New blogpost: "It is time to make the Online Safety Act 2023 fit for purpose"
I am concerned that, without rapid, targeted intervention at legislative level, the OSA will have a unwarranted and detrimental effect on the plurality of sites and services available to people in the UK, and impede and put at risk people running sites and services in the UK, for no material impact on the safety of people in the UK.
The government should:
Exempt small, low-risk services from Part 3
Fix an accessibility bug in Part 5
https://decoded.legal/blog/2025/03/it-is-time-to-make-the-online-safety-act-2023-fit-for-purpose/
@neil couldn't agree more.
I can help but think the poor quality of the legislation will mean the act meets none of its objectives.
It will detrimentally impact small businesses, whom are trying to do the right thing.
I doubt it will alter any of the big tech, since they will use the ambiguity in the act to their advantage and drag out any legal process.
And probably the small sites with some of the most objectionable content will be difficult to enforce against.
