Changes in guidance on the Obscene Publications Act
from
Recon Support
19 February 2019
As some of our members are aware, in the UK there have been changes made to the guidance provided by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on what content can be prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act (OPA). This could potentially lead to changes in what images are permitted on Recon. Though we're excited by the possibility, we need to proceed with caution.
T101 – the owner of Recon - is located in the UK, and therefore we are bound by local laws, including the OPA. It is due to this Act that we restrict certain images on member's profiles, such as hard bondage, watersports and fisting, as these practices were named by the CPS as being obscene, and distributing them could lead to legal action against us.
Recently, changes have been made to the CPS' guidance on the OPA, with the list of specific practices classed as obscene being removed and replaced with a four-point test that is applied on a case by case basis. This change could lead to a revision of what images are permitted on Recon.
Our legal team is currently reviewing the new guidelines and will be reporting back to us in due time. While there is the potential for these new rules to permit us to allow a wider range of images on Recon, the new system, in some regards, is more vague, and we have to be certain that any action we take doesn't jeopardise Recon or our members.
We will keep you updated as to whether there will be changes to our photo policy as and when we have reached a decision with our legal team. Be assured that this is something we're investigating fully. We would love for our members to be able to express their tastes fully in images, but we have to ensure that we're protected, so that we can keep providing a place for fetish guys to connect.
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