Retrobike has little to worry about
I am not so sure that is the case if i understand correctly the way things are. Every UK based forum website should already be worried because of the state of society. It is very easy to place illegal content of some kind into a forum and if the person behind that also starts spreading the offending thread/post all over the big social media sites using sock puppet accounts, while the mods are one step behind, then there is trouble. A bunch if sock accounts and a bunch of bot accounts and within minutes the content is everywhere. The content only has to be online long enough for screen grabs, or to post onto one of the many archive servers, and that moment in time is with us forever. Deleted really does not mean deleted anymore and some websites/people never recover from the moment that gets recorded.
This kind of thing is going on all the time and it is getting worse. The difference when the new laws come into effect is the website owners could also be in very deep do-do financially. Currently you might just get dragged through the coals on a social media site, possibly a visit from the rozzers, or banned by hosting services . All bad enough, but much easier to not be held totally responsible for what someone else has posted from a shed in Timbukto, or Nottingham.
It is BUT there are always windows of opportunity and people looking to mess things up for others just for fun. Sometimes it is for practice and sometimes it is a targeted attack. You might think RB is low on the radar but it it is high profile enough to get unwanted visitors.
If i was running a forum and had decided to stay online; i would definitely put a stop to all new registrations now that these stories are gaining traction. There are quite a few running now on various news and tech websites and i would prevent any new accounts from being opened from today. They could just be sleeper accounts that will get fired up when the law comes into effect. Some people with more time on their hands than is healthy will definitely try various ways to crash the relevant websites/servers with mass reporting of bad content.
I would also put a stop to private messaging and for sale ads, lock only but the most used threads until the dust has settled and things become clearer. Basically; give the mods as little to do as possible and make the forum easier to police by good users and the mods. Everyone can wait because not a great deal of the content is critical to life.
It is a sad state of affairs as there are forums that have users and threads that are absolutely critical to life. RB and LFGSS can both show examples of health checks being called in, mental health support in times of crisis and it is a flip side of the technology that in some ways might be causing harm, but also provides easier access for support. You just have to make sure the person(s) you are confiding in mean well and that is why the same tech can go full circle back to being harmful.
It is an ugly mess that we have created. At some point, back in the very beginning, a nerd sent a naughty pic over the net to another nerd as a laugh and to prove the tech worked. Those individuals were stupid and naive if they didn't think that it would not get any worse than that, but alot the time humans don't want to do the critical thinking because they want a pat on the back and a pay rise, or be some kind of hero, so it just got shrugged off and not thought about. Now we have websites encouraging suicide, eating disorders, animal torture, etc and innocent looking gaming places for kids that are absolutely rammed with pervs baiting the kids for pics, or meet ups. Ifmit is depraved and bad for humans it will absolutely be found on the open to everyone internet.
One positive thing about the internet is the same tech can be used by hunters who try and unmask the filth and report them to whoever they can. Alot of the global arrests for animal torture, this year, have only happened due to the unpaid neets and nerds who have catalogued the depravity and shared it with the right authorities. Same goes for all the work that is going on to uncover just how bad Discord is for the young'ns. It also shows the true colours of the people who are running these places when they repeatedly fail to act on archived receipts.
A great deal of the internet and its content really just needs burning to the ground and, sadly, some good places are going to end up in the same fire.
