Announcement Disabling Direct Messages in the forums

[Devil's Elbow]

Doesn’t look to me like Facebook has disabled DMs? Are they fighting this law or just too big to care?

Facebook has acted like they're above the law about half a million times, and also harvest much more user data so (unlike the forum) can probably block DMs only for British users if they are forced to.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Doesn’t look to me like Facebook has disabled DMs? Are they fighting this law or just too big to care?

Might it be that if the account has existed for more than n years, they are entitled to assume that the account is help by an adult, and DMs can be sent between verifiably adult accounts? (No idea, just a guess)

 

[CyclistAbi]

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/quick-guide-to-childrens-access-assessments

Was reading reasoning in regards to some other communities and such. Doing an assessment for this forum and the most likely outcome to be Service not likely to be accessed by children? Such annual assessment only to change if some bigger influx of UK children to be detected.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/category-1-10-weeks/statement-age-assurance-and-childrens-access/childrens-access-assessments-guidance.pdf

At the bottom of this PDF some case studies are presented.

Sport service

A service is offering an online site for information and discussion on local sporting activities. The
service does not have an age limit on users, but it targets senior citizens in London.
Such a service would not be targeted at children, and this would be reflected in the content of the
service. This service provides information to users on sports and other social activities across London
targeted at senior citizens. The service provider may also consider that the service does not directly
benefit children. In addition, although the service has particular features that children like to use,
given the nature of the content and the purpose of the service, the provider may find that it is
unlikely that the service will appeal to children. The provider may also consider the marketing
strategy for the site. They target an older demographic only and advertising data reflects
engagement with adult users. Consequently, the provider may conclude that children do not form
part of their commercial strategy.
The provider concludes that the child user condition is not met. The provider records the date, the
outcome, the steps taken, and the evidence used to justify their conclusion.

For now it is what it is, everybody basically fearing fines, PMs being the scapegoat. Over time i feel that more clarity will be involved and it will be easier to make an inform decision as curently it's mostly FUD driven but i guess one can partially underastand on why.

 

[CyclistAbi]

So i guess in the future one will have an option to either participate in public internet, discussing for example cycling or tennis and mostly act like a 10 year old child or if one would like to enter the locked area of the internet, then age verification will be needed, on where such internet participant will then be treated as a 12 year old child would. Well i guess it is what it is and lets see on how this particular era in history will go down as.

 

[RedheadDane]

Some of us actually already have our age verified. Can we get to do DMs?

(Not sure why only some of us...)

 

[CyclistAbi]

Some of us actually already have our age verified. Can we get to do DMs?

(Not sure why only some of us...)

How did you verify your age? You went through some rather official procedure to prove some authority on the internet on who you are and by doing that hence revealed your age or you simply told us your age on the forum? Anyway, this by itself opens up a whole can of worms and IMHO the internet is not ready for it yet, at least on the technical level:

The EU approach to age verification

The European Commission is working towards an EU-harmonised approach to age verification.

digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu

For example EU is still developing a technical solution and says it won't even be ready before the end of 2026. And i have a feeling that it will take a couple years more, before this gets widely adopted, if ever. So in principle the question to your answer is YES, you could, on technical level the answer is wait for it for a couple of years for it to get implemented.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

So i guess in the future one will have an option to either participate in public internet, discussing for example cycling or tennis and mostly act like a 10 year old child or if one would like to enter the locked area of the internet, then age verification will be needed, on where such internet participant will then be treated as a 12 year old child would. Well i guess it is what it is and lets see on how this particular era in history will go down as.

Not remotely the case. No-one is asking anyone to act like a ten year old.

Of course, in the context of discussing cycling, it is rarely necessary to employ a tone that one would not use if a ten year old were present, and the more egregious cases of doing otherwise are likely to are likely to break rules here anyway.

The legislation is about whether U18s (not the same as 10-12 year olds) are likely to be part of the membership/readership of the forum. If the flowchart above is authoritative, then maybe we could have a claim that we neither have, nor are ever likely to have, a "significant number of UK users who are children". But I suspect that Future are applying the analysis across their forums as a whole, and not applying a forum-by-forum approach ( and maybe Matthew Brennan is gaining a huge teenage fanbase).
It is certainly not about acting like 10 year olds, and I would encourage those capable of not doing so to continue to discuss our sport as responsible adults.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Not remotely the case. No-one is asking anyone to act like a ten year old.

Well, it's not as simple as that and i read through a lot of Ofcom documents and discussions, to get the sense of it. Note that i still sensed there is some leeway in there and hence we will likely be just fine on short to mid term. Porn sites and similar is likely what will get some scrutiny. The way i understand it an authority will still reach out before starting procedures and before issuing possible fines.

But lets say the most draconian implementation would to happen, over the span of next couple of years. Of course then site owners would be responsible, not only to verify age but as this is public forum the content that is behind age verification wall wouldn't be accessible to public internet any more. So basically, yes, on public internet one would need to act like lets say 10 year old child, on age verified section of the forum one could i guess still be allowed to fat shame a bit, or talk about pro cyclists diet, or even to encourage children to ride a bike. As having such diet or riding a bike often results in injuries and eating disorders hence such "self-harm" suggestions would need to go under age verified section.

As for the solutions i remember the first time i joined one of the biggest Slovenian forum community, when sending a PM it said this message will be visible to you, participant you have send it to and to the moderator. Now that IMHO is a solution too and doing it like that you are IMHO in compliance with the said law in the context of cycling orientated discussion forum, targeting adults.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Well, it's not as simple as that and i read through a lot of Ofcom documents and discussions, to get the sense of it. Note that i still sensed there is some leeway in there and hence we will likely be just fine on short to mid term. Porn sites and similar is likely what will get some scrutiny. The way i understand it an authority will still reach out before starting procedures and before issuing possible fines.

But lets say the most draconian implementation would to happen, over the span of next couple of years. Of course then site owners would be responsible, not only to verify age but as this is public forum the content that is behind age verification wall wouldn't be accessible to public internet any more. So basically, yes, on public internet one would need to act like lets say 10 year old child, on age verified section of the forum one could i guess still be allowed to fat shame a bit, or talk about pro cyclists diet, or even to encourage children to ride a bike. As having such diet or riding a bike often results in injuries and eating disorders hence such "self-harm" suggestions would need to go under age verified section.

As for the solutions i remember the first time i joined one of the biggest Slovenian forum community, when sending a PM it said this message will be visible to you, participant you have send it to and to the moderator. Now that IMHO is a solution too and doing it like that you are IMHO in compliance with the said law in the context of cycling orientated discussion forum, targeting adults.

We have very different understandings of what it means to act like a ten year old.

 

[CyclistAbi]

We have very different understandings of what it means to act like a ten year old.

Point being?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Point being?

Acting like a ten year old (very underdeveloped sense of responsibility or empathy; limited experience of social interaction; poor understanding of cause and effect; unsophisticated sense of history, geography or loyalty) is not the same as acting in a way that would not be inappropriate if there were a child (such as a ten-year-old) present. You seem to have conflated the two.

Acting like a ten year old would mean considering it hilarious that De Pooter and Craps might be in a breakaway together next week. Acting in a way that is not inappropriate in the presence of a ten year old would be discussing whether co-operation between the teams those two riders represent is ethical in a situation in which they may soon become the same entity (I never said we had to entertain the 10-y-o). Hopefully we can be more about the latter, while sometimes acknowledging the former.


@Samu Cuenca has put it more clearly...

 

[RedheadDane]

How did you verify your age?

I don't know... but it's on my profile.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I don't know... but it's on my profile.

That's self declaration, not verification.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Armchair Cyclist

That is a fair point, age verification in case of large surge of UK children to flood the forum, as a measure to protect the adults. Still, for now most will likely stay at "children level", compared to sending a scan of their ID or something to some random web forum.

@RedheadDane

The way it currently works is law maker just made a requirement, for web places like porn sites and social media and beyond, that might attract UK children, to figure it out, on how they will validate an user is of some age. Obviously this can't really work ATM, as a random web forum has no means to technically implement this and instead they might request something like a sacan of your ID or similar. Note that in Slovenia it's illegal to scan your ID for such purposes and on top of that in the age of AI one can easily counterfeit one. Anyway, this could really work, for some region as lets say UK or EU, once there will be technical solution in place, on where you will be able to prove, with some certificate or similar, on who you are on the internet. And even then if lets say UK, EU, USA, China ... will have their own solutions it will be a nightmare to technically implement this for the purpose of an internet forum in UK. Meanwhile adolescents will IMHO still have access to porn and TikTok and similar. This legislation IMHO will be as effective in preventing that as UCI is effective in improving riders safety. So close to 0.

 

[del1962]

On the grounds that it is highly unlikely anyone under 7 could have joined the forum, maybe accounts started pre 2013 could be able to direct message each other

 

[SHAD0W93]

On the grounds that it is highly unlikely anyone under 7 could have joined the forum, maybe accounts started pre 2013 could be able to direct message each other

How many are there pre 2013 though are still active, 20-30?

 

[noob]

How many are there pre 2013 though are still active, 20-30?

The older our accounts becomes the closer we then get to PM rights. Like trophy points 🤣

 

[RedheadDane]

I think we should just all become mods.
What could possibly go wrong?

 

[AmRacer]

I think we should just all become mods.
What could possibly go wrong?

Can a mod ban another mod?

 

[RedheadDane]

Can a mod ban another mod?

Those matters would of course need to be brought up for a vote.

 

[hrotha]

I think we should just all become mods.
What could possibly go wrong?

That's a good point actually. How do we know the mods aren't minors? Who's verifying this?

Remove all mods to be safe IMO

 

[houtdffan]

could a possibility have been to only disable DMs for British users of the forum? Or is that technically not possible?

 

[CyclistAbi]

Thinking about this things in terms of the past, present and the future. Internet was a rather enthusiastic place, one could say naive, on where things like bulletin boards were just started taking off. Today is more (and more) of a commercial space, on where participating people are basically a commodity, a product in terms of discourse in (public) internet space. In the past there was a sense of the absolute freedom involved, now there are attempts to cancel that, as i guess too much of that hurts business and challenges authority and similar. Just a few days back i read on how one of the biggest such communities in Slovenia is shutting down, after two decades, supposedly due to new legislation. Going forward, what i feel this will ultimately come down to is freedom of speech. Adults will hence get separated from the children and will demand, by legislation, free speech on public internet. It's rather similar to what was happening with comedy and satire in USA. It was almost cancelled but now it made a grand return. So i am rather optimistic regardless of the fact that in general i do feel that things deteriorated massively in the past couple of years. It's i guess a process, like everything.