Australian Chinese Defence list is also a no-no and this government and the previous one are hot on it. Especially if nuke or weapons production is anywhere near it.

Edited 10 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[notnowcato]

57 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Came in pre-Election on statue book https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

I wouldn’t get too concerned though, OFCOM struggles to deal with GB News and a bit of language on Channel 4, they hardly have capacity to be closing loads of websites.

There’s not much posted on here that would bother a regulator.

You see far worse on Next Door apps! It won’t be football sites, it’ll be websites promoting suicide pacts, extremist ideologies covered by existing legislation eg Prevent. At most, the site admins might need a minimum age limit of 18 to register accounts. 

 

Sounds like we have a volunteer to take on the liability I mean ownership of SaintsWeb 😂😉

[Convict Colony]

1 hour ago, Gloucester Saint said:

You see far worse on Next Door apps! It won’t be football sites, it’ll be websites promoting suicide pacts, extremist ideologies covered by existing legislation eg Prevent. At most, the site admins might need a minimum age limit of 18 to register accounts. 

 

Felt like thats what this forum was doing this after the results this season.

Edited 9 hours ago by Convict Colony

[Yorkshire Saint]

Absolute nonsense 

[coalman]

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Realistically the law is only going to be used if serious abuse is found to be happening. Ofcom isn't set up to police this and it's targeted at large companies. Sadly it's targeted in such a way that it's going to be impossible to argue it's prohibitive for smaller sites if you fall afoul of it. In the same way that GDPR or the IOCA laws aren't really enforced.

That being said - our esteemed government has been ok to go after carers for overpaying them by £5 so no sane human would want to be left carrying the can for this. The site is run on the Invision Community platform so it would be up to them to provide the tools to handle it. Whether they intend to or not is an open question (there's a support thread where I cannot read the company response because I don't have an account with them where someone asks what they're doing). One might argue it's their responsibility to provide software that's compliant with the Act though as they are the ones providing the service, again, I wouldn't fancy arguing this in court.

If Invision were counted as the company providing the service (ie. Platform) to run it then Ofcom would need to go after them (which they really aren't set up to do) which would require extrajudicial treaties in place (ie. the law needs to be recognised in the country Invision operates in). Simply put this act is impossible to enforce against a company operating of a non UK country that doesn't have a UK division. From a technical perspective it's a fucking terrible piece of legislation. TL:DR if the site is owned by someone outside the UK and they have no UK presence it's utterly toothless.

If one were to set up a limited company and transfer ownership of Sainstweb to it then any fines would fall on the company and thus be subject to limited liability (ie. the company would go bankrupt but the individuals would not). From a quick skim of the the Act on the Government site then the penalties for compliance seem to fall at the company level. Reading through the act it's clearly targeted at companies rather than individuals so this is something that is a loophole that might be exploitable for smaller sites in a way it wasn't for someone like Facebook or Google. Not that I believe that this is even fully feasible to comply with for either of those companies.

* note that I am not a lawyer although I have a decent amount of experience working with lawyers around laws pertaining to the Internet

[Convict Colony]

1 minute ago, coalman said:

* note that I am not a lawyer although I have a decent amount of experience working with lawyers around laws pertaining to the Internet

Note to self never insult coalman on here

[Football Special]

5 hours ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Came in pre-Election on statue book https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

I wouldn’t get too concerned though, OFCOM struggles to deal with GB News and a bit of language on Channel 4, they hardly have capacity to be closing loads of websites.

There’s not much posted on here that would bother a regulator.

You see far worse on Next Door apps! It won’t be football sites, it’ll be websites promoting suicide pacts, extremist ideologies covered by existing legislation eg Prevent. At most, the site admins might need a minimum age limit of 18 to register accounts. 

 

They will rely on owners shutting down their sites in fear of being liable, awful legislation 

If they come for him all of us need to stand up and say I'm Stevie G 

[Saint in Paradise]

The UK started slowly but is gradually speeding up on the road to becoming another "Peoples Democratic Republic"

I am sure some of us are convinced that one of those is a sh.t place in which you try to exist, can't really call it living.

[benjii]

6 hours ago, Merovingian said:

Hi Saints fans.

It's brett from thepompeyforum. Whose the owner of the site these days, wanted to chat you about the online safety bill.  

This is from Sunderlands ready to go board, I have concerns about football forums after taking advice.

A check on the OfCom site said my forum is subject to the law. 

Happy Christmas to you all. 

Unless something changes in the Online Safety Act that is, as it is due to take full effect in March 2025.

RTG despite being relatively small falls foul of the majority of the conditions and continuing to provide the service will simply not be practical with the resources we have (both people and monetary wise).

In a nutshell, we have to do lots of risk assessments before that date, have lots of written procedures in place to deal with them, delete any content which is illegal, but also have a complaints process in place so that anyone who complains about their content being removed has that addressed promptly. We will also have to prevent children accessing the platform and put age verification measures in place and will have to scan uploaded content to check it isn't harmful. There is a whole lot more to it than that but hopefully you get the idea - it will all just be too onerous. The potential fine for not complying is £18 million or 10% of company turnover whichever is greater.

 

 

With the amount of nonces round your way, you're right to be concerned. 

[Pamplemousse]

Well done benjii, I know he came in peace but it was all a bit too nice for my liking.

[Oldandtired]

17 minutes ago, benjii said:

With the amount of nonces round your way, you're right to be concerned. 

Yawn….here we go.

[Gloucester Saint]

58 minutes ago, coalman said:

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Realistically the law is only going to be used if serious abuse is found to be happening. Ofcom isn't set up to police this and it's targeted at large companies. Sadly it's targeted in such a way that it's going to be impossible to argue it's prohibitive for smaller sites if you fall afoul of it. In the same way that GDPR or the IOCA laws aren't really enforced.

That being said - our esteemed government has been ok to go after carers for overpaying them by £5 so no sane human would want to be left carrying the can for this. The site is run on the Invision Community platform so it would be up to them to provide the tools to handle it. Whether they intend to or not is an open question (there's a support thread where I cannot read the company response because I don't have an account with them where someone asks what they're doing). One might argue it's their responsibility to provide software that's compliant with the Act though as they are the ones providing the service, again, I wouldn't fancy arguing this in court.

If Invision were counted as the company providing the service (ie. Platform) to run it then Ofcom would need to go after them (which they really aren't set up to do) which would require extrajudicial treaties in place (ie. the law needs to be recognised in the country Invision operates in). Simply put this act is impossible to enforce against a company operating of a non UK country that doesn't have a UK division. From a technical perspective it's a fucking terrible piece of legislation. TL:DR if the site is owned by someone outside the UK and they have no UK presence it's utterly toothless.

If one were to set up a limited company and transfer ownership of Sainstweb to it then any fines would fall on the company and thus be subject to limited liability (ie. the company would go bankrupt but the individuals would not). From a quick skim of the the Act on the Government site then the penalties for compliance seem to fall at the company level. Reading through the act it's clearly targeted at companies rather than individuals so this is something that is a loophole that might be exploitable for smaller sites in a way it wasn't for someone like Facebook or Google. Not that I believe that this is even fully feasible to comply with for either of those companies.

* note that I am not a lawyer although I have a decent amount of experience working with lawyers around laws pertaining to the Internet

Exactly my thoughts on it as well. Would like to see the current government repeal and amend it - I can see what it was trying to do in limiting abusive behaviour of the most revolting kinds especially against children and young adults but misses the mark on any prospect of enforcement. 

Bit more context about the legislation and its origins https://news.sky.com/story/why-the-online-safety-bill-is-proving-so-controversial-12757804

Both the Conservative right and Labour left had a rare moment of consensus in opposition to the Act.

Edited 5 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Yorkshire Saint]

49 minutes ago, Oldandtired said:

Yawn….here we go.

... all the way to League 1.

Night night.

[BarberSaint]

Without Prejudice

@coalman

If you don't know the opening phrase, learn it. It may be of some use.

 

Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek v Facebook Ireland Limited is an interesting case as to jurisdiction. This legislation appears to carry on the theme that a country can carry a law outside its borders so your argument may be questionable. I too, am no lawyer, which is why that's all I have to say on the matter.