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I have an update...
The gist:
- A group of volunteers from several of the largest forums on the platform has formed.
- They are investigating what it would take to pursue a legal route of compliance, the technical measures that this involves (new moderation tools, etc)
- They are also investigating what continuity looks like for the platform, i.e. a CIC to own the platform, and technical people to run the platform
- As part of all of this, there will still need to be sustainable funding... a new fundraiser will likely open in a few weeks, once a few necessary pre-requisites are taken care (registering the CIC, opening accounts, etc)
- I ( @Velocio ) will still step down, and will hand over all authority to this group, including domain names, all account access, etc, etc... the plan currently is to continue on the existing implementation of the infrastructure so there is no anticipated downtime
- Whilst the details are forming and will be announced soon, the 20-30 people involved are all core members of LFGSS, PignoleFixe and Islington CC, and have an abundance of the right skills, they are long-standing members whom nearly all of you know, and I fully trust them in this and would not lightly give all that has been created if I did not believe in the people involved in this to do the right thing and continue to move forward in the same direction that all of these forums and the platform has been moving in
This is GOOD NEWS :)
If the next two weeks goes well for this group in terms of starting to put things in motion then:
- They will need to do a fundraiser from mid-February onwards, to ensure that they have enough money to pay the bills after March 16th. Ideally they raise at least 3-6 months worth.
- To support this any monies left in the PayPal when that fundraise opens, will be donated to the fundraise... I still plan to cancel all existing PayPal donations so that the new collective has full control and can offer full transparency around the funds.
I'll lock this thread, please follow it for updates and I will reply when there are some updates to share.
- A group of volunteers from several of the largest forums on the platform has formed.
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LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)
We have an update... and I will start a new closed thread for it.
Gist:
- A group of volunteers from several of the largest forums on the platform has formed.
- They are investigating what it would take to pursue a legal route of compliance, the technical measures that this involves (new moderation tools, etc)
- They are also investigating what continuity looks like for the platform, i.e. a CIC to own the platform, and technical people to run the platform
- As part of all of this, there will still need to be sustainable funding... a new fundraiser will likely open in a few weeks, once a few necessary pre-requisites are taken care (registering the CIC, opening accounts, etc)
- I ( @Velocio ) will still step down, and will hand over all authority to this group, including domain names, all account access, etc, etc... the plan currently is to continue on the existing implementation of the infrastructure so there is no anticipated downtime
- Whilst the details are forming and will be announced soon, the 20-30 people involved are all core members of LFGSS, PignoleFixe and Islington CC, and have an abundance of the right skills, they are long-standing members whom nearly all of you know, and I fully trust them in this and would not lightly give all that has been created if I did not believe in the people involved in this to do the right thing and continue to move forward in the same direction that all of these forums and the platform has been moving in
This is GOOD NEWS :)
- A group of volunteers from several of the largest forums on the platform has formed.
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LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)
Anyhow... there are 3 (three) groups who seem to want to help Microcosm continue.
- A group of about 15-20 people from the core of LFGSS has formed from @skydancer 's ask in the End is Nigh forum... and are considering options.
- Islington CC have technical capability and are considering running their own instance of Microcosm.
- PignoleFixe have a few people who are technically capable of running the platform... and of course they are not at all concerned by the OSA because they are Europeans, with European users, and would host in Europe.
There is no "export site and spin up new infra" capability... I can delete sites, and object storage is hard to handle (it's all or nothing)... so I'd still recommend keeping the core instance, but I'm already deleting the long-tail of seldom used or low-traffic sites that could trivially move to WhatsApp groups... I hope to get this platform to a core of perhaps 3-5 sites that want to survive and may possess the technical capability and people to make it work out.
- A group of about 15-20 people from the core of LFGSS has formed from @skydancer 's ask in the End is Nigh forum... and are considering options.
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LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)
Well it's all going to get worse before anything gets better as the Govt announce their plan to let AI in public services.
AI is built on historical data, and the gist is that it takes that and constructs a model of probability and then takes current context and says "this is probably the answer" with a dice roll thrown in to make this seem more human... that's in essence how ChatGPT and other LLMs (which are currently accepted as "AI") function.
It should be obvious to all that they can only say "this is probably the answer based on what has been historically the answer"... meaning that institutional racism, ableism, sexism... this is all baked in and will be reinforced.
Unfortunately Ofcom's hand-wavey guidance, WRT the OSA, about the tools that will be used to detect illegal material is based on a direction of thought that concedes that today there isn't a solution and that it "will be solved by new AI tools".
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A couple here but lots of these shut down come the main event
https://www.streameast.gd/main-event/boxing/910602/2This has caused a thing to happen... see attached.
I don't believe a link is illegal, and I don't care about the consequences of being de-listed by Google.
This does show what happens when bots are allowed to read a forum though... which is a thing for me to bear in mind in future.
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LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)
Not really.
I run this platform...so I would need to age verify everyone using this platform.
I'm sure there's some way to get agreements in place that a Google profile with some specific OAuth scope set to indicate age verification is done would suffice.
But... doesn't that feel unsatisfying to you? Would I need to drive every user to have a Google account? Now access to this site is controlled by a third party and we're dependant on them.
The work arounds and technical steps to mitigate the identified risks... do seem to kill the essence of these types of websites.
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LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)
Out of interest, would the risk assessment change at all if you didn't allow uploads/attachments?
Not enough.
But the things that create issues and the most obvious actions:
- Prevent all File Uploads, force the use of ImgUr or another 3rd Party - mitigates exchange of potentially harmful images, videos, etc via the forum
- Prevent all Direct Messages, encourage the use of WhatsApp / Signal, etc - mitigates the risk of stalking, harassment, hate, fraud, etc via the forum
- Close all the Classifieds, encourage eBay - mitigates the risk of fraud, stolen goods, etc via the forum
- Add age verification - mitigates the grooming of children
We'd still have the risk of vulnerable individuals experiencing harm, and honestly that's just society at large.
And the forum would now be a very very different beast, a public only, text only message board... with age verification.
This is where any of these steps start hitting the lines of what I don't wish to do, I don't wish to intentionally cripple the site. I find that unacceptable.
- Prevent all File Uploads, force the use of ImgUr or another 3rd Party - mitigates exchange of potentially harmful images, videos, etc via the forum
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LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)
We have a band of volunteer lawyers currently looking into things, but so far they've roughly concluded along the same lines of myself... that there are two things to look at, the risk level and the type of service.
The type of service is captured in 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 and forums appear to be multi-risk according to the definition on page 78 of that document... mostly based on the risk involved, i.e. can you conclusively say that file uploads do not contain harmful or illegal content? if you say yes, does this include attachments on a DM? hence we start triggering some of the criteria... similar for stalking / harassment, threats and abuse... which is also extended to be "harmful but legal".
Forums appear to be a "multi-risk service".
The other doc is this one https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/online-safety/information-for-industry/illegal-harms/risk-assessment-guidance-and-risk-profiles.pdf?v=388231 and on first read we thought "Low risk", but then it starts saying you have to look at the risk profiles... and those too include things (page 64) stating that "discussions forums and chat room" are "We would normally expect such services to be assessed as at least medium risk" and we don't have strong reasons to assess elsewise.
The high level reads not so bad... but once you (like we have) start cross-comparing their own words, it becomes much harder to not conclude we're a Medium risk + Multi-risk service... and that's where the scanning of DMs, scanning of attachments, potential age verification and other implications start arising.
We're still investigating and awaiting tools, and considering options... but the default announcement of closure stands as it gives the greatest possible notice of the presently most likely outcome.
I do hope we don't have to, and likewise that you don't have to close the forums either.
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Why so angry nick?
Have you slept on it, and are you at least slightly aware how deranged and angry your posts appear to be?
If something else is going on in your life then fair enough, but keep that anger under control.
There's nothing here bannable, but you just come of as an angry jerk, a bit deranged, and like the blood veins on your head are about to burst... It's not a good look, I'm pretty sure you have more capacity for joy than you're currently showing.
This is the Home Assistant Yellow https://www.home-assistant.io/yellow/
Kinda like a Raspberry Pi, but more capable... and yes it runs Home Assistant.
It's barebones, and you add a compute module and some storage.
This is a Compute Module 5 https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-compute-module-5?variant=53746054955393
It's based on the ARM chip in the Raspberry Pi 5.
Then you add Home Assistant... and you can add other stuff if you're a Home Assistant user.
I added this https://github.com/hassio-addons/addon-tailscale and it's Tailscale, and because the Yellow is 1Gbe then it can be a Tailscale exit node.
So that's how I do it.