dinosaurpt

Most recent activity

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

  in Forums • 2 days, 15 hours

  

  “We are trying to dismantle the idea that these criminals are monsters,” Antoine said. “The Mazan case showed with websites like Coco these people can be your neighbors – even in the smallest town people can connect online and commit these crimes.”

  Lol. Wtf. Yeah, these dudes are the real victims here. They were just your average Joe... it was the website that perverted them and turned them into bloody rapists and murders 🤦

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

  in Forums • 3 days, 5 hours

  

  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.

  —-

  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,

• 2 x MT800 Rotors brand new - £35

  in Components and clothing • 3 days, 17 hours

  

  Unlikely 3rd dibs

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

  in Forums • 4 days, 13 hours

  

  Ummm... I am not exactly a bright legal mind but, could we perhaps not be exempt from this as we do not fit the proposed criteria of:

  Condition 1:
  • the use of a content recommender system on its service; and
  • have more than 34 million UK users on the user-to-user part of the service,
  representing c.50% of the UK population.

  nor

  Condition 2:
  • have a functionality that offers users the ability to forward or re-share usergenerated content >with other users of the service; and
  • the use of a content recommender system on its service; and
  • have more than 7 million UK users on the user-to-user part of the service,
  representing c.10% of the UK population.

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

  in Forums • 4 days, 15 hours

  

  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/17/hundreds-of-websites-to-shut-down-under-chilling-internet/

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

  in Forums • 4 days, 16 hours

  

  yowsers, i hope this wasn’t meant at me! i’m not sure i meant to pin anything on anyone but sorry if i am missing the implications of something i put

  Not at all. Mere coincidence it came after your post. Scan through the thread and you'll understand where I'm coming from.

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

  in Forums • 4 days, 16 hours

  

  Sorry, I meant "archive.org is on it apparently". Edited.

• LFGSS Collective

  in The End is Nigh or The Future of LFGSS • 4 days, 16 hours

  

  Happy to contribute in any way needed.

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

  in Forums • 4 days, 16 hours

  

  Stop trying to pin this on Velocio by saying idiotic things such as "Velocio have you considered..." and stop invalidating their very reasonable personal concerns by saying shit like "nothing will happen... Ofcom won't care about LFGSS". It's your community you fucking wimps! If you are so gutted about its demise, YOU do something about it!
  From my perspective, there's various fronts we can and should be working on:

  Stop the whole thing

  - is this really unavoidable?
  - can the act still be stopped?
  - can we realistically do something about it (pester MPs, bike pile-up in front of parliament, get sympathetic media talking about this, rally other communities on the same boat)?
  

  Skirt it

  - can we find a solution to exempt ourselves from this (move site abroad, "block" UK traffic, go P2P)?
  

  Deal with it

  - can we find a solution to be compliant (transfer site ownership into LTD / CIC, fundraise to pay / employe someone to do compliance / monitoring work or crowd-source that effort)?
  

  Fucking KILL it

  - if we can't make it, we might as well go out with a Bang
  - organize rides / socials / whatever (looks like there's a thread going)
  

  Endure

  - how do we preserver the data from LFGSS (archive.org is on it apparently)
  - how do we keep going when LFGSS is gone (discord server is up and running but fuck Discord, are there any viable alternatives)?
  

• MAJs gay bikes [she’s in her fitness era]

  in Current Projects • 1 week, 4 days

  

  That has got to have been the most fucked up page change ever. Brutally sad news.