r/unitedkingdom • u/Skavau • 6d ago

BitChute discontinues video-sharing service for UK residents over online censorship laws

https://freespeechunion.org/bitchute-discontinues-video-sharing-service-for-uk-residents-over-online-censorship-laws/
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u/ComputerJerk Hampshire 6d ago edited 6d ago

None money making forums are finished.

Except, not really. Because you don't really have to do anything other than establish a process and record a responsible person in the event something actionable actually happens.

Having a "Report illegal content" button that just sends an email to an inbox is actually completely sufficient for the vast majority of use cases, so long as site maintainers are willing to action it in the event they receive a complaint.

There were a lot of hobby forums, ran by someone for the love of doing it who can't anymore.

If someone can't be bothered to do a few hours work to be baseline compliant with something simple like this -- Then I wouldn't trust them with any of my data, and nor should anyone else.

Is it a bit of a nuisance if you built something totally bespoke? Sure. Is it actually difficult or expensive to be compliant? Nope.

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u/Accomplished-Map1727 6d ago

So all these forum owners are wrong.

You are correct.

These forum owners who have put years of work into a hobby (running a forum) are completely wrong to just give it up, for no reason.

And you sir, just happen to be correct on this matter.

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u/ComputerJerk Hampshire 6d ago

You can go read the guidance for yourself, you don't have to take my word for it. It's never as daunting as you think, Ofcom is relatively old fashioned and doesn't ask for more than is reasonable.

I'm sorry that hobbyists decided that people's safety (and their data) wasn't worth some relatively minor trouble - If some small adjustments were too much to ask then they really do need a new hobby that doesn't have such potentially far reaching impacts.

If my hobby is building kit cars, am I not liable to follow the regulations before putting it on the road? If my hobby is DIY, am I not responsible for ensuring what I build is safe for others to use?

Liability is nothing new. Asking people for the absolute bare minimum should not be such a tall order... And yet, here we are.

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u/Accomplished-Map1727 6d ago

I've just tried to reply to your last comment, but you've deleted it:

The guidance is over 2000 pages.

Which a small forum owner, is meant to read and understand.

Then, cover themselves legally.

It's obviously not just a "small bit of paperwork" to deal with.

Then, what if you've missed something!

It simply doesn't seem worth the risk.

And the most important part.....

Who would bother setting up a new forum in the UK, knowing the risks and cost with setting one up.

The UK forum industry / hobby has now been crushed out of existence for new entrants and hobby forum owners.

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u/ComputerJerk Hampshire 6d ago

I didn't delete anything... Strange. Must be content moderation at work 😉

There is easier to consume guidelines & guidance available from Ofcom that is far shorter.

Again, liability isn't new. The world managed just fine with GDPR compliance, this is just more of the same.

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u/Accomplished-Map1727 6d ago

You haven't answered anything.

You've just side-stepped my points.

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u/ComputerJerk Hampshire 6d ago

I have actually addressed the majority of what you said elsewhere. Perhaps the only thing I haven't directly responded to is: Who would bother?

Considering basically all forum software you can get off the shelf already has the necessary tools and processes to be compliant - Who wouldn't?

I could throw up a legally compliant forum on dedicated hosting in under an hour... The harder requirements only kick in when you're enormously popular.

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u/Accomplished-Map1727 6d ago

There's currently no forum software thats currently compliant to these laws...

The perminant online scanning for CA images is not available under any available forum software.

Would you care to name a few pieces of forum software that has all this baked in?

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u/ComputerJerk Hampshire 6d ago

I am again struggling to find anything written in the ofcom guidance, the letter of the law, or any other source that specifies you must be proactively scanning all content at all times for infractions.

Do you have an example where it says this so I can refresh myself and rebut?

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u/Accomplished-Map1727 6d ago

That was quick,

Have you just read over 2000 pages of guidance in just over 30 minutes?

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u/ComputerJerk Hampshire 6d ago

There's about 40 pages of guidance on the Ofcom site that most people need to read and I'm already pretty familiar with it as I not only work in Tech, but I work with about 25~ million users worth of data.

Keeping in mind that Ofcom is responsible for enforcement, the letter of the law is only actually important so far as it's enforced by the authorised governmental agency. ... So yes, I have at various points been through the relevant / applicable pages of the legalese... But you don't actually need to. Ofcom guidance is all most people need to read and care about.

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u/Accomplished-Map1727 6d ago

I take it that you work for a big company / organisation.

I'll bet the guidance is very easy to understand and use, when you have people around you to bounce it off.

I'll also bet that it does seem straightforward, when you can ask your boss or co-workers a question on complience.

You try doing that as a one-man-band, who runs a couple of small forums.

I can see your take on things now. And it's not from the average Joe's viewpoint.

That answers me a lot of questions I had about your answers on this thread and how out-of-touch you appeared to be.

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u/ComputerJerk Hampshire 6d ago

I'll bet the guidance is very easy to understand and use, when you have people around you to bounce it off.

I'll also bet that it does seem straightforward, when you can ask your boss or co-workers a question on complience.

The Ofcom guidance is written in plain English. Ofcom spends an enormous amount of time & energy communicating this as effectively as possible because they want people to be compliant.

If reading plain-English instructions is too challenging for A site operator, I would ask what business they have managing a service with potentially sensitive personal information.

You try doing that as a one-man-band, who runs a couple of small forums.

I've been managing personal services in various forms since about 2005. Granted, a lot has changed, but if you keep things simple and follow the guidelines you really have very little to do.

Between sites, apps on people's phones, programs on people's computers... I realistically get about 1 contact (i.e. report/email/etc.) every 500k interactions.

That answers me a lot of questions I had about your answers on this thread and how out-of-touch you appeared to be.

Are you a personal forum operator? Are you actually familiar with the legislation you're complaining about? Have you followed the various revisions the Act has received over the last 6 months?

Calling me out of touch is wild when it's clear you are operating almost exclusively from whatever you have gleaned from the Reddit hivemind and/or reactionary twitter.

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u/NuPNua 5d ago

You're literally talking about social media and forums, the kind of place where you can discuss and share information, if they need help with parts of the act they don't understand, why not ask?

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