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

I will speak to some individuals within the UK coop movement to see if this potentially could remove liability from you @Velocio. (if this is a direction you wish to explore)

If I had no liability, and the forums did not need to be sold (an option I am flat out not considering)... then yes, assuming risk is diffused, reduced, or otherwise mitigated... they could live on.

I'd likely still want to make it more resilient in future, it's always been me doing everything, it can't be that if I'm not accepting the risk... so if the forum survives, it survives because a group forms to run it.

The more interesting question is probably binary:

• If a group formed in the UK to serve UK users, what would this look like? From an entity, compliance, financial status, etc... and who would take the various roles needed, how would it be structured and operate, etc.
  
• If a group formed outside the UK and focused on providing service to international users with a minority of UK users (location is not a requirement, who knows where people are), and LFGSS became post-geographic, what would this look like? Where would it be registered (I've had offers from Switzerland and the USA this morning), how would the finances work, etc, etc.
  
  

What should be obvious is that change must happen, and to survive it requires a lot of change... I can't just accept donations and top up with my own money when it falls short, it would need some way to accept donations and manage the expenses, maybe Open Collective, etc.

The first option includes compliance, the second likely does not... have nothing in the UK and I let go fully (am clearly happy to do this as shuttering the site is the same thing)... but in both scenarios, who are these people who will operate it, do they understand what they're getting into, etc?

I've received a lot of messages in the last 24h, from press, people in tech, individuals who just believe in privacy and freedoms, and of course forumengers who care not to lose the forum.

I think it's clear to all that I personally do not accept the risk and liability... it's too much of a weapon, this is Chekhov's gun in the UK's own style of bureacracy... a weapon on stage in Act I will be fired in Act III... there is nothing preventing the Online Safety Act directly being used against those who operate and are involved with community websites.

But, if there is a path to finding continuity for the communities, that doesn't involve selling the soul of the communities (I won't consider migration to Facebook for example), then it's responsible of me to try and find that path... yesterday morning that seemed impossible, as the only person involved, how do I find a path? But a lot of people have stepped forward to potentially do different things, so there's more hope today that something might happen.

Ironically of course, a number of the options are directly against what the Online Safety Act attempts to achieve, because a number of the options are just "move it beyond reach and only impact the communities geo-located in the UK".