LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)

First Offcom haven't yet released the tool you use to assess the harm. It may be worth waiting until they do that and you can go through it to decide how difficult it will be to comply or not.

The tool will be here:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/Online-Safety/check-how-to-comply/

Then on your worry about liability, I know it says 10% of annual turnover or £18 million whichever is greater.

However it does NOT say they can impose a higher penalty than your annual turnover. That seems very implausible as it would be an impossible requirement on people like you.

I think if your annual turnover is less than £18 million the max is less than the turnover. They just haven't thought to mention that.

This seems to clarify that:

QUOTE STARTS

A relevant factor in securing this objective of deterrence is the turnover of the regulated body subject to the penalty. Penalties should be set at levels which, having regard to that turnover, will have an impact on the body that deters it from misconduct in future and which provides signals to other bodies that misconduct by them would result in penalties having a similar impact. That is, it must be at a level which can also change and correct any non-compliant behaviour, or potential non-compliant behaviour, by other providers.
...
This is not to say there is a direct linear relationship between the size and turnover of the regulated body and the level of the penalty. While a body with a larger turnover might face a larger penalty in absolute terms, a body with a smaller turnover may be subject to a penalty which is larger as a proportion of its turnover, for example. We will impose the penalty which is appropriate and proportionate, taking into account all the circumstances of the case in the round together with the objective of deterrence.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/corporate-policies/penalty-guidelines/

It doesn't say explicitly that the penalty is always less than the turnover but it doesn't make sense in the context of the rest of it for it to be higher. A penalty more than annual turnover would be enforced closure of the business for many businesses and force bankruptcy. That makes no sense given that the aim is to get them to comply not to get them to close down.

So at most you'd risk losing a fraction of your turnover.

Also from what you say then the risk is surely low. It will be easier to know once the tool is available but nothing in your description suggests a high risk of harm to kids or even medium. Surely the risk to kids is very low.

Also the focus would be on large businesses first. They may never get around to businesses as small as yours.

Also if they do, they would give you warning first and give you a chance to comply as that is the point in it - not to close websites down but to get them to comply with the requirements.

If you feel you can't you could close your site down at that point after talking to them, explaining you can't do what they ask of you, get their feedback and then if you still can't comply you can explain that to them. The worst happens at that point is that you have to run the site with not enough income from it due to the fines whatever they are and it might be that members of your site would club together to keep it going.

There is no way they just give you a fine out of the blue forcing you to close down the business without first discussing with you to try to find a way forward for you to achieve compliance.

I'm not sure what the next step would be, perhaps contact Offcom but maybe they are too busy. I expect you tried?

But maybe wait for the online tool to be available, go through it, complete the assessment and send it to them and take it from there. You surely would assess the risk as low. And then see if you can ask them questions about your concerns at that point.

How does that sound?