Hi everyone, I’m aware the Online Safety Act became law in the UK in November 2023. I’m wondering if Discourse are launching any new features to support with this new law and helping making online communities safer for people under the age of 18 to use? Thank you!

:wave: A new ‘It’s illegal’ flag option has been added. [image] New "It's illegal" reason when flagging posts megaphoneAnnouncements We have added a new “It’s illegal” reason to the flagging system. When selected by a site member in the post flagging popup, a specific reason can be provided. When the report is recorded in the database it gets its own, new “illegal” type in the database and can then be tracked and acted on by moderators. [Screenshot 2024-02-09 at 8.48.46 AM] The reason for this change is the upcoming 17 February, 2024 Digital Services Act (DSA) requirement for online platforms like Discourse sites to start…

May I have a link to review? Curious to see what the UK changes entail

There’s an explainer here [image] Online Safety Act: explainer

I just came across an upcoming discussion session that may be of interest to Discourse folks: “Promising Trouble is hosting a lunchtime session with Ali Hall and Andrew Park from Ofcom to discuss the new Online Safety responsibilities for small, low-risk community sites.” Wednesday, February 12, 2025 – 6:30 AM - 8:00 AM CST [image] Ofcom Session for Small, Low-Risk Community Sites · Zoom · Luma Promising Trouble is hosting a lunchtime session with Ali Hall and Andrew Park from Ofcom to discuss the new Online Safety responsibilities for small, low-risk…

There are interesting posts about this topic here: [image] Online Safety Act (New OfCom Rules) Support Hello The UK government are planning to change the laws of online safety and I was curious what measures Discourse are taking to address this or if there is a suggested response for anyone who is hosting in the UK? https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/time-for-tech-firms-to-act-uk-online-safety-regulation-comes-into-force/ Our community are looking into this but it’s unclear to me if the onus is on us or Discourse, which in theory would mean every WhatsApp groupc…

I am working through the compliance for the OSA at the moment While the majority of the work seems to be in documenting that the organisation has considered and attempted to mitigate the risk of Illegal Harms, I wondered if anyone out there has developed any shareable documentation or automated tooling to help provide an evidence base for a lack of nefarious activity within their forum? I was thinking possibly: Data Explorer queries searching for specific keywords or patterns of usage? Lists of Watched Words that could improve flagging of posts and private messages? Discourse AI configurations or prompts which might help to flag concerning activity? Templates for an improved ‘UK OSA Approved’ Terms of Service? Other ‘sysadmin tips and tricks’ for maximising the effectiveness of the protections, with the minimum of additional work? I am just as concerned as anyone else would be about the privacy implications of all this, but if audited we would need to be able to show we invested an appropriate amount of effort checking that nothing Illegal was going on, and can present (and review) this evidence annually.

Watched words sounds like it might be a good idea, although of course it’s a blunt instrument. I may choose to document a process of periodic checking of the use of user-to-user messages. But that works for me because my users barely use the facility. /admin/reports/user_to_user_private_messages If there was an uptick in these messages it might indicate elevated risk, and I’d need a response to that. I’m not sure what there is between the extremes of users will let admins know if messages are problematic admins will read some (or all) of the messages to check they are not problematic Personally I don’t want automated analysis which would have false negatives as well as false positives. I would (will) concentrate on simple statements which position my forum as very low risk on all axes. Proportionate checking is therefore to do nothing, or if something, then something very minimal and easy. Relying on flags is simple and easy.

I’ve just started setting up a self hosted discourse for our community and this is a concern raised my end too, a lot of sites are implementing ID verification to get around any legalities. Our community will be starting with a minimum age of 16 years old and be hosted in the UK. Whilst that’s the report fiction to report something illegal I am reminded this is a service used by adults and we need to be compliant. Is there further tooling coming to help with this or does it currently satisfy the changes in the law?

Has anyone got any integrations working with age verification services?

Online Safety Act - What new features will be available?

Product Support

Ed_S (Ed S) December 16, 2024, 10:18pm 7

There’s an explainer here

Topic		Replies	Views
Online Safety Act (New OfCom Rules) Product Support online-safety-act	24	2368	August 1, 2025
Strategies for keeping children safe in your online community Blog	0	174	August 26, 2025
New "It's illegal" reason when flagging posts Announcements moderation , new-feature	17	2463	September 8, 2024
Digital Online Safety Community Building	4	1065	February 28, 2022
Making 'illegal' content reportable to non-logged in users Feature moderation	29	1749	June 27, 2025

Online Safety Act - What new features will be available?

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