#1: Quick update and request for info
Gathering information about which sites will be affected and what that means, an update on Ofcom communications, and some thoughts on what's next
Hello!
You’re getting this email because you run a UK-based small site that might be subject to new regulatory measures under the Online Safety Bill.
A quick update
1) Who’s affected?
In response to some media inquiries, it would be really useful to know more about what kind of sites are affected, and which ones are facing closure. If we get some energy behind this, there might also be some more general media opportunities to share the impacts of this regulatory approach.
As such, please do add any relevant information to this form as soon as you’re able and please share with others so we can start to show the scale of the problem. (Ideally by midday on Friday 20 December, but that’s not a hard deadline.)
2) Ofcom
I’ve been in touch with the engagement team at Ofcom who have flagged the following content and an upcoming 2-day conference (not sure who has time to go to a 2-day conference at such short notice, but anyway…). The following is copy and pasted directly from the email they sent me, and is all I know right now. I’m meeting them in early January and have pressed the importance of better engagement around this.
New rules for online services: what you need to know - Ofcom – this page compiles some ‘quick guides’ and other materials on the OS duties (as well as our Regulation Checker tool to check whether a service is in scope)
The Online Safety Act explained: How to comply – register interest in a conference we are planning 3-5 Feb, focused on explaining how to meet the new duties (we are considering a dedicated session for smaller/lower risk organisations and can let you know more)
Statement: Protecting people from illegal harms online - Ofcom – this main page for our policy Statement also includes some ‘Accessible materials’, such as A summary of our decisions, which sets our final decision on the safety measures and which kinds of services they apply to
3) Next steps
It seems probable that it is worth raising this issue to the Ofcom board as a priority area. There are some precedents for regulatory discretion in issues such as these and I don’t think it would be ridiculous to press for either a discretionary waiver from either the Secretary of State or Ofcom and/or an extended onboarding period, with improved engagement from Ofcom.
4) Support and spreading the word
Obviously there’s not a huge amount of time to get this sorted (the clock is ticking to 16 March) so please do spread the word among other indie web/community web folk. We’re coordinating this at Promising Trouble because we care about a healthy and pluralistic World Wide Web, and this is an issue that affects the Community Tech community of practice, but we’re absolutely not set up for campaigning! It would be great to get some decent legal advice on this, and if anyone can offer any financial support for spinning up a campaign, get in touch :-) (hello@promisingtrouble.net)
Anyway, that’s it. More as we have it.
Rachel