Last year I closed comments on this site because I was concerned about the implications of the UK’s Online Safety Acy for bloggers. Ofcom has now published its official Guidance for how the Act will be implemented, and providers of Online Services have until July 24th to comply. Compliance is VERY EXPENSIVE, so you really don’t want to be caught up in this.

Helpfully, Ofcom have provided a 6-point online checker to help you find out if the Act applies to you. I have been going through it to see how it might apply to a blog, author website or other such thing.

I should note that the starting point for this is the question of whether you provide an “Online Service”. One of the categories of things that fall within that definition is “a website”. So if you have a website of any sort (outside of walled gardens such as Farcebook) then this is for you.

Question 1: Does your online service have links with the UK?

If you live in the UK then the answer is YES.

The answer is also yes if you sell products into the UK, or have a “significant number” of UK users, although Ofcom is less likely to come after small website owners based outside the UK because of the expense of doing so.

Question 2: Do you provide a “user-to-user” service?

As far as blogs and the like are concerned, if you allow comments, the answer is YES.

Question 3: Do you provide a search service?

This one is a bit tricky. If the search function on your blog only allows searching of the blog itself then you are OK. If it allows searching outside of your own site then you are not. But for most of you the answer here is NO.

Question 4: Does your online service publish or display pornographic content?

The answer here is probably NO, but there are a couple of traps for the unwary. Firstly, if comments on your site are not moderated, people could post pornographic content on the site. However, text-only content is exempt. You are probably OK, but I’d make sure that all comments are screened before going live, just in case. Second, while Ofcom does currently define “pornographic” in a fairly obvious way, any future implementation of a Section 28 type law by the government would automatically make any LGBTQ+ content “pornographic”. I would not put it past this government to implement such legislation.

Question 5: Do any exemptions apply to the content on your online service?

This question is the crux of the matter. I’m going to leave it for now and come back to it.

Question 6: Do any exemptions apply to your online service?

Probably NO, because to qualify you have to either a) limit access to members of your company/organisation; b) be a government agency; or c) be a provider of educational services.

However, this may provide a way out of the problem for conventions and clubs. If you run a Discord sever and limit membership to people who have bought membership in your organisation, I think you are OK.

OK, so let’s assume that your answers are YES, YES, NO, NO, ?? and NO, as outlined above. What about Question 5?

Well, this is all about whether users are only interacting with you, or if they can interact with each other. Here I am going to quote some of the explanatory notes:

A service is exempt if the only way users can communicate on it is by posting comments or reviews on the service provider’s content. Provider content is any content that is published on a service by the service provider or someone acting on their behalf.

For example, this would exempt online services where the only content users can upload or share is comments on media articles you have published, or reviews of goods and services your business provides.

This exemption includes features which allow users to share comments or reviews made on provider content on your service, onto another online service (for example, users sharing a review of a news article or an online game, made on your service onto a social media site).

It also includes expressing views on other users’ comments or reviews about provider content. These views can be expressed through “likes”, “emojis or symbols” of any kind, engaging in a yes/no voting or rating or scoring of the content in any way.

In contrast, user comments or reviews on user-generated content would be in scope of the Act. This includes user reviews or comments on third party sellers offering goods or services on online marketplaces.

As I understand it, this means that you are fine if you just allow users to comment on your posts, and your answer would be YES. But if your blog provides a facility for users to reply to other people’s comments (which WordPress blogs routinely do) then your answer must be NO.

Crucially, if your answers to the other questions are as I listed above, and you can answer YES to Question 5, then your service should not fall within the scope of the Act. But if you answer NO then it does.

There is a way with a WordPress blog to prevent users from replying to other users’ comments. In the Admin interface, go to Settings–>Discussion and make sure that “Enable threaded (nested) comments” is unchecked. Of course it is possible for a commenter to reply to another commenter in a comment on the main post. I don’t think Ofcom thought of that. If in doubt, you should turn off comments entirely, as I have done with this blog.

There is one other way in which you can fall foul of the Act. That is if you post a link to your content on social media for people to interact with it there. I’m not sure what the rules are there. Obviously social media companies should all be compliant with the Act, but some may not be (e.g. a small Mastodon instance) and some may not care (e.g. Xitter).

Finally Ofcom notes:

Please note that this result is indicative only and based on the answers you have provided. It does not constitute legal advice or an Ofcom decision. It is for providers of online services to assess their service and/or seek independent specialist advice in order to determine whether their online service (or the relevant parts of it) are subject to the regulations and understand how to comply with the relevant duties.

The same applies to my comments here. If in doubt, get legal advice.