New "It's illegal" reason when flagging posts

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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 making it easy to report illegal content on the platforms.

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Hopefully I never have to see this in practice :sweat_smile:

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Since this is an EU rule will users outside of the EU be allowed to use this?

I know the answer but suspect others will ask.

For those looking for this

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Yes, this is going to be good to have for all communities , no matter where they are in the world, so this feature is in core Discourse.

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8 posts were split to a new topic: ‘Illegal’ flag missing translation in Chat

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Seems to be just some forums. I am on a forum where that option isn’t a thing yet though.

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They’ll need to update to have this.

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Thanks for that news update!

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That does seem to have fixed the weird grammar on the flag staff side, thanks!

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Congratulations, thanks for making those repairs!

This is good there is this feature, looks like for the system the only integrated options are to just remove posts or give the option to edit. Laws can be really confusing and difficult to understand, at times just deleting what was posted if it is against the law to be published might not be the best response.

For example a new law passed recently in my county is a ban of mortar fireworks from being fired for independence day, but this does not go into effect until next year. So for independence day 2025, if people are posting that they are going to be firing mortar fireworks within the county, that would be unlawful for them to be doing that and this would be a good flag for that. However the sale of mortars is not outlawed in the initial draft of this law, although that may be changed one day.

This is one example of something that folks may want to forward posts to prosecutors or notify deputies about something like this. Technically they can’t issue citations without evidence or for anything that is going through trial at court sometimes potential important evidence needs to be documented for a judge/jury to be able to make a decision about that.

England has some really unusual laws, such as it is officially unlawful for anyone to shake dust out of a rug on a public street after 8 in the morning.

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I know that this exists because of the European Union laws [I don’t live in the European Union so correct me if I’m wrong], but I feel that it’s convenient to add this internationally and it’s a good decision to add this internationally. Thanks for adding an option to report illegal content, I don’t find any illegal content yet, but if I do, I will be sure to test this

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It behaves like a something else flag. You can try it out on your own forum or on try.discourse.org if thats updated

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Making ‘illegal’ content reportable to non-logged in users

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It’s not a problem, we just do it at 7am every day so we don’t get arrested :slight_smile:

I’d never heard of that until today, thanks for the heads up :smiley:

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