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

This Act isn’t not aimed at places like this, and I can’t believe there’s any risk to those who run it. Surely we have a few legal heads on here who can give a professional view on this?

On the other hand, I have met user @amey so it's not all been good

LoLed in the street

❤️ lufus

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Has this been resolved yet?

Would a list help the situation?

Absolutely gutted that this seems to be the end of times.

Haven’t read every page but have spotted a few people trying to convince @Velocio to go back on closing the forum and that’s not really kosher in my book.

I’d guess that the amount of time Velocio has put into reading and understanding the legislation is an order of magnitude more than any of us have and if that’s the decision, as absolutely heartbreaking as it is, I support it.

Can we get into the Ofcom office and change the rules?

Genuinely hoping you are ok kl.

There are grudges, and then there are that level of psychopathy.

Thank you for the fun.

Well this massively sucks, and I've never even been a participant here – followed a link from Reddit. But I've always been aware of the great community here and at one point tried to persuade TPTB at Future to look into licensing microcosm to run the forums on BikeRadar.

I wonder if Myles 'Obscenity Lawyer' Jackman would be interested in getting involved. This is exactly what he was talking about when he said “Pornography is the canary in the coal mine of free speech.” It's almost as though, unable to deal with Mindgeek, the last government decided to just make it impossible to run a user-participation website in the UK without massive corporate backing.

I really hope a solution can be found that preserves this community that's obviously incredibly important to a lot of people.

All the best!

Fuckin hell :(

As Velocio has pointed out, it doesn't matter what the Act is aimed at if some berk can weaponise it to cause them grief.

It's like a hand grenade. It might not have been thrown at you, but if you're standing 10 metres from the intended target you're still in deep shit.

That's grim mate. Hope you're holding up ok.

Hoping that's a false alarm 🙏

Like others have said this is sad sad news. I moved back to
London about 15 years ago, and realised all my old friends had moved away. Luckily (or maybe not) I found LFGSS and was able to insert myself into rides and drinks and make a whole new bunch of pretend internet wanker friends.

How exactly does this work? From skimming the article it seems like as long as you respond to people reporting horrendous behaviour and revenge porn, have an active moderation team, and complying with Ofcom request, it shouldn't change much? What exactly have I missed here - IE how does this add any more administrative overhead than say, responding to DMCA requests.

Also, could the site be set up and owned by a Ltds so that if they did get fined, the risk is to the company not anyone personally?

Terrorism
Harassment, stalking, threats and abuse offences
Coercive and controlling behaviour
Hate offences
Intimate image abuse
Extreme pornography
Child sexual exploitation and abuse
Sexual exploitation of adults
Unlawful immigration
Human trafficking
Fraud and financial offences
Proceeds of crime
Assisting or encouraging suicide
Drugs and psychoactive substances
Weapons offences (knives, firearms, and other weapons)
Foreign interference
Animal welfare

Surely most of these things are against the forum rules anyway and any fines would be only levied at forums who repeatedly don't bother to try and take stuff down?

I'm looking over some of the supporting document, most of the requirements seem to be only applicable to large providers, not small communities.

The ones that do apply:

Providers should have systems and processes designed
to review and assess content the provider has reason
to suspect may be illegal content (part of its ‘content
moderation function’)

This is just having a moderation system, surely?

Providers should have systems and processes designed
to swiftly take down illegal content and/or illegal
content proxy of which they are aware (part of their
‘content moderation function’), unless it is currently
not technically feasible for them to achieve this
outcome.

All forums have this anyway

All providers of U2U and search services should have
complaints systems and processes

All forums have this anyway, maybe needs be formalised

Providers should handle complaints about suspected
illegal content in accordance with their content
prioritisation processes a

Pretty sure any forum admin would respond to PMs about this with haste.

Without going through the full document it seems like if you have a small, moderated forum with responsive admins most of this shouldn't really affect you. I think the legislation is more targeted at large providers who allow shitloads of terrible stuff through without accountability, and smaller providers who don't really bother moderating their own content properly or ignore it when someone complains their ex uploaded nudes etc.

I'm not sure forum software (i.e. microcosm) is really threatened by the act and as long as it provides moderation tools, surely it's up to the people that run the boards to be liable.

It seems like an incredible amount of value could be lost, and perhaps reaching out to Ofcom directly to establish compliance and dialogue could be a better solution - I doubt very much that they're just going to hit people with huge fines without first trying to rectify the problem.

Depressing news !
Thanks @Velocio for your dedication to this community. This is/was a place like nowhere else.

This. Is. Awful.
Here. Is. wonderful.

Well put.

But still, LLL thread >>>>>>>>>>>>

Are you allergic to implementing an email front-end and turning off web-based access for posting? NAL and may just be clutching at straws in the denial stage, but Schedule 1 says a user-to-user service is exempt 'if emails are the only user-generated content'.

If you're not just done (and fair enough if you are), if more funding would help for exploring options further, count me in, whether for legal advice on options, forming a limited by guarantee company, or whatever.

Fuck.

Fucks sake.

There's a GOV.UK explainer page here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

Whilst I doubt the act will be particularly useful, I am not sure how it threatens small communities really other than making sure you moderate and respond to complaints.

Text of the legislation unfortunately very unhelpful and far broader than what the summary doc you're reading says if you're coming at things from a risk minimisation perspective. Dialogue with ofcom may only do so much if you are technically in noncompliance because you simply don't have the resources, and even if you are trying to be compliant this act opens far more spurious heads of liability for people with a bone to pick to cause a lot of trouble which may not be entirely dependent on regulator action alone.

I adore this site. It brings joy. Will miss it immensely. It’s an oasis of silliness, generosity and respect, a stream of bat’s piss shining out like a shaft of gold amidst the dank corporate malevolent exploitation characterising the majority of today’s internet. Thanks VeloDee, we are not worthy.

Sorry to hear this.

I repeat the thanks to @Velocio

I respect you have done the hard work to keep this place going and it's your choice to make.
But you are not alone on this, and some legal expertise might illuminate an alternative path.

E.g. regardless of how threatening the OSB'23 might appear, OFCOM doesn't have the ability or goal to destroy, Section 392 Communications Act 2003 means they have to publish (and then follow) their penalty guidelines. These (last updated Sept.17) are clear on the objective of penalties and "Ofcom will ensure that the overall amount of the penalty is appropriate and proportionate to the contravention in respect of which it is imposed, taking into account the size and turnover of the regulated body."