News Announcing deductible gift recipient status (in AUS) & roll out of new terms of use

Hello everyone

We have a couple of announcements:

1. Last week, we found out that the Australian Tax Office accepted our application to become a deductible gift recipient charity. This means if you are Australian, you can claim your donation to Bluelight as a tax deduction! Unfortunately this status is not global, but it is also a sign of our legitimate status as a charity working to reduce drug-related harms in our communities. We will soon be overhauling our donation portal to make it easier for people to donate in their own currency, as well as one-off or recurring contributions. We will let you know when the new portal has launched, but in the meantime, anyone can make a one-time tax-deductible donation in Australian dollars here.

2. Over the past couple of years, we've been engaging both US and Australian lawyers to update our terms of use. We've now finalised the wording and will be rolling it out soon. What does this mean for you? Some time over the next month, you will see a notification asking you to agree to the new terms. You'll need to agree to these to continue to use the website and our other services, even if you are not logged in (e.g. you just read our content). If you have an account, we will be able to record your agreement so you need not agree more than once. We are currently sorting out the technical implementation to make this as smooth as possible (with the least annoyance!) across our platforms. Once we have a set date for the change, we will update this post so you know it is coming.

Note that the content of the current BLUA is a part of these new terms, so, this isn't changing, but what we are doing is tightening up our protection against legal claims. Ensuring everyone understands that our content should never be understood as medical advice, nor as an incitement to commit criminal activity, for example.

Both of these things - making donation to us more useful and opening up new opportunities for funding, and updating our terms of use, will help us to continue to be sustainable into the future, at a time when there are multiple threats to the operation of stand-alone websites like this one.

Thanks again to all our volunteers and community members for making this site and all our associated platforms valuable and worthwhile.

Bluelight Communities Ltd's Board of Directors & the admin operation teams

 

None of this really fits with any relevant images so I've uploaded an image I took of an amanita we saw near our place in Victoria a few years back -- note, best avoid consuming these ones... but they are pretty!

 

Nice

 

Can you go into more detail about the new TOS before it's implemented? I'd really like to know what the lawyer are advising you guys to do. Why is the TOS changing now if the current one has worked fine for going on two decades?

I'll just get down to brass tacks; Will the new TOS have anything in it about sharing information about the users here and their posts with a third party? If so who will have access to the data?

I'm not trying to stir up trouble I'm just concerned because I've seen this happen before. I'm just really worried that the TOS is suddenly going to change. I know the laws in certain countries are getting out of control now. But I'd hate to see BL join the dark side and start restricting free speech on the forums and making changes to appease these insane laws being passed all over the so-called "free world". It's better not to play ball with them at all I think. If a country is being that much trouble just block their entire IP range and give users a warning that they need to access the forums via a VPN or tor.

Speaking of tor, Is there any possibility that BL would offer a way to post and lurk from both tor and i2p? I think it's important that we have at least a tor backup. It wouldn't cost much money to set-up access through tor. A backup domain name or three might be a good idea as well.

Concerning the charity stuff: That all sounds like really good news.

 

@HeadphonesandLSD These are excellent questions.

We were the ones that sought legal help. We've been aware of the exposure for a long time, and as Bluelight is now governed by a charity (with known organisational registration and named directors), we want to ensure financial stability so we can continue to exist. One risk to financial stability is legal risk. And a threat to stability of the charity is the risk carried by the named directors.

One of the reasons we need to act now is because for most of the 27 years of Bluelight, it was governed by individuals who remained anonymous as best they could. One of the reasons this structure was preferred for so long was because it meant there was no-one public to target if there were legal issues. But it also had risks - if those people were discovered, they could be held individually liable. So over the years, Bluelight has reduced that risk - e.g. by policies like no sourcing.

However, we were put in a position where we either had to go official or we would lose the funds donated over many years. Faced with that decision, we decided to go official. But we knew we would need to tighten our policies and practices as part of doing so.

Your substantive question is important -- I want to assure everyone here that we continue to hold everyone's anonymity as critical to what we do. Bluelight has always owned the content of the website that you all contribute to - this doesn't change. We never share information that is identifying as we structure our interactions with our community members to reduce those risks. External parties do not have access to the email or IP addresses you use for your accounts. For any agreement about data, this relates to a data use agreement for the publicly accessible data - never more than this - these agreements help us to manage any risks and specify the exact purpose of community data use. You are always able to delete your account, through the self deletion process outlined in our privacy policy.

In terms of 'restricting free speech', the BLUA will not be changing (it is incorporated into the new TOS). The clauses in that part - in terms of what content is permitted on the site - already restrict what we can allow on this site to an extent. In particular, clause 4, prohibits community members from "post[ing] or upload[ing] any content that victimizes, harasses, degrades, or intimidates an individual or group of individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or other reason". This remains in place, as before. We don't intend to further restrict speech beyond enforcing the usual BLUA guardrails.

Re Tor, happy to chat with you directly about what we might be able to do in that space.

 

Understood mate!