UK chat forums are shutting themselves down rather than face regulatory burdens recently applied to internet policing laws.
On March 17, the UK’s Online Safety Act, a law that regulates internet spaces, officially kicked into force.
The law means that online platforms must immediately start putting measures in place to protect people in the UK from criminal activity, with far-reaching implications for the internet.
However, for some forums—from those for cyclists, hobbyists, and hamster owners, to those for divorced father support and more—the regulatory pressure is proving to be too much, and the myriad rules are causing chat forums that have been operating for decades, in some cases, to call it a day.
‘Small but Risky Services’
The act—which was celebrated as the world’s first online safety law—was designed to ensure that tech companies take more responsibility for the safety of their users.For example, social media platforms, including user-to-user service providers, have the duty to proactively police harmful illegal content such as revenge and extreme pornography, sex trafficking, harassment, coercive or controlling behavior, and cyberstalking.
Ofcom, which has been given powers under the law, first published its illegal harm codes of practice and guidance in December 2024 and gave providers three months to carry out the assignment. It warned that those who failed to do so could face enforcement action.
“We have strong enforcement powers at our disposal, including being able to issue fines of up to 10 percent of turnover or £18 million [$23 million]—whichever is greater—or to apply to a court to block a site in the UK in the most serious cases,” Ofcom stated.
‘No Way to Dodge It’
London Fixed Gear and Single Speed (LFGSS), a popular cycling forum and resource for nearly two decades, shut down in December 2024.“We’re done ... we fall firmly into scope, and ... have no way to dodge it,” a post on the site reads. It notes that the law “makes the site owner liable for everything that is said by anyone on the site they operate.”
“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 [the forum is] based in the UK means we’re covered,” the post reads.
Dee Kitchen is the software developer behind Microcosm, which was used to power 300 online communities, including LFGSS. He said he deleted them all on March 16, a day before the law kicked in.
More recently, The Hamster Forum shut down.
UK users are also being blocked from accessing sites hosted abroad.
‘Not Setting Out to Penalize’
“We’re not setting out to penalize small, low-risk services trying to comply in good faith, and will only take action where it is proportionate and appropriate,” an Ofcom spokesman told The Epoch Times by email.
“We’re initially prioritizing the compliance of sites and apps that may present particular risks of harm from illegal content due to their size or nature—for example, because they have a large number of users in the UK, or because their users may risk encountering some of the most harmful forms of online content and conduct.”
Critics of the law said the ongoing changes to the way people in the UK use the internet is the “law of unintended consequence.”
Professor Andrew Tettenborn, common law and continental jurisdictions scholar and adviser to the Free Speech Union, told The Epoch Times that smaller sites “might well shut down under the pressure“ or ”simply get hosted abroad.”
“There’s not much Ofcom can do about an outfit abroad, especially as if anyone knows how to use VPNs,“ he said. ”It’s the young who are meant to be protected. Indeed, Ofcom has to be careful lest it drive young people to decidedly dodgy sites abroad. Law of unintended consequences and all that.”
He told The Epoch Times by email that survey work in advance of legislation might have helped legislators incorporate those considerations into their thinking.
“But nobody was interested,” Moylan said.
He said the government was committed to a regulatory structure in which “everything would be devolved to Ofcom.”
Digital Service Act
The UK law goes even further than the Digital Service Act, a European Union-wide regulation that requires social media platforms to remove and take other specified steps to deal with what is deemed “disinformation.”Norman Lewis is visiting research fellow at the think tank MCC Brussels, former PwC director, and director of technology research at Orange UK. He told The Epoch Times that rules such as the UK’s could, in theory, be adopted into European legislation.
He suggested that with so many regulations, “platforms that don’t generate millions, hundreds of millions, of dollars or pounds in advertising are not going to be able to operate.”
