Be Excellent To Each Other

So, unexpected news. Take a read of https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/ ... nto-force/

This, due to your standard lack of foresight from tech folk in the government, will affect sites like Beex.

Which means that Beex will need to close (and maybe be removed entirely) slightly before it's 17th birthday in March.

I am, of course, open to suggestions.

I’m on the committee for another forum that’s also starting these discussions. Closure seems at first like an extreme response, but it’s going to be impossible to meet all the requirements to the same standards as the tech companies.

Exactly that - it's clearly written with large companies in mind but the definitions are so sweeping that it collects everyone up in the same net.

Does anyone know if RLLMUK is looking into it?

Considering this is potentially the end of the forum, I suppose I should pin this.

At first glance it says this is for "tech firms" so my strong suspicion is this won't apply to us, BUT it also says a digital tool is coming in 2025 that will help tech firms assess how to be compliant.

I would hope that contains something that says something along the lines of not applying to apps or sites where there are fewer than x staff or users

This isn't the Brexit we voted for.

This may help folk understand what's going on:

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401475/

With other compliance measures (digital download taxes, EU responsible goods handlers, etc) solutions have been quickly established to bridge the gap if there is one, to keep things legal.

Hopefully there will be some kind of exception or compliance assistance that won’t be impossible to meet, and, most triumphant, it will be all be ok and we can all continue to marvel at Malc trekking for miles to go and swim in a random river in the freezing cold.

Yes, that's the one where I'm on the committee. We've only just started talking about it though.

Ugh. Thanks, that all seems very end-of-the-line but measured and thoughtful, and definitely makes it easier to understand from an administrators POV.

It's surprising that a sweeping government ruling wasn't fully thought through.

I'm in a situation where my forum has to move hosts and it's just the worst chore making things like that work. So I've been expecting that it will die anyway.

The users have mentioned Slack and Discord but they're both so ugly and awful that I can't imagine using them.

Back before I self-hosted my forum (which is a Simple Machines Forum one) I used to use one of those shitty hosted proboards ones. Would that be the workaround?

So obviously things may change, but if they don't... this is the end?

When reading through that lfgss post I was kind of imagining Grim... but when it got to the part about being transfemme, my brain broke a little bit

The Ofcom site has a "does this apply to you" checker and beex is firmly in the yes camp. Mainly because basically everything is

yeah I did it for my site and the thing is if users can communicate with each other. So I guess PMs mean that it does apply.

Finally we are relevant!

Lets just hope that there is sufficient backlash for some changes to be made. I can't imagine it going over very well if everything that this would kill off does indeed end up dead.

It does seem over kill for a forum. Hope it is reviewed in the next few months

I wonder how many forum owners even know about it. I mean I had no clue until this thread. I've searched around and it's been mentioned on that cycling forum above, one football forum and a couple of hacker places.

Man, the shit and boring thing that is todays internet is about to get a whole lot shitter and more boring.

So the current thinking (and bear in mind it's only been a day) is that we're going to ride it out and see what happens.

There is a contingency plan for the forum, and, put simply, Beex will continue on despite the legislation. The only change will be that I don't host it any more, which won't really affect anything (beside my bank balance ).

We might even have a mod election

This is all crackers! What the fuck?

Exactly! We don't need a Mod election!

Who even are the mods?

They had a big fight on the Brighton beach with the rockers

We don't need no thought control

If this is the major bit that it affects, could the PMs being turned ‘off’ avoid moving servers, and just add users to a WhatsApp group or similar? Or does ‘communicate with each other’ apply to communications in the open, so general posts and similar?

More generally, does this mean that forums (etc) in the U.S. and other places that can’t or won’t bother to install measures to keep in with the demands of the bill will be unavailable to U.K. web users?

Who was most rocker?

Hey, Kier! ….leave those geeks alone

How do you define, "All in-scope services with a significant number of UK users,"?

I think the problem is that they haven't.

Indeed. Like a lot of legislation, they introduce it and wait to see who drives a coach and horses through it.

Badly

I'd like them to start with defining 'services' personally

I think MPs are good at defining personal services.

This looks like a decent guide.

https://russ.garrett.co.uk/2024/12/17/o ... act-guide/

And https://buttondown.com/indie-and-commun ... ompliance-

Ok, we can all stop panicking now. I woke up this morning and realised BEEX must be exempt, because Rule 1 is 'Be excellent to each other.'

Did anything ever happen because of this?

Shhhh. Don't draw attention to BEEX.