Comment by aimazon
4 months ago
We don’t need to trust what they say, we just need to engage in a little critical thinking. What’s the benefit for Ofcom in pursuing tiny websites? There’s no political benefit, no financial benefit… the guidance from Ofcom reaffirms the natural conclusion.
There is no political benefit to imposing liability on any online forum operator for content posted by others?
Governments can abuse their power to silence speech it doesn't like. Governments can use agitators to develop pretext for legal action. Governments can make examples out of small-time defendants to send chilling effects. Governments can have prosecutors who may not be evil, but merely overzealous and harmful.
At the end, it is about a default to freedom of speech and content online (short of objectively illegal content) or a default to self-censorship and closing the gates on open forums.
Sorry, but that's foolish beyond belief. The law allows and probably mandates them to do so. You can pretend that's not what the law says but it clearly does. And it was written with intent and advice, so that's what the writers intended as well.
But if it's so simple, volunteer. Take on the criminal penalties yourself and perform the reviews.