I think saying we have less than 1000 users from the UK is a true statement. We have ~170 accounts with co.uk emails on the forum server. Obviously folks from the UK can have non-co.uk emails, so that’s an absolute minimum number.
I think my biggest personal conflict with the OSA is it doesn’t just come out and say:
“If you have less than an estimated 10k users from the UK, you’re exempt from the reporting requirements of the OSA as long as you’re moderating in the spirit of the OSA” The annoying vague “substantial” language is pretty much why we’re here.
That would clear up any and every concern I (as well as most folks) have with it.
While Haiku Inc is not located in the UK, and UK law shouldn’t matter whatsoever, Western countries are notorious for enforcing their own local laws internationally and going after people in other countries.
@x68k Correct. The international legal landscape is changing rapidly. The US and UK are both five eyes countries. Five eyes is irrelevant in this conversation beyond the “tit for tat” aspect.
There has been a lot of alarmist talk on this and other non-UK forums about the Online Safety Act. I mention non-UK because UK citizens have a better idea of why the Act was passed, who it is aimed at, and how it will be implemented.
The last point is important. There is no way OFCOM are going to waste resources on sites which don’t actually pose any kind of risk, and especially tiny, non-profit-making, entities like Haiku.
I think the best way forward would be for a committee to be formed to examine the situation and report back, rather than continue with a lot of not-very-well informed comment in this thread. It is important that such a committee should have some UK representation on it, as well as somebody from the Inc (Ryan Levengood, perhaps).
Incidentally, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) was a not-disimilar piece of legislation that came into effect in the EU a few years ago. It was similarly vague, but at the end of the day it didn’t amount to very much at all in terms of compliance.
So. GDPR is a completely different beast. It was well written, and extremely clear on it’s intents.
By following infosec best practices (reporting data breaches of PII, right of individuals to request removal (or disconnection of identities) of/to data, etc) we’re pretty far into compliance.
The only real change we saw is needing to process GDPR data removal requests manually as requested. I’ve gotten quite a few over the years and it’s a pretty easy process.
We may disagree on its vagueness, but both are clear in their intention, and I am quite sure that the OLSA will give sites like Haiku even less to do with regard to compliance.
Five eyes is irrelevant full stop. It is an agreement between 5 English speaking nations to share intelligence and work together to best serve public safety from military action, criminality including corruption, and terrorism . It has nothing directly to do with any laws. The laws between those members differ greatly.
a forum is classed as a type of social media as they are a place where views and communication can occur, it’s the user-to-user interactivity that is the test for “social media”
The Act only applies if Haiku has “significant” numbers of UK users, but leaves the definition of “significant” as a bit vague. Specifically, what number of Haiku’s users are actually from the UK? I’d say if it’s a few thousand or less, then you’d be able to argue quite successfully that it simply doesn’t apply. A few thousand vs the 65 million people in the UK is rather insignificant.
UK political print media (Private Eye) suspects that a low end volunteer forum could easily be the first target under the act, find someone extremely weak to set precedent against.
The law is meant to prevent minors from being exposed to illegal materials.
I’m not sure what you mean by “Simply bizarre”? Are you saying individuals should be allowed to be exempt from this? For example, Pornhub is not allowed show adult content to kids, but a bloke running a video sharing site from his basement can?
I understand the intent of the law, and as a parent I do back it, but the way it’s being implemented shows a complete lack of understanding of how places like this Haiku discussion forum works. Super frustrating. Hopefully the laws will be updated with a modicum of common sense very soon. Or at the very least, some better defined guidelines for places like this will be published.
That means absolutely nothing itself: it is like asking if the highway code applies to horse traffic and bicycle riders. Of course it does! But that does not itself mean rules for one apply to all.
Bicycle riders do not have to submit to an annual roadworthiness inspection, nor be issued with speeding tickets, because not all bikes historically have speedometers. Foot traffic does not have to submit to alcohol breath checks.
A better question would be what our specific site has to do to comply with the act.
Private Eye is a political satire, ancestor of the Onion, and its analysis be treated with a pinch of salt. There is no need to go scaring the admins more than they already are!
The way to look at it, is are a significant number of haiku forum users from the UK, not us a significant number of UK citizens using the forum.
So if haiku had 10000 users of the forum and 1000 were from the UK it would be 10% is that significant? If you compared that to the numbers of individuals from other countries it could be.
Or at the very least, some better defined guidelines for places like this will be published.