UK Online Safety Bill... if it passes, I may have to shutter LFGSS

My MP, Catherine West, acknowledged my email and sought a response from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.

In essence I can meet with the impact team, but they assure me that Ofcom will apply rules reasonably and proportionately.

Here's the text...

Caroline Dinenage MP
Minister of State for Digital and Culture
4th Floor
100 Parliament Street
London SW1A 2BQ
E:enquiries@dcms.gov.uk
http://www.gov.uk/dcms

Catherine West MP
catherine.west.mp@parliament.uk
24 June 2021
Your Ref: ZA11082
Our Ref: MC2021/11750/SR

Dear Catherine,

Thank you for your correspondence of 9 June, on behalf of your constituent, Mr Kitchen
of REDACTED, regarding the Online Safety Bill's effect on forums run
by individuals. Mr Kitchen also wrote in the same terms to the Secretary of State for Digital,
Culture, Media and Sport and the Online Safety Bill Analysis team and I am replying to all three
emails.

As Mr Kitchen is aware, we published the Online Safety Bill in draft on 12 May, marking a major
milestone in the development of a new regulatory framework to tackle online harms.
The new regulatory framework will apply to companies or individuals, such as the forum run by
Mr Kitchen, who provide services which host user-generated content or enable user interaction,
as well as search engines.

Many people experience harm through online platforms and we must ensure that this
framework can tackle this, whether the platform is provided by a company, or individual.
However, in order to protect small, low-risk services, regulatory expectations on services will be
reasonable and proportionate to the severity of the potential harm posed and the resources
available to the service. If the risk of harm on a platform is low, and the platform in question has
little capacity, then regulatory burdens should also be minimal.

We have also included additional safeguards in the legislation to support small and medium
sized enterprises. These would apply to individuals who operate in-scope services. For
example, Ofcom, the independent regulator who will oversee the framework, will be under an
obligation to create codes of practice which are feasible and which cater for all service
providers, whatever their size and capacity. Furthermore, Ofcom will have a legal duty to
assess the impact of its codes of practice and other significant proposals on businesses and
wider society which would include individuals within scope of the regime.

Ofcom will take a proportionate and targeted approach to monitoring and enforcement. It will
focus on the services where the risk of harm to users is highest. It will seek to engage
collaboratively with companies and individuals to help them understand their new duties, and
what improvements might be needed, before initiating enforcement action, where this is
required.

As Mr Kitchen noted, we have also published an impact assessment of the Bill on industry,
government and wider society. The government is continuing to engage with stakeholders to
better understand the potential impacts of the policy, ahead of a final stage impact assessment
which will be published upon the introduction of the Bill. The evidence and insights he provides
are extremely valuable and we will seek to incorporate these into our further work.

In addition, to further improve our assessment of the impacts of the policy, the analytical team
is engaging with affected organisations to understand costs that services expect to face to
ensure compliance with the online harms framework. If Mr Kitchen would be willing to, the
analytical team would like to arrange a time to meet and discuss the implications for him as an
individual operating an in-scope service. This would include a discussion of the costs incurred
operating his service under the status quo and any costs he expects to incur under the new
regime. Any information provided would be used to improve our assessment of the impact of
the Bill on individuals. If this is something he would be interested in, we would be grateful if he
would contact us again at soh-analysis-team@dcms.gov.uk and we can arrange a time at his
convenience in the coming months.

I hope Mr Kitchen and yourself find this information useful.

With best wishes,

Caroline Dinenage MP
Minister of State for Digital and Culture