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

A real World example some will recall from a decade or so ago:

• A person was active on the forum, built bikes, took photos, seemed to be an entirely normal user
  
• A few of that person's posts were a little hard to believe, but that's something that can be said about virtually everyone's posts
  
• We learn that they were involved in a road traffic incident, and later that they died
  
• Their girlfriend registered and shared this news and starts fund-raising for funeral costs
  
• A couple of people get suspicious because of similarity in language used, nothing more, and I investigate
  
• I find that the "girlfriend" is the person in question via some internet sleuthing, and track down their address, mother's address (the person is young adult, late teens but still an adult), where they're working (thank you LinkedIn)... they had "faked" their death, and were now fundraising their own funeral
  
• I share this news on the forum, and the person is shamed into apologising
  
• A bit of a bundle-on ensues, because people are angry, the person leaves the site
  
  

The situation ended fine, they left the site, life goes on.

Let's consider which parts of the OSA that breaks...

• Fraud? Yes, attempted, only discovered by language analysis by some other people on here
  
• Vulnerable person? Yes, that person was clearly struggling with their own mental health issues and at risk
  
• Stalking? Probably, a few individuals took it on themselves to follow everything, make themselves known
  
• Bullying? Yes, the reaction of the community to this was not mild / polite
  
• Harassment? Probably, because of the community reaction, especially a few individuals who were quite angry at having been duped
  
  

Now consider what might have happened, if that person, in their vulnerable state, and under the pressure of shame from the response to their actions, had then actually ended their life as they claimed that they had... a thing that was threatened by them at the time.

We were lucky... extremely lucky.

The actions of many, from a third party reasonable viewpoint, and each interaction taken in isolation without the larger context... can very easily have been read as having breached the OSA to a severe degree and in multiple ways.

We were unlucky that person attached to this site, we were lucky to have it detected (and none of the OSA tools would've), and we were lucky it ended fine. If in fact that person had ended their life, I'd be carrying that still... I don't need the OSA risk to be there to try and do the right thing, but likewise... none of what the OSA covers will protect against the bad luck of how a scenario plays out.