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.
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.
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.
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
Now I know that this is extremely useful for law enforcement, but wouldn’t any other type of flag have the same effect? Also, if there are active community moderators, I don’t there would be an issue with the odds of having anything illegal as they’d be banned immediately, but I see why this might be useful, but I don’t really see the need (legal wise) as to the eyes of the law, these are private.
The DSA has specific requirements for flagging and reporting illegal content. We want to make sure we provide the necessary tools for anyone that cares about compliance.
Guess the flag mechanism is basically the same to alert mods, but seems this is good for documentation of the type of flag.
Could be a good feature for these flags to have a different automatic response from the system, such as immediately taking post out of public view until it can be reviewed as opposed to the “temporarily hidden” feature, where post can still be seen by some members depending on trust tier I think. In addition if it’s possible for this to make an automated phone call to moderator would be a great feature for faster response time, don’t know if anyone has integrated a call system like that with discourse?
Immediately banning someone seems like not always the best response unless that is necessary.
Do you know how annoying that would be just having random phone calls when you are doing your things?
I don’t think flags need to be handled different. As long as they hide the content from users and a moderator reviews them accordingly its okay. How they are handled is down to a site by site basis.
I get about ten automated calls every day so have stopped answering phones, most of those calls are not important and they won’t even leave a voicemail they just hang up when no one answers.
This would be an important call if say at least two TL2 members flag something as unlawful would typically be important to know about that. There are automatic fraud alert calls from bank if there is suspicious activity, that is the kind of system that would work for this but that may not be compatible with the discourse app.
