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

Hi,

I worked in Ofcom’s online safety team, and now run http://www.illuminatetech.co.uk. We want to help you keep these forums open, for free.

I think there is a huge discrepancy between what smaller services actually need to do, and the perception created by Ofcom’s thousands of pages of consultation.

The best version of the Internet is one where small, niche websites like yours can thrive - an ecosystem of ideas and services. I recognise the perceived risk the OSA poses to sites like yours, and am really keen to create resources to help sites like yours not have to worry about compliance (for free or close to free).

We think we can sort out OSA compliance for you in half a day, max. And as said, we’ll do it for free. Please get in touch at hello@illuminatetech.co.uk if you’re interested!

I suspect the catch is that we'd be a high profile case study (given the coverage in the Telegraph, Telegraph (so good they ran it twice!), Computing UK and forthcoming New Scientist article)... but hey, that would be fine with me.

My concerns to be very explicit aren't just the risk assessment, but things required to mitigate risk afterwards... i.e. CSAM scanning, building new moderator tooling or training, being "on-call" in case of reported content whilst I'm on vacation, etc... i.e. all the ways that a single person run hobby site (even when they support such a large audience) has to achieve the implementation standard of big tech. The context is that I put a few hours per month in... I have a day job that I love, and a life outside of running websites... so if the compliance concludes that to mitigate risks I need to go spend hundreds of hours coding things, and writing things... I'd still seek to close it all on the 16th March.

But you likely know what the impact is better than I, so if you think it's unlikely that I'd need to change anything other then just assess impact and some minor things, I'll take you up on it.

Edit: I wouldn't accept "for free" as that would come with no guarantee or liability for the work, but I'd so "small fee" for an indemnity regarding the compliance.

and a life outside of running websites.

Well, if you're going to actually ride your bike... there's no helping some people.

What if you added a "no Nazis" clause to entry?

I mean, in the USA you can be arrested and fined for just saying "bomb" in an airport, in Germany there's anti-Nazi laws. Is there nothing like that you could use as a basis for issuing the skinheads with a "fuck off"?

Well, if you're going to actually ride your bike... there's no helping some people

I wouldn't go that far, but astrophotography is the perfect hobby... you buy a telescope, a flask for whiskey, it's too cloudy, you have a drink... repeat forever.

So, astrophotography is just being unconscious outside next to expensive optical equipment?

Out standing in my field, yes.

I see what you did there, you star.

I think I'll have to print this and tape it to my phone if this place really shutters (but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed).

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Have you considered dark mode?

If you can enlighten us as to the discrepancies, please do so. At the minute, it seems you are just offering a free service to a high profile case, and promoting your own paid services in doing so.

Forgive me for being blunt, but reading between the lines, it is still going to mean many small to medium sites (like my own) having to close.

If it takes you and your crew "half a day, max" to sort out compliance, then what about the rest of us?

Lolz, but seriously... If you represent other small sites then journalists keep asking me for examples of others affected... You should make yourself known.

Frankly, I'm scared of putting a target on myself. I've been running online communities for around as long as yourself, 27 to 28 years or so. Just marked our 25th anniversary, and now I'm concerned that this extremely authoritarian government will take my hobby away from me as they seize more control of the internet. The site means a lot to people, and I have the same sort of stories as you with regards the impact it's had on peoples lives.

I'm absolutely in favour of increasing safeguarding online, but things like paying for age verification is... I mean, what are we meant to do?

Hopefully you'll be able to benefit from the learnings when this community gets together and figures out how to take this site forward. There should be a way so don't get your hopes down just yet (:

Sooo.. Anyone know who the secretary of state is?

Apparently there is a way to not have to do this stuff... The secretary of state has authority and power to make exceptions and carve outs.

Which also means there probably is a case for writing to MPs.

Anyone know who the secretary of state is?

@mashton probably plays squash with them on Fridays at the club

Another place shutting down https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/6463/

Looks like it is Science, Innovation and Technology which is Peter Kyle.

EDIT, yep
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/potential-impact-of-the-online-safety-bill/potential-impact-of-the-online-safety-bill

We have been commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the government department responsible for the Online Safety Bill,

https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/parliamentary-under-secretary-of-state-for-the-future-digital-economy-and-online-safety

Looks like it might be Baroness Jones of Whitchurch? Though it also seems to be a subject that sits under both DCMS and the Home Office.

Anyone know who the secretary of state is?

I thought that was a US thing. We have one too?

We do... and it seems they don't like parking on the grass in Richmond Park...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_State_(United_Kingdom)

What are the key points to get across in messages to MP that would make the policy work without railroading the various smaller online communities? Figure we'll get much further if we provide constructive criticism as well as an alternative path...

Then the neo naxis shout free speech.

Look at the last one on here, complaining of being banned for saying stuff that is abhorrent.

In Germany it is holocaust denial that gets you a prison sentence and there are people in prison for it.

God, this is just bloody shit news.

This palace has been a huge part of my life and probably my most interacted site on the internet. The community here is outstanding and I really am going to miss this.

Sharing our projects.
Sharing our favourite bike pics.
Admiring all the hand made gear.

What're we going to do without this? I heard a mention of discord, I don't know what that is but it can't be as good?

Maybe a lfgss reddit is in order?

Please drop me a follow on IG, I always post bike related stuff on there and would really like to see yours too!

@jltn__

Well BP are just BP now not British petroleum.

There's nothing to say that that because lfgss was originally London centric it is any more

Nope. I'm not going on the regular internet. This place is special and sacred and must be protected. Surely give our collective career progression since 2007, we have some legal and lobbying capability in our midst that can help?