Open Discussion Explanation for recent staff events and future staff obligations, criticism & discussion welcome

[JahBeeuS]

Furthermore, a quick Google search produces this.

Section 33 of the Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA) places legal restrictions on the sharing of indecent or offensive material.

Indecent material includes material that is immoral or obscene [s 33(1)].

Offensive material includes material that depicts

violence or cruelty
the manufacture, supply or use of instruments of violence or cruelty
the manufacture, supply, administration or use of drugs
instructions in crime
revolting or abhorrent things
where the material would cause serious and general offence amongst reasonable adult members of the community [s 33(1)].

It is an offence to do any of the following with indecent or offensive material [s 33(2)]:

produce, or take any step in the production of, such material for the purpose of selling it
sell such material or show it in public
show such material to a person so as to offend or insult them
give or show it to a minor, or permit (as a parent or guardian) a minor to give or show it to another person.
The maximum penalty is a $20,000 fine or imprisonment for 6 months.

Emphasis mine as it might apply to content hosted here. But I'm sure the good upstanding attorneys hired by bluelight have a way around this.

 

[deficiT]

Furthermore, a quick Google search produces this.



Emphasis mine as it might apply to content hosted here. But I'm sure the good upstanding attorneys hired by bluelight have a way around this.

So, looks like this Act is a state thing pertaining to specifically south australia, not sure how that would effect this, but it could mean that the point is moot and whatever censorship law is a federal issue.

Here's the full text though if you want to break it down beyond a blurb from the search engine

https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/__legislation/lz/c/a/summary%20offences%20act%201953/current/1953.55.auth.pdf

Take note #5: (5) Despite the preceding provisions of this section—(a) no offence is committed by reason of the production, sale, exhibition,delivery or possession of material in good faith and for the advancement ordissemination of legal, medical or scientific knowledge; and(b) no offence is committed by reason of the production, sale, exhibition,delivery or possession of material that constitutes, or forms part of, a work of artistic merit if, having regard to the artistic nature and purposes of the work as a whole, there is no undue emphasis on its indecent or offensive aspects.
___________________________________________________________

discussing the intricacies of drug use, is our stated purpose, and is necessary to further knowledge and social development, and help people stay safe using drugs. So legally, that's going to take priority, over peoples desires to post abusive or derogatory content, which alienates and pushes away users and limits our ability to be helpful, and basically just makes this a toxic environment. we've always tried to avoid the promotion or glorification of drug use, but thats kind of a tough line to draw when active drug users are interacting, so no, that's not gonna look perfect. we're also not "selling" anything really, or soliciting through advertisements, i guess beyond the merch shop or donations or whatever.

the only thing in jeopardy of being "censored", is abusive, toxic, derogatory, racist, and hateful content. that's it, and it's always been in the rules, and been enforced to varying degrees depending on who is present on staff at the time. if you say enough shitty or abusive stuff in *any* community, you'll get censored. that's just kind of how self governing communities and people work in general, and always has been. freedom of association is also present in the Bill of Rights and many other documents in many countries, people can join or leave groups at will, and communities can decide if they want someone to participate or not. you guys are free to say whatever you want, the site and community still have the right to decide if they want to deal with whatever type of behavior you exhibit. one doesn't trump the other. bluelight is also not a government at all, so freedom of speech aint even at play here.

it's also an optics and reputation issue. it costs money to run bluelight, we rely on being able to work with academics doing research to run the site. hosting abusive content limits our ability to sustain ourselves, and damages our partnerships, reputation, and relationships in the harm reduction community broadly.

 

[deficiT]

The issue is most of the time it's not intended to be abusive or derogatory but some third party comes in and makes that distinction on behalf of others.

yeah, fair enough, people have different standards. the intentions behind actions have never determined outcomes though. i'm not sure what third party you are referring to but if the community or the people managing it determine something is undesirable, it's their right to remove the content or remove the user, it's that way in any group.

i've personally seen a pretty damn wide range of beliefs, opinions, and thoughts here. if anything, people basically say whatever tf they want, and they always have, which is good imo, some shit just isn't helpful. stuff like that is handled on a case by case basis, there's no textbook definition for any of this. i don't really see that as changing, nor do i see any kind of massive censorship occurring, while there has been plenty of conflict and discussion related to all of this, over years now.

 

[Tronica]

As a not-Australian not-Commonwealth citizen who lives in a place with much more lax freedom of speech laws, can we get some definition of just what exactly crosses the ‘line’ for you Aussies? I’d really like to know if I can even talk about many of my interests here on BL.

This site has for 11 years been a place where I have made friends and talked bullshit about everything I enjoy in life and mostly have never had to think about what I’m saying. It is my understanding that in commonwealth nations that is no longer an accepted notion.

I recall when I was a part of staff still, and I do realize I had my own life issues going on at the end of that, I was unhappy and discontent with the idea of bringing BL under the veil of a non-profit in Australia. Having a board and all that silly stuff. It still irks me to see this change and I can’t see why it is a necessity. BL used to be a .ru site and it’s weird to think that such an address would be associated with wilder freedoms than in the West today.

I digress. I would just like to know what you Aussies view as illegally offensive vs just in “bad taste” please. And no, the BLUA is not adequate in defining that IMO.

It's a fair question. We will provide more details when we have them. There will be a new agreement for the site (we have it drafted but need additional advice) and this will be something that anyone using the site will need to agree to in order to continue reading/posting here.

I agree that the BLUA is not detailed enough to provide full guidance. So we will provide further guidance / detail soon.

I realise it wasn't a democratic decision to bring Bluelight under the governance of an Australian charity.
I realise we haven't spoken much publicly about how this came to be.
The short version I'm happy to share is this - we were allowed to hold our funds with MAPS for years, they allowed this unusual arrangement, until they tightened up their procedures in around 2020. They then said we needed to supply them with a bank account in our name as an entity and we needed to take care of our own bills and finances. This was a problem because we didn't have an entity and having an individual just take the cash and be responsible for it was problematic for pretty much everyone except me. (because being associated with BL isn't an issue at all for my profession, working in drug policy / research). So I took on the task but it had to just be a stand in until we had a real entity to handle money, invoicing, etc. We had to make a decision as to whether that entity should be located in Australia or the US, and whether to be for profit (a standard company) or non profit. After a lot of working through, we landed on Aus and non profit as the best solution.

I should note that it costs 6000 Euros per annum to run Bluelight's servers. We get that money through our research collaborations.

So, yeah, I really wanted Bluelight not to fold which was the reality if we didn't come up with a solution. This one was it in the end.

There are still other possibilities like we could potentially have a US based charity as well as an AU one, but we'd need to see the need and the case for it, and work out all logistics. And we would need to have identifiable people in the US willing to do the work

 

[mal3volent]

It's a fair question. We will provide more details when we have them. There will be a new agreement for the site (we have it drafted but need additional advice) and this will be something that anyone using the site will need to agree to in order to continue reading/posting here.

I agree that the BLUA is not detailed enough to provide full guidance. So we will provide further guidance / detail soon.

I realise it wasn't a democratic decision to bring Bluelight under the governance of an Australian charity.
I realise we haven't spoken much publicly about how this came to be.
The short version I'm happy to share is this - we were allowed to hold our funds with MAPS for years, they allowed this unusual arrangement, until they tightened up their procedures in around 2020. They then said we needed to supply them with a bank account in our name as an entity and we needed to take care of our own bills and finances. This was a problem because we didn't have an entity and having an individual just take the cash and be responsible for it was problematic for pretty much everyone except me. (because being associated with BL isn't an issue at all for my profession, working in drug policy / research). So I took on the task but it had to just be a stand in until we had a real entity to handle money, invoicing, etc. We had to make a decision as to whether that entity should be located in Australia or the US, and whether to be for profit (a standard company) or non profit. After a lot of working through, we landed on Aus and non profit as the best solution.

I should note that it costs 6000 Euros per annum to run Bluelight's servers. We get that money through our research collaborations.

So, yeah, I really wanted Bluelight not to fold which was the reality if we didn't come up with a solution. This one was it in the end.

There are still other possibilities like we could potentially have a US based charity as well as an AU one, but we'd need to see the need and the case for it, and work out all logistics. And we would need to have identifiable people in the US willing to do the work

After 7 years on staff and being one of your hardest working admin for years, why wasn't I given the opportunity to comply with the new rules and retain my position? Why was I ignored and removed with zero warning? Why were past removed admins given the option to "resign" and given months to "tie up loose ends" but I was completely blindsided? Why was I promoted to SA mere weeks before the purge if you were so unhappy with my performance, and why did you never express any criticism of my performance if I was such a problem?

It's not professional or fair the way this has been handled. Everyone knows I can be overly emotional sometimes, but when have I ever done anything to suggest I'm a threat to the site where I couldn't have been given warning? Why not come to me privately just once and tell me where I was going wrong before you take this extreme action?

 

[Pissed_and_messed]

why wasn't I given the opportunity to comply with the new rules and retain my position?

they are the same rules

why did you never express any criticism of my performance if I was such a problem?

You and other staff were noted about issues in several ways.

I am not going to address everything you said, but few low-hanging fruits.

 

[mal3volent]

they are the same rules

You and other staff were noted about issues in several ways.

I am not going to address everything you said, but few low-hanging fruits.

No offense, but I quoted Monica so I was wanting a response from her.

I was never "noted" of any significant "issues" by any admin or by Monica. The incident involving the moving of RPs (that i suspect you are referring to) was not done unilaterally and was following protocol and past precedent. The RP forum was being flooded with threads naming specific staff and causing an unmanageable amount of drama. To the point that the staff forums were becoming unusable by other staff.

In any case, these events and any decisions made were collaborative and not solely my decision. And none of it rose anywhere near the level of me being removed from staff. Any issues resulting from these events could have been handled amongst admin and there was ample time to do so. But again, I was receiving only neutral/positive feedback and was never approached once in any formal way in regards to any problematic behavior.

they are the same rules

They may be largely the same rules as far as the user agreement, but there are massive changes as it relates to the new staff contract, policing of off site behavior, and the lack of flexibility forum mods have in interpreting guidelines on a case by case basis.

I feel like part of the rationale being used to justify my removal behind the scenes relates to off site incidents that occurred before these changes were made. Monica and I had open discussions about the question of off site behavior and whether or not it should be considered when deliberating issues here on the forum. This was still very much unresolved. And at any point, if I had been asked by her to stop or to reform in any way, I would have.

This all speaks again to the question of fairness and transparency. I think most people would agree that an individual who had just been given a promotion by his boss weeks ago (and had received no formal warning or disciplinary action ever) could not have been expected to know his performance overall was being perceived as unsatisfactory.

 

[deficiT]

Hey guys, I deleted some of the comments that weren't as useful here.

@arrall @Pissed_and_messed please allow the admin team to address the bulk of this.

I think this conversation needs to be had, it is kind of just difficult, as there is a lot of things going on and a lot of history here. I'm hesitant to close it or shut it down in any way, so hopefully everyone can just be measured about things.

At one point or another, everyone in this thread has contributed to Bluelight in some fashion, and we've worked together, and personally I do respect everyone's thoughts here. We may disagree on various things or the direction of the site or whatever, but I think we all care about the community so I hope we can try to just have the discussion, address concerns, without getting bogged down into dispute, and move forward and past this. I am happy to speak to anyone privately as well, just reach out.

 

[paltatomate]

Here we are back to deleting everything that is inconvenient and too close to the truth without given users an explanation.
Though I agree that some posts were too personal and aimed and derailing.

I don't really care what you guys do with your forum, so this will be my last contribution.
Yay!

@Tronica you could have handled all this in a more civil way. But to those who know what was going on a day or two before this all seems like some dirty move.

@mal3volent I understand you need answers to get the closing you deserve. I hope you will get, eventually. There is no use appealing to them, they are convinced they did the right thing the right way, and for the right reasons. The users know better.

It think time to let the new bluelight administration just do their thing. A position and a title alone don't make people good leaders. You need more for that than just a badge.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

And we would need to have identifiable people in the US willing to do the work

I’m sure there are people here willing to tie themselves to the site, but I must say what I’ve always liked about BL was my relative anonymity. All anyone really knows if we don’t correspond off-site is what state I live in which doesn’t narrow down a search area very much considering the population here.

I should note that it costs 6000 Euros per annum to run Bluelight's servers. We get that money through our research collaborations.

That’s what, maybe $8000 US? Damn dude so just a few of us contributing $100 a year could really prop up the site. I would have been willing to donate a significant amount of money to keep it independent now that I’m more well off. I know there are other stable people who could have helped too… but oh well, too late now.


I realize in the end, the old internet is simply gone. Really once everyone and their mother got a smart phone it was over but for a few years we still had broad freedoms. Those years are 5-10 years gone now though and I guess we all have to accept that… doesn’t mean I won’t mourn the better times.

 

[Hannah Capps]

Long-time member here... I've just kept out of the political, drug, etc., mosh pits to avoid mix-ups; the writing forum, media forums, dark side, etc., are where I blossom. Words don't work, and nuance is hard enough for NTs but very difficult for someone with autism. Only so much can be conveyed via the WWW. For example, I'm off all social media save for Tumblr, yelling from my front porch at the passing digital traffic...

I tried the Discord server, and it didn't work out well...that's just for myself personally... Heart of gold here, but a lot of folks just can't be civil and don't give common grace even after an apology is issued. I know from personal experience IRL and online. So, in conclusion, I would hope folks know how to self-censor or be aware but not tiptoe through the tulips. If there's a misunderstanding, ask and learn from mistakes. That includes everyone, old-timers and greenlighters...put your big girl and boy britches on...

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Long-time member here... I've just kept out of the political, drug, etc., mosh pits to avoid mix-ups; the writing forum, media forums, dark side, etc., are where I blossom. Words don't work, and nuance is hard enough for NTs but very difficult for someone with autism. Only so much can be conveyed via the WWW. For example, I'm off all social media save for Tumblr, yelling from my front porch at the passing digital traffic...

I tried the Discord server, and it didn't work out well...that's just for myself personally... Heart of gold here, but a lot of folks just can't be civil and don't give common grace even after an apology is issued. I know from personal experience IRL and online. So, in conclusion, I would hope folks know how to self-censor or be aware but not tiptoe through the tulips. If there's a misunderstanding, ask and learn from mistakes. That includes everyone, old-timers and greenlighters...put your big girl and boy britches on...

Thoughtful words thank you Hannah. I always do enjoy your posts

 

[emkee_reinvented]

Long-time member here... I've just kept out of the political, drug, etc., mosh pits to avoid mix-ups; the writing forum, media forums, dark side, etc., are where I blossom. Words don't work, and nuance is hard enough for NTs but very difficult for someone with autism. Only so much can be conveyed via the WWW. For example, I'm off all social media save for Tumblr, yelling from my front porch at the passing digital traffic...

I tried the Discord server, and it didn't work out well...that's just for myself personally... Heart of gold here, but a lot of folks just can't be civil and don't give common grace even after an apology is issued. I know from personal experience IRL and online. So, in conclusion, I would hope folks know how to self-censor or be aware but not tiptoe through the tulips. If there's a misunderstanding, ask and learn from mistakes. That includes everyone, old-timers and greenlighters...put your big girl and boy britches on...

That feels quite spot on as i compare the various forms of communication.
A well ... wanted to say oil and lube popped in and i saw Duppy, S.
A good forum and it was and still is, needs rules and good chemistry.
But when it flows that goes naturally.

But coming back on what Hannah wrote, it out-beat s spoken word, phone,
video conferencing, whats-ape. Long shot, behind, i am not going discord either.
But glad the rules now also apply in the Lounge. But till now this forum.

Works, seen from external, we are in a hard-time. Maybe that year of the ... ?

 

[emkee_reinvented]

It's a fair question. We will provide more details when we have them. There will be a new agreement for the site (we have it drafted but need additional advice) and this will be something that anyone using the site will need to agree to in order to continue reading/posting here.

I agree that the BLUA is not detailed enough to provide full guidance. So we will provide further guidance / detail soon.

I realise it wasn't a democratic decision to bring Bluelight under the governance of an Australian charity.
I realise we haven't spoken much publicly about how this came to be.
The short version I'm happy to share is this - we were allowed to hold our funds with MAPS for years, they allowed this unusual arrangement, until they tightened up their procedures in around 2020. They then said we needed to supply them with a bank account in our name as an entity and we needed to take care of our own bills and finances. This was a problem because we didn't have an entity and having an individual just take the cash and be responsible for it was problematic for pretty much everyone except me. (because being associated with BL isn't an issue at all for my profession, working in drug policy / research). So I took on the task but it had to just be a stand in until we had a real entity to handle money, invoicing, etc. We had to make a decision as to whether that entity should be located in Australia or the US, and whether to be for profit (a standard company) or non profit. After a lot of working through, we landed on Aus and non profit as the best solution.

I should note that it costs 6000 Euros per annum to run Bluelight's servers. We get that money through our research collaborations.

So, yeah, I really wanted Bluelight not to fold which was the reality if we didn't come up with a solution. This one was it in the end.

There are still other possibilities like we could potentially have a US based charity as well as an AU one, but we'd need to see the need and the case for it, and work out all logistics. And we would need to have identifiable people in the US willing to do the work

So Bluelight had to, i am comparing it with a human in NL.
Your born as human, but when your name gets given to the system.
Which everyone think s is normal and does it as they not informed.
That their is a choice, and also consequences. Not per-see a good choice.
You loose all social rights, medical care ed, but you are free,
pay only tax for what you want or none. And are your name.

That you just gave away your freedom and name.
Just to be part of the money game. You became a number.
Not that i had a choice then, now i can reverse it, but it would
not benefit me. you have to have a few Million/ can take care of your self.

Your status as Human changes to Person. Or Natural Juristic Entity.
So in reality, you loose your name become a nr. / a Straw-man or
Fictional Trade Object. What happens when a not-natural non-profit
organisation does this i wonder ?
Will Bluelight also lose or gain something.

My feelings bout this Political hole, we all fell for, is evil.
I didn t even consent, or know till i was 40.

Whatever i try to find,its weird that in NL. when you are doing the
Birth alert in the City hall. You no longer you, but became a Juridical Natural Entity.
Without consent. But it does offer you privilege s being a number.
Then being a name, but what the whole shit behind this game.

As you can undo it simple, which means no privileges no tax.
Freedom, but no parachute. Why, what is the aim.

 

[SvnLyrBrto]

Well, as an only occasional poster, I'll throw in my .02. I originally came here for the HR aspect like anyone else. But I figured out which drugs I like and don't like by a couple decades ago or so when raves were still a thing. I've pretty much learned all I need to know about the drugs I care about and passed a lot of that knowledge back out volunteering for DanceSafe back, again, when raves were still a thing. And frankly, I don't see myself ever developing a taste for recreational narcotics or benzos, PCP, inhalants besides nitrous oxide, or stimulants aside from the coincidental stimulant effects of MDMA and other empathogens. So, the harm reduction aspect being basically... complete, for lack of a better word... for me; I drifted into the drug culture forum out of curiosity as to how and why people use them outside of the rave/club scenes; and then into SL&R as I was figuring out if I was fully gay or just bi and the ways raves and MDMA helped me figure that all out. But at my age now I have all of that figured out about myself and SL&R is redundant too.

So I drifted into CE&P... and only even circle back there a couple of times of week, tops, unless I've been drawn into a specific active discussion. I do actually find it useful; not for drug-related harm reduction, but to see the opinions of some of the less-crazy conservatives with whom I actually do have at least a little in common. It is helpful sometimes to see that some of the enemy are not actually fully evil and that maybe there is the possibility of some reconciliation down the road. Of course, there are plenty of the full-up hate brigade who have called for me to be stripped of the rights of citizenship and accuse me of raping children just for being LGBT and believing we should have all of the full rights and access of citizenship that any hetro and cis person does. But I'm a big boy. I've been on the internet since Gopher, and was part of the BBS scene before that. I've seen every form of trolling and shitposting there is and simply revert to "sticks and stones..." and go elsewhere else for a while when it gets too bad.

tl;dr is that CE&P is really the only reason I keep coming back. Maybe that means I'm not, or should not be, welcome here anymore. If that's the case, so be it. But someone should at least point out that not everyone in CE&P came to the site to troll and argue. Time happens. Life happens. People change and mature. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

 

[Pissed_and_messed]

Maybe that means I'm not, or should not be, welcome here anymore.

I can reassure you that is not the case and point

 

[-=SS=-]

You can barely even joke around about politics without somebody somewhere being offended

Proper political debate requires free speech, and we can't uphold true free speech on a public site meant to service vulnerable people that is regulated by charity laws.
People with abhorrent opinions will need to be censored, people will get into arguments that harm friendships and professional relationships, and nothing will be any better off for it.

The drag queen / trans panic stuff, vaccine skepticism, support for eugenics/mass deportations, etc. is all either banned by Discord themselves or the server mods - mostly the former.

This is what it all boils down to basically.

You have people like arrall, alasdairm, someotherguy, and the other left-leaning people who simply can not tolerate discussion that rubs up against their worldview and politics.

Every single time the arguments that have arisen in CEPs is because one or more these individuals parachute themselves into a thread, sometimes right into the middle of others dialogues, and just attempt to shit all over the discussion with direct or indirect provocation because they saw something they did not like, in an attempt to derail and shut down the discussion. Example: I had to give arrall a point for doing exactly what I have just described, where he jumped into a heated dialogue between others and called someone a 'bootlicker'.. contributing nothing to the discussion, and was just an attempt to derail the dialogue (which is exactly what happened) because it pissed off the receiving party.

They see the word 'eugenics', or like today my meme picture of Hitler balling with cannabis paraphernalia (420 day and Hitler's birthday), and immediately fly off the fucking handle.. like you can't even handle a fucking joke. Or, they see my handle "SS" and immediately project on to me and publicly make accusations that I'm a Nazi sympathiser.

And then we get these disingenuous, duplicitous monologues such as the one I have quoted from arrall above, where they try to act all diplomatic as if they actually understand the broader context of things and are on-side.

The underlined "abhorrent opinions will need to be censored" says it all, because who gets to decide what is an 'abhorrent' opinion.. and what the hell does that even mean anyway, you have NO right to NOT be offended. No one has ever, to my knowledge, gone off about killing people or anything that actually would justify that statement. It is totally duplicitous and misleading, because the "support for eugenics", is referencing what @fairnymph said recently in one her posts, which was not support for eugenics in the way you are portraying arrall (and how others will insinuate it to mean based on what you said).. as was discussed in the thread at the time (and the moderation thread about it).

Note: See post #88 in the current thread: "I'm not mad that that nazi nymph is permbanned" - liked by, arral and deficit.

I won't go further with my words here and say what I really think of this behaviour because I want this post to stand, but it would be fully justified to let fly. Calling it disingenuous and duplicitous is polite and fair enough. Which brings us full circle doesn't it.. because what it boils down to is "being offended" and then hiding behind language to push a political position, instead of actually talking about it and hashing it out. One side in the equation in CEPs has always wanted to hash it out.. that's what CEPs is for.. the other side is just attempting to stifle and silence discussion, because they can't actually debate any of the points raised.

 

[-=SS=-]

The issue is most of the time it's not intended to be abusive or derogatory but some third party comes in and makes that distinction on behalf of others.

Missed this post, but this falls into what I was saying above.

And while I'm thinking about it, the other issue I see is that half the time the aforementioned people are misusing (and deliberately misinterpreting re: "eugenics" above) language. This seems to be something American's in particular struggle with - don't hate me, it's a generalization, people everywhere do it I know - in that they either see or project emotion onto language and think the emotion is the logic behind the language, rather than the logic inherent in the language itself.

It's an infantilization, but it is being done under the guise of achieving censorship.. which is exactly where we are here. It is political correctness. Shutting down discussion through underhanded means by playing the victim card ("I'm offended"), when it was never a right to not be offended in the first place. And it's happening at two levels.. one coming from above in the form of the 'online safety laws' --> Charities --> Bluelight, and the other from useful tools on the forums and places of discussion itself.

 

[-=SS=-]

Apologies to @HeadphonesandLSD , I completely missed your post in this thread. You captured so much of how I think and feel on this topic in your post, there's so many points in there I want to quote but I won't do them all out of respect for brevity. Great post! The kind of post the CEPs should be handling. Strongly worded, strongly opinionated, perfectly valid.

You're helping train the system that allows the dystopia we're all living in to exert more control over everyone and everything. We do not have much longer until we're living in a society like China. Which is going to prevent things like BL from existing because the Government is sure to seize the domain and servers in the near future. They will more than likely troll through all the data on the server too just to see what you've willingly admitted about yourself over the years. Have to figure it into your social credit score. It will never stop following you around.

This is why I turned down becoming a moderator again, because I am not putting my name (IP's are logged I presume) to an agreement that places liability on me, which is what the agreement amounts to. It feels like a massive trap, given the legislation in Australia, UK, regarding 'online harms'. We've seen over the past few years just how powerful this digital dragnet system is and how loopy governments can become (and the public in support of it), I can easily foresee a scenario where something I say, or a member I've moderated has said, is deemed problematic to certain authorities or their systems, and because Australia is so heavily connected with the UK I could end up being held liable here for something that happened in cyberspace over there in Australia.

I for one am sick of the Codes of Conducts, the use policies, the long winded declarations from moderators and all the other bullshit that seems to have infected every last place I used to visit on the internet. Most places which implemented them either don't exist anymore of have become total ghost towns because anyone with half a brain got out of dodge while the getting was good. They are only always used for the same purpose; silencing people the people that have obtained some power over others do not like.

Just to pick up one point and to echo the sentiment. Yes! This is why I came to BL in the first place, because there's so few places left on the internet where you can just talk freely about these big and often contentious topics without some authority or killjoy coming in to shut it all down. Half the reason why I got sucked into my cannabis habit decades ago was because there is nowhere in the real world for people like us all to meet.. I think it gets forgotten that the BL community are mostly not like your regular "normal" people.. the kinds of things that interest us (drugs being an obvious one).. the stuff that interests me I can bridge into a conversation with so few people in the real world. I'm one of the minority on this forum now, because the only drug I really use is green tea lol.. and BL has helped me in that regard, by giving me a space to air my thoughts.

To me all of this just sounds like a great way to piss off your volunteers and invite a bunch of concern trolls here to do what they do best; Kill existing communities. The vast majority of the web communities from 20+ years ago are already dead. Please don't join them. There is barely any place left with actual people on it. You're all very lucky that you managed to survive the great forum purges of the 2010s and still managed to thrive. Don't throw it all away.

Amen.

Everyone, staff and users alike, should be thinking very carefully about where we are headed as a collective by our own individual actions right now, in regards to technology use. I have tried to express some of that concern in the AI thread but it fell on deaf ears. They have already decimated comedy. They have decimated art. They are in the process of decimating the ability to converse and speak freely. They will come for your entire mind in due course.. don't make it easy for them.