For the purposes of the Online Safety Act 2023, the Named Person to which Ofcom should direct all queries is Gary Hawkins who can be reached at gary.hawkins@garyhawkins.me.uk.
This service is not open for registrations from the general public. Accounts on this service are only granted with the express permission of the service owner.
If you use or have an account on this service, the following terms and conditions apply:
Prohibited content
You must not post or repost anything which is illegal under the laws in any part of the United Kingdom.
You must not or use the service to facilitate or commit any offence under the laws in any part of the United Kingdom.
This includes, in particular, terrorism content (as set out in Schedule 5, Online Safety Act 2023), child sexual exploitation and abuse content (as set out in Schedule 6, Online Safety Act 2023), and content that amounts to an offence specified in Schedule 7, Online Safety Act 2023.
You must not post or repost any content which is pornographic, or that Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, may regard as pornographic. This includes content of such a nature that it is reasonable to assume that it was produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.
Protecting users from illegal content
We provide this service free of charge, and on the basis that we may:
- take down, or restrict access to, anything that you generate, upload or share; and
- suspend or ban you from using all or part of the service
if we think that this is reasonable to protect you, other users, the service, or us. This applies, in particular, to prohibited content.
If we are alerted by a person to the presence of any illegal content, or we become aware of it in any other way, we will swiftly take down that content.
To minimise the length of time for which any illegal content within the scope of the Online Safety Act 2023 is present:
- in respect of terrorism content, we will remove the content swiftly, and if the content originated on a federated service report the content to that federated service, and if necessary block that user or server federation to stop the content appearing on our service, and report to the police and/or other authorities as required by law
- in respect of child sexual exploitation or abuse content, we will remove the content swiftly, and if the content originated on a federated service report the content to that federated service, and if necessary block that user or server federation to stop the content appearing on our service, and report to the police and/or other authorities as required by law
- in respect of content that amounts to an offence specified in Schedule 7, Online Safety Act 2023, we will remove the content swiftly, and if the content originated on a federated service report the content to that federated service, and if necessary block that user or server federation to stop the content appearing on our service, and report to the police and/or other authorities as required by law.
Protecting children
We protect all children from the kinds of content listed below by:
- prohibiting that type of content from our service; and
- swiftly taking down that content, if we are alerted by a person to its presence, or we become aware of it in any other way.
The kinds of content are:
- Pornographic content: we prohibit pornographic content
- Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for suicide
- Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an act of deliberate self-injury
- Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an eating disorder or behaviours associated with an eating disorder
We protect all children from the kinds of content listed below by:
- prohibiting that type of content from our service; and
- swiftly taking down that content, if we are alerted by a person to its presence, or we become aware of it in any other way.
The kinds of content are:
- Content which is abusive and which targets any of the following characteristics:
- race
- religion
- sex
- sexual orientation
- disability
- gender reassignment
- Content which incites hatred against people:
- of a particular race, religion, sex or sexual orientation
- who have a disability
- who have the characteristic of gender reassignment
- Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an act of serious violence against a person
- Bullying content
- Content which
- depicts real or realistic serious violence against a person
- depicts the real or realistic serious injury of a person in graphic detail
- Content which:
- depicts real or realistic serious violence against an animal
- depicts the real or realistic serious injury of an animal in graphic detail
- realistically depicts serious violence against a fictional creature or the serious injury of a fictional creature in graphic detail
- Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for a challenge or stunt highly likely to result in serious injury to the person who does it or to someone else
- Content which encourages a person to ingest, inject, inhale or in any other way self-administer:
- a physically harmful substance
- a substance in such a quantity as to be physically harmful
We protect all children from other content, of a kind which presents a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of children in the United Kingdom, by:
- prohibiting that type of content from our service; and
- swiftly taking down that content, if we are alerted by a person to its presence, or we become aware of it in any other way.
Complaints and reporting content
To report content on our service which contravenes either the law or our terms and conditions, please use the content reporting function using either your Mastdon client or on the service’s Web site. If this is not possible please email webmaster@garyhawkins.me.uk to make the report, with as much information as possible about the content you are reporting.
If you wish to make a complaint about this service, including complaints about inappropriate blocking of content, please email webmaster@garyhawkins.me.uk and we will consider your complaint.
Your right to bring a claim
The Online Safety Act 2023 says that you have a right to bring a claim for breach of contract if:
(a) anything that you generate, upload or share is taken down, or access to it is restricted, in breach of the terms of service, or
(b) you are suspended or banned from using the service in breach of the terms of service.
This does not apply to emails, SMS messages, MMS messages, one-to-one live aural communications, comments and reviews (together with any further comments on such comments or reviews), or content which identifies you as a user (e.g. a user name or profile picture).