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However, there are other laws that are coming soon regarding online safety which could require this in some interpretations, depending on the size of the site. I'm currently reviewing it, and my MP has been absolutely zero help in understanding the government's intent - it's possible that it would create such a huge liability that the site may have to shut down.
It's the Online Safety Bill - it mandates that all social media must verify the age of all of their users, and block anyone under 13. On top of that, it also mandates that all members have to be able to block unverified users (implying that efforts should be made to verify the real identity of all users where possible).
Obviously, there is no way in hell this site would ever have the budget to be able to do that, so if it does apply to small forums...we all have to wave goodbye to tFB.
In case anybody wants to help me out with deciphering the stupidity, the latest text of the Online Safety Bill is here:
https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/52368/documents/3841
That link appears to be over 300 pages long - Im happy to try to find relevant bits but I doubt my legal knowledge is up to much.
Does this deserve its own area of discussion?
The advice from my (Conservative) MP is that it applies to every site with any kind of social interaction, apart from the exceptions listed in one of the appendices - none of which are based on site size, and (in his opinion) none of which apply to tFB.
Basically, his opinion was that the Bill was drafted without anybody considering smaller sites, but that smaller sites disappearing would be an acceptable loss compared with thinking of the children (and, presumably, the votes that come with it).
I would say that smaller sites disappearing is an intended outcome of the bill. And yes, votes as well.
See also: firearms legislation, e-scooters and Sunak's proposed increased minimum age for buying and using tobacco products.
Nutters who want guns or big knives and kids who choose to smoke will ignore the law and find ways around it.
As for the Bill itself...the cynical amongst us might consider that, if there really are no exceptions for smaller sites, it's designed to do two things:
1 - Make the provision of online social interaction services economically un-viable for smaller players
2 - Force larger social media providers to perform the surveillance on behalf of the government
Of course, because of #1, only the large providers are left - thus making it easier for the authorities to track people's activities because they have fewer places to look.
There is much international shouting at the UK for how stupid a law the OSB is.
The Online Safety Bill is the UK government giving themselves the right to go after any organisation in any jurisdiction, whether they have anything to do with the UK or not. Now, whether any other countries would accept that or just tell them to piss off is an entirely different matter.
If I was going to do it, I'd probably start with hosting in Norway or similar - a relatively powerful country outside EU with very little in terms of laws in common with the UK. I'd have to move everything, though - hosting, domain, emails etc.
That's my fear. Although...it remains to be seen how Ofcom could do anything to block access to a website, much less thousands (potentially millions) - both in a technical sense and the fact that there would be absolute uproar once they got started.
Don't forget, it's not just small forums. What do you think Reddit will do if the UK government tries to make them verify everybody's identity?
And what about sites like Stack Overflow? It's basically a required development tool at this point, and they've got absolutely zero chance of getting anybody to verify on there. What are the UK government going to do...block the whole country from accessing the #1 technical resource in the world?
Would absolutely be a lot of backlash if they did it at scale too - and once people figure out VPNs, they'd have to come for those next, which I absolutely believe they would.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_United_Kingdom
Websites will more than likely shut off access from UK IP addresses instead - not worth the hassle for them.
Another issue is that you'd hope that once the Tories get voted out next year (hopefully) that a lot of their crap policy will be altered/reversed, but it doesn't look like this one is ripe for that yet as Labour seem to be mostly completely onboard with it all, and they do have illiberal streaks in them when it comes to privacy and ID etc...
Going after VPNs would be an even worse problem; they can't outlaw VPNs (they tried, but the entire business world gave them an almighty slap), but equally there are too many VPN providers worldwide for them to block.
The only way they can possibly make this work is to have a China-style whitelist of allowed websites - that's the only end result of something as stupid as this law.
Anyway, it's all a clown show. I sincerely hope that it doesn't come to that whitelist suggestion... politicians shouldn't make these kinds of laws, they don't understand tech...
Requiring everyone to access via a Patreon membership (or some other such platform) in their real-life name paid by a credit/debit card may be sufficient to pass the age verification. If they don't pass the entry test, they are not verified and therefore blocked for all.
It is a shift in site ethos but if the price of entry is very very low it might meet the requirements of the act.
The other way of course is to wait it out and see if it ever reaches the statute books in the current format.
It's prudent to keep a weather eye on things, but not to mine the foundations at this point.
Sadly, it's all the way through and is just waiting for Royal Assent. As far as I'm aware, that means it's going to become law in exactly its current state.
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137
It's even worse, because it's an open-ended law - Ofcom get to decide how and when it's applied, and it relies on secondary legislation (which hasn't even been drafted yet) to decide a lot of the details...and in the absence of that secondary legislation, those details are up to Ofcom.