Just been reading on LFGSS that the Online Safety Act is causing it's demise from 16th of March:
LFGSS.COM As a long term user, this is pretty sad - although I'll be much more productive moving forward. Is there a similar impact on the STW forums?
IIRC it’s London Fixed Gear and Single Speed
I’ve no idea what LFGSS is,
London Fixed Gear & Single Speed forum.
Quite a cult following for many years, there was some very useful information on the site. As with many forums though, it had its ups and downs, I'd be surprised if the user figures for it now are even a tenth of what they were back in the day.
I dont get LFGSS. Its weird. You click on a thread and the page returns instantly. No 30 second delay. Thats just not normal. It has always just worked really well. Again, just weird..
Other than that its a really good cycling forum. Diverse and lots of non bike chat. Big shame when it goes..
Quite a cult following ...... As with many forums though, it had its ups and downs, I’d be surprised if the user figures for it now are even a tenth of what they were back in the day.
Nonsense. From the one man band owner, DK, who is a super nice person that runs it in their spare time:
The peak of the forums has been the last 5 years, we've plateaued around 275k monthly users across the 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.
I’ve no idea what LFGSS is, but was it in the habit of hosting “dodgy” content?
I think the issue is with your website having the 'potential' to host dodgy content. For a one person band that is bad enough, but is STW really that much more able to instantly identify and remove any content that could lead to some of the fines they are talking about with this legislation.
We have already been speaking to many tech firms – including some of the largest platforms as well as smaller ones – about what they do now and what they will need to do next year.
While we will offer support to providers to help them to comply with these new duties, we are gearing up to take early enforcement action against any platforms that ultimately fall short.
We have the power to fine companies up to £18m or 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue – whichever is greater – and in very serious cases we can apply for a court order to block a site in the UK.
OFCOM.ORG.UK It's Tory legislation that Labour haven't seen fit to stop. As such I suspect it's as well thought through as you would expect. This part in particular makes me laugh.
use of AI to tackle illegal harms, including CSAM;
Great, compulsory AI. I feel safer already.
But yeah, STW is absolutely affected by this legislation.
But yeah, STW is absolutely affected by this legislation.
I think in lfgss case it's the fact that
a) it's one person running it
b) they also run about 300 sites /forums that are in scope
So the effort of compliance isn't worth the risk.
It's a real shame
So the effort of compliance isn’t worth the risk.
Yeah, but does STW have the spare capacity to do the necessary compliance work? Especially since it all seems so wooly and unclear about exactly what is required and what is coming down the pipeline next year.
I know, I know, people said the same thing about GDPR but the fact is most companies aren't GDPR compliant. The reason they get away with it is because the capacity to chase up all the GDPR stuff isn't there.
I imagine it will be much the same with this legislation but it's then just a question of being comfortable being exposed to that kind of potential to get hammered if Ofcom does decide to take an interest for some reason.
dont get LFGSS. Its weird. You click on a thread and the page returns instantly. No 30 second delay. Thats just not normal. It has always just worked really well. Again, just weird..
the dekay on STW, IS the advanced AI that checks for dodgy content
Got a source for that? I’m interested.
NOYB.EU There's that but just google, 'Most companies are not gdpr compliant' and you'll find loads of articles.
Yeah, but does STW have the spare capacity to do the necessary compliance work? Especially since it all seems so wooly and unclear about exactly what is required and what is coming down the pipeline next year.
well they just published what’s required. Step one is a bunch of admin tasks and internal review shit which I can see many will call unnecessary red tape, but it’s difficult to see why the elements which apply to small sites are unreasonable. I’ve never used the LFGSS forum but most forum software has the sort of features they want to see in it, and the owner complains about the vindictive attacks he’s had from people he’s banned so sounds like they already have content moderation, user banning policies etc. I don’t know if he lets people post images but certainly, medium term that could become a bit more of a headache/cost.
i don’t think it’s particularly good legislation, but I also don’t think it will see the collapse of STW or other niche fora. I actually wonder if those saying it will have read the docs themselves or an interpretation of those docs by the “free speech campaigners” (some of who are well meaning, some of who are parroting the big social media firms in horror at having to be less c**ty and some are probably angry that it will be harder to groom kids and share illicit photos).
Got a source for that? I’m interested.
I’m pretty sure if you gave me long enough with unrestricted access to what is actually happening in any organisation that I could find some non-compliance with GDPR! I work with a lot of companies who SHOULD know what they are doing and vary from clueless to have some policies nobody reads to have policies that are enforced but were created by people who didn’t actually understand the regulations. It’s very much a novelty when someone even gets the first step of defining the lawful purpose for processing the data right.
It’s Tory legislation that Labour haven’t seen fit to stop. As such I suspect it’s as well thought through as you would expect. This part in particular makes me laugh.
Yeah, damn them and their insistence on only finding 24 hours in each day of the 5 months they've been in power!
Realistically, the political wind is blowing in that direction anyway - the electorate say/ believe they want more protecting online, so repealing something that claims to do that is really not a good look.
Would this create a space in the market for a ready-to-go OSA-compliant forum platform? From, say, a Google, basically it runs all the backend you need (including compliance with content checking/ takedown requirements etc) and you then overlay your own forum look/ feel/ automations/ setup on top of it?
ENFORCEMENTTRACKER.COM . There have been 15 GDPR related fines in the UK in 4 years. Most of those look pretty high profile. So I suspect the chances of falling foul of the new legislation are small, given that to some degree or another most sites are not fully GDPR compliant. I doubt that anyone really knows what full compliance means, as ever it will be up to the court.
That said, if I were the LFG guy doing it for love and not a living, given the (admittedly probably small) risks which appear to be beyond a fine, I'd probably be out too.
The OSA does mention "user blocking". This was requested way back on STW and I've seen it on other forums. It does need a proper Quote function in order to work properly though (for when someone else quotes someone you've blocked). That's the sort.of forum software change that would likely trouble this site and should certainly be on the list of mandatory features.
The OSA does mention “user blocking”. This was requested way back on STW and I’ve seen it on other forums. It does need a proper Quote function in order to work properly though (for when someone else quotes someone you’ve blocked). That’s the sort.of forum software change that would likely trouble this site and should certainly be on the list of mandatory features.
I only skimmed the code of practice but I interpreted user blocking as blocking PMs rather than having an ignore feature. I don’t know if blocking PMs from unwanted users is something STW supports but given even fora with “ignore” are broken when someone quotes manually, deletes the user tag or just goes old school with “ “ then it would not seem like something government would mandate, because if the content is inappropriate they want it removed not hidden so some-people can shield their eyes . But, stopping stalkers pursuing people on line, making it harder for people to groom kids via PMs, preventing users sending unwanted pictures privately etc is the ambition of the legislation.
STW could just turn off "Messages" and continue to support the excellent moderation that already happens, and they'd be 99% there... the final 1%? Well, as long as they act if asked to a fine really isn't going to happen. The fines are there to stop large companies (you can probably name them all without even thinking about) just shrugging and saying "we're based outside the UK, what are you going to do about it, freeeeeeedom!"
I'm still a bit worried about the somewhat overenthusiastic, 'This is just the beginning' section and what this legislation is going to become long term.
The words 'regulatory capture' and 'Nick Clegg' keep popping up in my mind. But maybe it's just my paranoia.
Like most news pieces that end with a question mark, I'm reasonably confident that the answer is "no, it's not a problem".
Does that guy still cycle around london delivering muffins to random strangers?
As always lots of good commentary (and some less good) on HN:
Generally the web has been going more in the way of large corporate sites over small self hosted stuff for a long time. This is just part of a larger trend. These forums seem to be struggling and I can't imagine they'll be around for ever.
/a>
From the discussion here, I think buro9(velocio) is more concerned about bad actors using this as an opportunity to move the forum from being low risk to multi-risk by spamming it with illegal content. Actually, they seem to reckon the forum is multi-risk right from the outset as users can post content without pre-approval and there is no age verification process. I'm really not sure if that's correct or not but I suspect not. I really can't figure out exactly what makes a site multi-risk.
Still, perfectly understandable that the additional checks needed wouldn't work for a one person band running 300 forums.
STW is probably fine but it's something I would be keeping a very close eye on if I were involved in running this place.
I have been directly involved as part of the consultancy between OfCom and the publishing industry on this - Singletrack was identified as an entity that would fall under the scope of this legislation by OfCom and they invited me to takle part in a series of workshops to shape the communication. It's a good thing on the whole and I'm not overly worried about our compliance or procedures. There will be admin at the start but in the grand scheme of things I'm pretty confident we are able to comply. I think the LFGSS owner has over reacted a bit.
I guess we'll soon see though.
[i]I’m pretty confident we are able to comply. [/i]
Does making it so hard to post images count as compliance?
😉
b) they also run about 300 sites /forums that are in scope
This is the key distinction.
It's the
platform that's being shut down, everything else is a consequence of that.
A platform like that seems like it would have been a useful place for people or small companies to run an online community without doing all the IT themselves or resorting to a Facebook group.
It's an interesting conundrum (from the side lines) a piece of legislation intended to deal with the sort of harms that the big, global, corporate platforms are managing to do (mostly), which necessarily has to be broad in it's scope. which of course means it makes smaller/non-profit platform operators twitchy as it seems to assign them big legal and financial liabilities.
Those same broad legal strokes that will kill the quieter little corners of the internet will also probably provide sufficient legal vagaries and room for interpretation that the actual targets will just be able to lawyer their way out of it...
Stand by for some unintended consequences folks...
Cookeaa - I don’t think this IS just about big evil megacorp social media though, yes they have the ability to cause very specific forms of online harm but there absolutely is a vulnerability through niche platforms too - whether that is children interacting with adults (or each other) or the sharing of harmful images etc.
Gov has a tricky job to do - because be seen to be resisting regulation and the opposition will shout that you are enabling peadophiles and protecting social media giants, then when some atrocity happens someone will find an niche website where those responsible where interacting and you get the blame for that too. I’m not sure that the bill will actually work, but I think any organisation (of any size) which says it can’t comply probably needs to take a serious look in the mirror and ask if its tools could be used to do more harm than good.
A platform like that seems like it would have been a useful place for people or small companies to run an online community without doing all the IT themselves or resorting to a Facebook group.
if the owner can't/won't/doesn't even want to attempt to comply or even fully understand* the legislation, then yes they should shut the platform down. Plenty of other ones available! It doesn't really sound like that big of a deal, I'm sure STW will be fine.
* seems most accurate
Looks like someone may be trying to weaponise this to cause trouble for the folks at mumsnet. Not ideal to say the least
BBC.CO.UK I know, I know, people said the same thing about GDPR but the fact is most companies aren’t GDPR compliant.
Snopes don’t have enough information about this to give an affirmative answer. I’d expect them to know.
Looks like someone may be trying to weaponise this to cause trouble for the folks at mumsnet. Not ideal to say the least
"Over the years we've been swatted [fake calls to the police], attacked by bots and suffered bomb threats amongst other things.
Wonder what sort of people might be that offended by women having their own online space to express themselves…?
Wonder what sort of people might be that offended by women having their own online space to express themselves…?
Why do some members insist on bringing the culture wars into every thread.
If CSAM was posted on this site should we just assume JK Rowling read Hannah's article and decided to get revenge?
Mumsnet is a big site and while it is known as being a safe space to express transphobic views and for being hostile to intersectional feminism that doesn't mean someone didn't do it for another reason. Or just for shits and giggles.
White feminism may be under threat but it doesn't mean you have to check under your bed for bell hooks before you go to sleep at night.
