Whilst following all the Tom Cannon tweets last night on here I had a Quick Look on RTG to see what was being said. Some people were mentioning about it being shut down due to new internet laws / regulations. I must confess I don’t know much about it but will these supposed new laws affect us on here?
We were concerned here for a while. Then brb, who is a not606 moderator, came on and said the matter was in hand and not to worry
It's the new Online Safety Act. All user to user platforms have to have policies and procedures put in place. Detailed records have to be kept of altercations and deleted posts. The owner of said deleted posts can then go running to Ofcom and report the site for deleting their post. It's to protect children but it's more like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut! All the social media giants (Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook etc) will have the staff and can afford the legal expertise to make sure everything is above board. There's millions of small forums out there covering all sorts of sports, hobbies, health issues, community groups and so on. I've used other forums for support with my health, travel tips, DIY help and all sorts. They're all run by volunteers as a hobby. They just don't have the time or the money to spend to do all the work required behind the scenes to comply with this Act, hence some are closing down. My argument is that children don't use forums. None of mine have shown interest as they're addicted to TikTok etc., instead. I would guess the age of RTG users is mainly 30+ and would guess the same for here. All this regulation seems to pointless to protect children in a place that isn't targeted to and doesn't appeal children, so children don't use it. There's also been talk of age verification to use forums as well. Again hobby sites don't have the money to pay for external age verification and don't want the responsibility of keeping copies of ID from users. If you wanted help with fixing a tap, are you really going to bother uploading your passport to prove that you're old enough before seeing if that forum can help? Eeeh I've gone on a bit of a rant here but I'm really quite vexed about it!
I do think age verification will come in at some point. It has to happen really to justify these new laws, especially sites like this. This site makes money, I’ll be surprised if RTG isn’t making an income with the amount of traffic on there and if it’s not someone is missing a trick. I really can’t see this forum going to the levels of keeping all deleted posts and altercations on record. The owner lives abroad so I think he’ll just let it run until the day it looks like it could bring him serious trouble then he’d just pull it. Only my opinion and I could be way out.
From what I understand, this site is covered by the Act as it's predominately run for UK football teams, so targeted at UK users. Some sites already have age verification systems in place. It's possible that small forums could piggyback onto those sites and use their verification systems for a small fee. But then you have to explain to Doris why she has to register on a porn site before she's allowed on a forum to talk about her knitting
Slightly OT. It would probably not be feasible for small forums , but for the Facebooks etc I think they should make a charge for an account. Could just be £1 a month and could even be refunded at the end of year. That means the account holder must use a current debit card or whatever , which gives the police a lead to their identity in the case of wrongdoing.
In my opinion the police shouldn't be anywhere near all of this. Knife crime, drug gangs, money laundering, fraud, etc are much more important and the police can't cope as it is. That, in my opinion, is why the government is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. And, tbh, I can't blame them ... ... the people who use forums as a playground, and post endless stupid content, only have themselves to blame if forums close.
Faceless anonymous keyboard warriors are the problem. Post with no thought and the first to complain when they are called out. The worst of the internet age
The worst people, on football forums, are those who clearly don't go to matches and have no stories or recollections of previous matches. They never refer to mates who go or have gone in the past. In this case they latch onto Sunderland but do little apart from digging away at the club, the town and the people.
We certainly have a fair few who believe nothing is ever good enough. The worst are those that can't those that can't admit reading it wrong or band wagon jumpers that pick up on the latest boo boy and join in. The worst of the internet is anomity so posts gain traction from the faceless
An unpleasant attention seeker is back over the road. We've had graphic descriptions of her fanny, her periods and her sex life over the weekend
That’s exactly what I was talking about earlier, people who latch onto Sunderland for their own benefit … … she’s encouraged by a clique of gormless dopes who read her posts with their tongues hanging out. I don’t think any of them go to the matches.
