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I had a stab at it. Hopefully people can chip in and help turn this brain dump into something coherent and eloquent that we can all use.
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Dear XXX,
I am writing to you about the Online Safety Act due to come into force March 17th 2025.
Ofcom has published advice pertaining to the categorisation and requirements for user-to-user internet services (i.e. services that allow users to create/upload and share content).Specifically, this advice sets out the obligation for any service with links to the UK to:
someone please fill this in with the requirements applicable to all or multi-risk services. my eyes are bleeding and its 1am
The Secretary of State must now consider this advice and pass regulations to a make it into law.
The act, which clearly was originally meant to target tech companies (as evidenced by Ofcom’s frequent use of terms “companies”, “businesses” and “tech companies” in its literature), was set out in such broad and vague terms that small online forums such as those owned and operated by sports clubs, hobby societies and other special interest community groups, will now become regulated services.
These forums and message boards are used by the groups to communicate and organize themselves and, particularly since Covid, have become extremely important spaces, bringing people with common interests together, serving as an important outlet for personal development and expression and being an effective avenue to combat loneliness and social isolation (which are in current times their own epidemic). In many cases, communities exist solely within the realm of these online forums.
These platforms are most often ran by volunteers in a personal capacity or as members of non-profit organisations and the overly onerous and complex compliance effort required to meet the proposed requirements as well as the personal liability risk faced by the individuals operating these forums, pose a serious threat to their continued existence.
I believe regulation serves an important purpose, particularly where it pertains to the online safety of our children, and applaud its introduction. However, the proposed requirements, in their current form, will have a disproportionate impact on the above mentioned communities. They will then be faced with the choice of using commercial internet service providers (where most abusive and dangerous content is actually disseminated, as illustrated by Ofcom’s own research) or simply cease to exist.
insert personal impact statement (e.g. I personally am a member of…) or delete
The national media seems to have only just picked up on this issue. Please see below for some relevant news reporting:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/17/hundreds-of-websites-to-shut-down-under-chilling-internet/more links would be nice
I therefore politely request that you to look into this matter and intercede with the Secretary of State to consider incorporating changes into the advice received from Ofcom, to align the requirements with the nature, size and resources of these self-organized communities (which are an expression of the centuries-old British tradition of associativism), minimising the impact of the act in their operation and ensuring their continued existence.
Kind regards,
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fucking gutted to read all this...
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Be good to get eyes on @dinosaurpt proposed text just above and see if there's any additions or changes. Whilst we should definitely be looking at adapting, also worth looking at getting changes at legislative end as we're one of many online communities that are facing these onerous obligations
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Honestly, spoke to a political editor at a major publication yesterday and she essentially distilled this down to being the end of "safe harbor" and "mere conduit", that she believes my interpretation to be sound.
She was supportive of providing contacts and intros, or running a story, but what struck me was her own conclusion that she would not wish to be a small site operator in this environment.
I'll continue to fight it, in part because if I succeed in any small way it will help all small sites, but for me personally I am committed to not being involved after 16th March.
I believe too deeply that the risk is not low and the liability is high, combine that with transitioning and I am too visible and too much a target for this stuff being weaponised by trolls/TERFs and others.
I still personally believe that the Discord life raft is probably the wisest thing to put effort into, but to enjoy this and other sites for as long as we can.
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In a weird full circle a football board I post on has concerns due to a Sunderland football board saying they'll be closing and linking back to here
https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/the-end-of-the-forum-is-nigh.1646227/There's going to be a lot of football messageboards out there with the same kind of worry
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Will the site be archived and able to view in its final form? It will it be "the true death"?
True death... to run the site read-only will have ongoing costs, but I cannot expect this to come with future donations.
I'm open to someone crawling the public visible site in it's totality and making a workable archive that looks like this.
You should know that the Archive Team https://wiki.archiveteam.org/ are already crawling us, and we are on their Deathwatch https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Deathwatch#2025 and that I've said I will add them to the allow list and ensure they can fully archive us. I don't know today how that will be accessed.
I am fine saying to the people on here that if you want to run a recursive wget, feel free to do so.
You should archive everything that hits https://www.lfgss.com and all files / attachments that come from https://lfgss.microcosm.app/ . The final archive will be somewhere between 1-2TB.
Actually, scratch this... I'll do it and will make a torrent available.
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I can't even fully articulate yet what this place has done for me. I just simply wouldn't be in the same place physically, emotionally, mentally, financially or geographically if it weren't for here. For so many reasons.
The fallout of this bill and what it is doing to sites like this one is going to be a literal death knoll for a lot of people. Chronic loneliness and lack of community is such a massive trigger for suicide in men. Rates of which are disgustingly high already given the state of our mental health services and any support for young people to try and get in front of any issues. Taking away what is likely the only lifeline for them to be open or discuss something they share and interest in, is going to fucking suck, hard. I focus on men here as it is very likely that a lot of these fora are probably strongly weighted in that way, not that only men will be affected.
And I don't mean "taking away" as anything accusatory to Velocio. It is the result of the bill.
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The fallout of this bill and what it is doing to sites like this one is going to be a literal death knoll for a lot of people. Chronic loneliness and lack of community is such a massive trigger for suicide in men. Rates of which are disgustingly high already given the state of our mental health services and any support for young people to try and get in front of any issues. Taking away what is likely the only lifeline for them to be open or discuss something they share and interest in, is going to fucking suck, hard. I focus on men here as it is very likely that a lot of these fora are probably strongly weighted in that way, not that only men will be affected.
Thank you for writing this... this is why I'd continued all this time, it worked like this for me as well. But thank you, for writing this.
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@Velocio once the dust has settled on the proposed legal changes, if it does result in some sort of u-turn or clarification from the gov would you ever be open to restarting lfgss is some form or are you set on moving on? Could it be 're-animated' in months time if things turn out differently?
I would also like to echo the previous messages stating what a massive part of my life this forum is, thanks for everything you have done. -
Personally, LFGSS got me through a very horrible time in my life. I couldn't have done it on my own and there was no way I was going to ask for professional help but I definitely probably needed. Esp the various events that were held in person but could only be organised through the online community. Weekly drinks, monthly weekend socials, rides, banter and new friends. I miss the weekly drinks and all our various things.
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Where my head is at, if there's no equivalent to a "this only applies to entities with global revenue above £25M" or something like that... and there remains liability for me as described in the OSA... I'm out, I'm done.
I think personally that the best thing to do is preserve this place, and make the life raft (Discord) work.
I simply don't think this is enough of a vote winning issue that politicians care, and the media have so long run stories on the theme of "Won't somebody think of the children"... that the chances of a carve-out or U-turn are vanishingly small.
Additionally... I find thinking of the scenario of a U-turn damaging still... a lot of the damage has been done, we know we need to shutter, people are already trying to make other places work... if a reprieve came in the 11th hour, what would survive in the many communities facing this will be a shadow of their former selves.
I can say "Yes, I'd carry on"... but it feels like that weird conversation, "Would you still love me if I was a worm?"... it's never going to happen, so I can say yes, but that reply is glib as that reality doesn't exist.
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But you dont want your life better.
Sad you moved away
slippers
dinosaurpt
kjlem
vpCogworks
Gustav
aggi
Josh
Jameski
stevo_com
youClown
sacredhart
ChainBreaker
Soul
Eejit-
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About
LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)
Posted by
@Velocio
@Velocio didn't i put you in touch with someone in relation to the previous legal change regarding the liability of forum hosts? Have you spoken to them lately?