Hi everyone,
After many wonderful years, we're making a significant change to the forums. We're so thankful for all the incredible contributions you've made, from sharing your amazing Minecraft creations and server ideas to creating fully immersive and realised mafia games before anything like Among Us became popular. This community has been a fantastic hub for all things Minecraft, gaming and history.
Starting on August 8, 2025, we will be transitioning the forums to read-only mode. This means you'll still be able to access and read all of the existing discussions and resources. However, you won't be able to create new posts or reply to old ones. The forums will remain as an archive of our community's valuable conversations and shared knowledge.
Government overreach and how it affects us
I wish I could continue to allow the forums to function as they have for 14 years. However, our hands are tied due to new laws recently enacted by the UK government. Specifically, the Online Safety Act has put us in an impossible position. This legislation places a legal "duty of care" on a vast range of online services, including forums like ours, to protect users from illegal and harmful content. While the intention is to make the internet safer, the requirements for compliance are extensive and, unfortunately, unmanageable for a community run by a small team.
It's easy to assume that because this is a Minecraft forum, a place for creativity and fun, we might be exempt from such serious legislation. But the reality is that the Online Safety Act is incredibly broad, and its legal obligations apply to any user-generated content platform, regardless of its size or subject matter. We are legally required to comply, and failure to do so carries risks we simply cannot afford to take.
Additionally, a crucial and often misunderstood part of the Online Safety Act is its global reach. The law applies to any online service with a "significant number of UK users" or that targets the UK market, regardless of where the service is based. While we are a global community, our user base includes a significant number of members from the UK. This means the Act's provisions legally bind us, and we must implement all necessary systems and processes, even if a large portion of our user base is outside the UK. We cannot simply choose to ignore the law and its penalties, especially when our senior staff have UK members.
I want to be transparent about what these requirements would require from us:
- Ongoing Risk Assessments: The law requires us to conduct and regularly update detailed risk assessments for our forums. This is not a simple review, but a formal, ongoing process to identify all potential for illegal content (like content promoting self-harm or terrorism) and content that's specifically harmful to children (such as eating disorder content or severe bullying). This is a complex and resource-intensive task that requires dedicated legal and technical expertise, something a volunteer-run community simply doesn't have.
- Highly Effective Age Assurance: A key part of the Act is the requirement to prevent children from seeing particular "primary priority" harmful content. This goes far beyond a simple "Are you 18?" checkbox. The law demands "highly effective" methods of age verification, which often entails implementing complex third-party identity verification services. These services may utilise technologies such as facial age estimation or digital ID verification. The technical and financial burden of integrating and maintaining these systems is immense and far beyond our means. Furthermore, these methods often raise serious privacy concerns, as they would require us to collect and store sensitive personal data or subject them to third-party checks (which I don't trust) from our members, which we are not comfortable doing.
- New Reporting and Complaints Systems: The Act requires platforms to have clear, easy-to-use systems for users to report illegal or harmful content. While the tools are already on the forums, these systems must meet specific legal standards and include a formal appeals process for content that is removed or blocked. We would need to create and manage an entirely new administrative infrastructure to handle these complaints, which would add a substantial and unsustainable workload to our small team.
- Proactive Moderation and Liability: Finally, we would be required not only to react to reports but also to proactively take measures to prevent illegal content from appearing in the first place and to remove it as swiftly as possible. This is one of the most challenging requirements for a community like ours. Our moderation team consists of a small group of dedicated volunteers who are not constantly active on the forums. It could take days or even months for harmful content to be noticed. The Act specifies that platforms must "swiftly" remove illegal content once they are made aware of it, with the threat of severe penalties if they fail to do so.
How could this affect us in the future?
Generally, in these situations, I would just ignore it and keep running the community forums as they are.
But the consequences of failing to comply with the Online Safety Act are severe, even for a small, donation-run community like ours. As a volunteer-run project, rather than a global company, the headline fines of up to £18 million or 10% of our global revenue are not directly applicable.
However, the legal and financial risks are still catastrophic. A single instance of non-compliance could lead to a fine that would be completely devastating for our small community. Beyond financial penalties, the law also introduces the potential for criminal liability for those of us running the service. In the most serious cases, this could mean personal legal action against the individuals who run our community (for instance, me). Additionally, Ofcom, the regulator, has the power to apply for a court order to block a non-compliant site in the UK, preventing all UK users from accessing our forums entirely. In extreme circumstances, they can even seek to disrupt our donation model by requiring third-party service providers, such as payment processors, to cease working with us. This is an unacceptable personal and financial risk.
It's essential to recognise that, although our community is a positive space focused on Minecraft, we are not exempt from the risks the Act aims to address. While we do not promote or allow extremist or harmful content, a publicly accessible forum is always a target for online trolls and malicious actors seeking to post such content. The law does not make exceptions for communities with good intentions. Our duty is to protect all users from illegal and harmful material, and the risk of a single post from a malicious user is enough to put us in direct violation of the law if we can't meet the mandated technical and administrative requirements.
Continuing Our Community on Discord
This has been an incredibly difficult decision, and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to every single one of you. For years, this community forum has been a massive part of my life, a place of creativity, friendship, and passion for Minecraft. I've watched as you've built incredible worlds, shared countless ideas, and helped each other grow as players and people.
The memories, the projects, and the friendships forged here are not forgotten. The forum archives will stand as a testament to everything we accomplished together.
While the forums may be in a new read-only state, the community is not over. We are lucky to have our Discord server, a place where the conversations and friendships can continue. I truly hope to see all of you there, ready to start this new chapter together. We know many of our long-time members hold a wealth of history and knowledge from the forums, and we would love for you to bring that expertise and passion to Discord.
Joining our discord is easy, just click on this link: blocktopiamc.com/discord
Before the forums transition to read-only mode on 08/08/25, please feel free to use this thread to share your goodbyes, favourite memories, or final thoughts.
Thank you for your understanding and for being such a valued part of this community, I look forward to seeing you!
Rune
Community Admin
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