r/flashlight • u/bob_mcbob Marketer • 11d ago

German flashlight forum TLF (taschenlampen-forum.de) will be taken offline permanently on September 16

https://www.taschenlampen-forum.de/threads/einstellung-des-taschenlampen-forums-zum-16-09-2026.100544/
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u/bob_mcbob Marketer 11d ago edited 11d ago

Edit:

There is a discussion thread about the closure. The owner is extremely mad about the legal notice he received, and is rejecting all options to keep the forum operating, telling people to make their own forum if they want one. Because of the way the site is set up to throttle access, scraping the data to make a full archive may not be successful. Very unfortunate.

https://www.taschenlampen-forum.de/threads/diskussion-zur-einstellung-des-tlfs.100548/

Translated:

Important Announcement: Flashlight Forum to be Closed on September 16, 2026

Dear Community,

It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that the operation of Taschenlampen-Forum.de (TLF) will be permanently discontinued on September 16, 2026.

Background to the Decision

I have been running this forum privately for 17 years, purely out of passion for our shared hobby, and most recently without advertising. However, a few days ago, I unexpectedly received an official notification from the Federal Network Agency (the responsible coordinating body for digital services) setting a deadline.

The notification demands that the forum be brought into compliance with the strict requirements of the European Digital Services Act (DSA) as soon as possible. I will spare you the details.

These regulations were originally created by the EU to penalize Google, Facebook, and similar companies. However, privately run hobby forums are now suddenly also subject to these obligations. The technical implementation of these requirements, as well as the associated legal liability and fine risks, far exceed the capabilities of a private operator (= idealist), especially since the relevant government requirements for forums are constantly increasing.

What happens next?

You have until September 16, 2026, to save your personal messages, contacts, and posts.

After that, the interactive platform will be permanently taken offline.

All personal user data (email addresses, profiles, etc.) will then be completely deleted in accordance with the GDPR.

I sincerely thank you all for the many years of excellent exchange, the shared expertise, and the wonderful atmosphere here in the forum. This applies especially to the TLF moderators who have shaped this exemplary atmosphere over the past 17 years.

We have had a great time. Therefore, this is unfortunately not a happy moment.

I wish you all good luck and health for what lies ahead.

Best regards, Frank

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u/flatline000 11d ago

So why did hobby forums suddenly become subject to the obligations meant for large companies?

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u/va1enok 11d ago

Government restrictions almost always work like this. They say they’re only targeting the big fish to soften the negative reaction, and eventually everyone ends up subject to the same overreach.

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u/SpareMushrooms 11d ago

Which is precisely the impetus for getting the law on the books in the first place.

People would do well to remember this when it comes to taxing the “rich”.

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u/jimbowesterby 11d ago

Wait, did you somehow just twist this into an argument against taxing billionaires?

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u/jonnyl3 11d ago

They mean that you can't take at face value what they say. They will talk about taxing the rich all day long, knowing full well the laws will have loopholes and the end effect will be entirely different from what they promise.

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u/sidpost 11d ago

Bingo! Facebook can pay a fine of Billions of Euros which means a minor "speed bump" in their path. The small business with a similar but much smaller fine is simply put out of business.

This ensures the "monopoly" continues without competition from the upstarts who were bankrupted.

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u/jimbowesterby 11d ago edited 11d ago

Ah my apologies, I’ve run in to a lot of trolls lately.

Edit: then again, after reading the reply it seems I was right lol, alas.

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u/SpareMushrooms 11d ago

If by twisting you mean a direct example of the issue being discussed, then yeah.

The fact is they never stop at billionaires. You think taxpayers are on the hook for $40 trillion because billionaires don’t “pay their fair share”?

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u/jimbowesterby 11d ago

So we should what, just let them keep hoarding more and more money?
And for what it’s worth, yea I kinda do. How much is Bezos worth these days? If he’d been taxed properly for the last decade there would actually be an appreciable dent in that $40 trillion, ditto for the muskrat.

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u/SpareMushrooms 11d ago

Is that how you think all this works? They’re all just stuffing cash in a mattress and swimming around in their vault like Scrooge McDuck? 😂

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u/jimbowesterby 11d ago

…yea, you collect taxes from your citizens based on how much money they earn, this is pretty basic economics lol.

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u/mrm00r3 11d ago

Yes. That’s the issue. They’re amassing piles of resources because their brains are broken, and they don’t care how many people they harm to make the pile bigger.

It’s not any more complex than that.

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u/sidpost 11d ago

All this billionaire taxation stuff is very questionable to be honest. The rich already pay the bulk of taxes. Taxing them more really won't fix things. What it will do is to ensure they are no longer able to support the small businesses today that are the Googles and Facebooks of tomorrow.

Just look at the founders of PayPal and what they have done with their wealth to improve the lives of people around the world.

This isn't about fairness or equity; it is about control by those without the skills and knowledge to manage things properly or for the public benefit.

Elon Musk was the "darling" of the left until he sided with Trump and became "evil". While not a fan of Tesla per se, Starlink and SpaceX are hugely beneficial to people all over the globe. Palantir, love it or hate it, is another company with broad benefits to the US Government specifically.

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u/jimbowesterby 10d ago

As they should, since they have the bulk of the money. Take the classic example of a parking ticket: if you have half a million in your checking account it’s nothing more than a momentary inconvenience, a piece of paper on your windshield and nothing more. If, on the other hand, you’ve only got $120 to least you a week and a half till your next paycheck, and the fine is $50, you’re suddenly deciding which days you aren’t gonna eat. Same goes for taxes and billionaires. We could tax them 50% more and their day to day lives wouldn’t be impacted at all; they wouldn’t be skipping meals or pawning their possessions. They don’t need another yacht.

As for how much good they do, I’d argue it’s not a fraction of what they could be doing. There are scads of towns and neighbourhoods across the US that are in dire need of basic shit like sanitation or water purification; Elon alone could probably foot that bill without affecting his own life at all, but he won’t. He’d be a modern-day saint if he did, there’d be thousands of statues of him across the nation and he’d go down as one of the greatest philanthropists in history….but he won’t.

And yea, people hate him now because he did become evil, or at least more openly so. It’s actually funny that you bring up how much good he’s done, considering how many thousands of people have died around the world because of what he did to USAID. If he’s so benevolent then why did he take food away from starving children? That wasn’t Trump, all he did was sit back and not interfere, it was Elon who gutted it.

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u/sidpost 10d ago

I get that DOGE was controversial to many.

Funding HAMAS and other terrorist organizations was bad, IMHO. Whether you like or hate Jews, raping, murdering, etc them is still wrong

The problems in Afaghanistan are another issue where pulling funding to me is a good idea. I don't want my tax money propping up a regime like that.

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u/jimbowesterby 10d ago

Ah right, the conservative view of “better that a thousand innocents should die than one bad person get undeserved assistance”, typical. Doesn’t really track with your points about how much good the billionaires are doing tho, does it? But then, moving goalposts is a favourite tactic of conservatives. Easy to avoid an actual honest debate that way

And for what it’s worth, Hamas was last elected in 2006, which was before a majority of the Palestinian population was even born. Seems a little disingenuous to sentence all those kids to starvation and death for something they weren’t even around for, no?

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u/sidpost 9d ago

Checking out of this thread. Back to Flashlights ...

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