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

Before you read on, note that the forum platform is just a piece of technology, and it can be thrown away, what matters are the people, the relationships, and to protect those things after whatever happens happens, a Discord ( https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401478/ ) has been set up to act as a life raft, but perhaps it's actually a new home. What matters are the people... the site can go to a big place in the sky, but it's the relationships and staying in touch that matters... use the next few months to reach out to people and build those connections, swap numbers, grow Signal and WhatsApp groups, and build more resilient IRL connections that use a variety of tools to glue them together. The forum is just a tool, it doesn't matter as much as the people. Why Reading https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/time-for-tech-firms-to-act-uk-online-safety-regulation-comes-into-force/ and we're done... we fall firmly into scope, and I have no way to dodge it. The act is too broad, and it doesn't matter that there's never been an instance of any of the proclaimed things that this act protects adults, children and vulnerable people from... the very broad language and the fact that I'm based in the UK means we're covered. The act simply does not care that this site and platform is run by an individual, and that I do so philanthropically without any profit motive (typically losing money), nor that the site exists to reduce social loneliness, reduce suicide rates, help build meaningful communities that enrich life. The Online Safety Act only cares that this site is "linked to the UK" (by me being involved as a UK native and resident, by you being a UK based user), and that users can talk to other users... that's it, that's the scope. I can't afford what is likely tens of thousand to go through all the legal and technical hoops over a prolonged period of time just to learn what I'd then need to technically implement and do, the site itself barely gets a few hundred in donations each month and costs a little more to run... this is not a venture that can afford compliance costs... and if we did, what remains is a disproportionately high personal liability for me, and one that could easily be weaponised by disgruntled people (trolls) who are banned for their egregious behaviour (in the years running fora I've been signed up to porn sites, stalked IRL and online, subject to death threats, had fake copyright takedown notices, an attempt to delete the domain name with ICANN... all from those whom I've moderated to protect community members)... I do not see an alternative to shuttering it. The conclusion I have to make is that we're done... Microcosm, LFGSS, the many other communities running on this platform... the risk to me personally is too high, and so I will need to shutter them all. As I fully understand this, it's the end of the EU version of "safe harbor" which is "mere conduit", as the Online Safety Act applies to all user-to-user services with user generated content, and makes the site owner liable for everything that is said by anyone on the site they operate. I agree with this for big tech who were doing too little and most of the harm cited in the creation of this Bill/Act existed there, but for small hobby tech and individual operated websites this is a huge liability that the site owners would need to accept... and none could reasonably do so. It's not enough to "complete a risk assessment", as that's the first step, the second step is always to mitigate the risk. For a forum we are likely "Medium" risk and "Multi-risk"... we'd need to respond legally, technically (scan content, build compliant moderation tools), with people (larger moderation teams even when it's never been needed), and with process (all of the above must be documented, have training materials, etc). For the 100,000s of small sites impacted, where the owners only put in an hour or two a week (or less)... this is an impossibly high threshold, and without meeting it, we're fully liable. What and When So here's the statement... On Sunday 16th March 2025 (the last day prior to the Act taking effect) I will delete the virtual servers hosting LFGSS and other communities, and effectively immediately end the approximately 300 small communities that I run, and the few large communities such as LFGSS. It's been a good run, I've administered internet forums since 1996 having first written my own in Perl to help fans of music bands to connect with each other, and I then contributed to PHP forum software like vBulletin, Vanilla, and phpBB, before finally writing a platform in Go that made it cost efficient enough to bring interest based communities to so many others, and expand the social good that comes from people being connected to people. Approximately 28 years and 9 months of providing almost 500 forums in total to what is likely a half a million people in that time frame... the impact that these forums have had on the lives of so many cannot be understated. The peak of the forums I've run has been the last 5 years, we've plateaued around 275k monthly users across almost 300 websites on multiple instances of the platform that is Microcosm, though LFGSS as a single community probably peaked in the 2013-2018 time period when it alone was hitting numbers in excess of 50k monthly users. The forums have delivered marriages, births, support for those who have passed (cancer being the biggest reason), people reunited with stolen bikes, travel support, work support, so much joy and happiness and memorable experiences... but it's also been directly cited by many as being the reason that they are here today, the reason they didn't commit suicide or self-harm. It's help people get through awful relationship breakups, and helped people overcome incredible challenges with their health. It's devastating to just... turn it off... but this is what the Act forces a sole individual running so many social websites for a public good to do. As a life raft I'm recommending Discord, it is linked above... after the 16th March this domain will simply present the Discord invite link. But there is no central place that could take us all and preserve the very special thing we had... Discord is a different thing, it will be different, we will lose a lot but keep each other. This is a really special place... the people are special... I guess the next 3 months will be a time of sharing what it meant, and of groups figuring out where they want to go next. Love you all forever, it's been amazing to be a part of it all, I never thought I'd touch the lives of so many people by running websites, and in turn to give so much reason to my own life. In the end, the person I save most was likely myself. Dee Update 2024-12-17 A lot of people have stepped in with proposals to help with the compliance, of running things in other countries, and essentially to find paths forward. For my part, I do not accept the personal risk (disgruntled user who was moderated) and liability (up to £18M for the entity that runs it, or the "officers" of the entity) outlined in the Online Safety Act and believe this to be like Chekhov's Gun , that a weapon on stage in Act I will be fired in a subsequent Act. The risk here is not in my control, the risk can be weaponised. The Online Safety Act is too broad, too much of a dragnet, it applies to every website that enables user-to-user communication, including church groups, street/village groups, little communities around a golf club, a boat club, the local football club... in Ofcom's own description of scope it includes not just the big tech companies and social media companies, but essentially all services that enable user-to-user communication via the web or an app, there is no carve-out or exception for individual volunteer led community services, which is hundreds of thousands of small services and groups. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/online-safety/information-for-industry/illegal-harms/overview-of-regulated-services.pdf?v=387540 The duties in the Act apply to providers of services with links to the UK regardless of where in the world they are based. The number of online services subject to regulation could total more than 100,000 and range from some of the largest tech companies in the world to very small services. The Act would also require me to scan images uploading for Child Sexual Abuse Material and other harmful content, it requires me to register as the responsible person for this and file compliance. It places technical costs, time costs, risk, and liability, onto myself as the volunteer who runs it all... and even if someone else took it over those costs would pass to them if the users are based in the UK. It is a disproportionate burden for small sites and local communities that are independently operated by individuals. It's scope covers personally operated fediverse websites, community forums self hosted on cheap VPS's, and so forth, it's a dragnet of a law, and the phrase for what happens in these circumstances is chilling effect. I am very likely the first to act, but running so many fora means my risk feels a lot higher to me. I imagine the volunteer running a small church group does not understand the risk they are now exposed to, and won't appreciate the scope of the law in question, they may perform the compliance and in time someone who is a volunteer running a service will be caught by this, as the leaders of Ofcom are incentivised to show that they are applying their new powers. Conclusion... as of the 17th March 2025 I will not be involved in running anything that provides a UK oriented service. If I'm involved at all, it will be as hands-off as possible and to advise a foreign based service providing to non-UK users how to do the technical stuff. What does this mean? Unsure... it may still shutter, but a lot of people would like to investigate alternatives, to figure out minimum compliance, to consider running it in another country for non-UK users (we have a significant French cycling forum on the platform, as well as tech forums with no specific geographic links). I'll keep trying to do the responsible thing if possible, but the default will be that my involvement ends 16th March, so the default is that the forums die on that date... though I may be able to move everything to Germany and give continued life to the French and International forums that exist on the platform beyond that date (and with others taking control of it from that point in time) but it is unlikely, as the monthly operating costs for only a few of the sites would be disproportionate. For those who want to do the further reading: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/statement-protecting-people-from-illegal-harms-online/ But the fundamental reasoning can be reduced to two documents: The risk assessment, meaning a forum is probably (IANAL) "Medium risk" https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/online-safety/information-for-industry/illegal-harms/risk-assessment-guidance-and-risk-profiles.pdf?v=387549 The definition as a "Multi-risk service" and what that would mean https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/online-safety/information-for-industry/illegal-harms/illegal-content-codes-of-practice-for-user-to-user-services.pdf?v=387711 My understanding is that this all exists for U2U sites that accept UGC, and that this supersedes things like "Mere conduit" in the EU E-commerce Directive, and in essence will require sites like mine to: Scan file uploads for illegal material Scan URLs shared in comments for illegal material Scan DMs/PMs for illegal/harmful material Be able to respond to reported content in a timely way Have training and resources for other volunteers etc, etc Which... for a site operated by an individual, where this is not my day job, and I only give a few hours per month normally... this requires a legal response (compliance), a tech response (new tooling), a people response (more volunteers to handle when I'm on vacation hiking or overseas), and a process response (training, materials, updates to processes). In that context, as a single person running so many sites... it's a disproportionate and unreasonable burden, and yet non-compliance carries liability that would be totally ruinous, and the risk is not fully within my control as it's a U2U sites of UGC and trolls have always existed and forums have their own culture where some of the things the OSA identify are everyday common risks. Other comments I've made elsewhere that might provide colour and context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42435591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42440887 https://social.treehouse.systems/@dee/113662184456889247 Update 2024-12-19 To aid with archiving I am removing all of the firewall rules that prevent the site from being indexed by bots. There may be periods of unreliability as the archivers find their maximum speed (by impacting our latency and potentially knocking us offline). Please use the Discord if this site is unavailable. Related Info Forum shutdown announcements: LFGSS - https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401475/ (impacts Islington CC, Espruino, PignoleFixe, Brixton CC and many others) GamingOnLinux - https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/6463/ Ready To Go - https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/the-end-of-the-forum-is-nigh.1646227/ News articles: Telegraph - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/17/hundreds-of-websites-to-shut-down-under-chilling-internet/ (https://archive.is/QHGqk) Computing - https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2024/legislation-regulation/online-safety-act-obligations-spark-concern-among-small-sites The Times - https://www.thetimes.com/comment/article/online-clampdown-puts-sites-like-mine-at-agitators-mercy-k0707wccl (https://archive.is/16lyo) Boing Boing - https://boingboing.net/2024/12/18/britains-online-safety-rules-come-into-force-andl-ocal-sites-are-already-shutting-down.html New Scientist - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2461213-hundreds-of-small-websites-may-shut-down-due-to-uks-online-safety-act/ Ripples of realisation: https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/uk-online-safety-act-lfgss-disappearing.488277/ https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=111867.0 https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1hfwxzr/lfgss_and_microcosm_shutting_down_16th_march_2025/