Online Safety Act – shutdowns and site blocks

https://www.blocked.org.uk/osa-blocks

108•azalemeth•1h ago

Comments

Telaneo•1h ago

The list's probably going to get a lot longer. I wonder how it's going to compare to the list of sites who block Europeans due to GDPR concerns. I've only ever noticed two sites that did that, even though the amount of noise from Americans was not insubstantial. The OSA is a lot more invasive than the GDPR though.

ta1243•59m ago

The main category of site which GDPR blocks are local news sites in the US

Sites block for GDPR because they want to abuse visitor data and privacy

Sites block for OSA because they don't want to abuse visitor data and privacy

Oras•35m ago

How about when it’s a local site, they don’t really care about EU traffic? It’s too much “pointless” effort to comply such as having EU servers to process user data, extra code to show the ugly cookie consent, and privacy policy and terms of service that would comply with GDPR.

trinix912•23m ago

Or perhaps just don't use sketchy 3rd party advertising and analytics? You can always offer companies to send you PNG's of ads and serve them to the user without any of this. You can always analyze server logs to see which pages are the most popular, without deanonymizing the users. It's how some news agencies in the EU already do.

mytailorisrich•19m ago

Why would you bother at all?

If you are a local site by a local company on the other side of the world you don't need to block anyone, you just ignore foreign laws.

In the case of those news site, though I suspect that most Oare owner by large multinational companies whose lawyers advised that blocking EU visitors is the only 100% sure way to avoid hypothetical retaliation by EU authorities.

michaelt•56m ago

Also the EU's population is 450 million, while the UK's is 69 million. So losing the users stings 85% less.

visualphoenix•23m ago

It’s not just the UK implementing age verification actively. 5 EU member states [0] are actively participating: Denmark, Greece, Spain, France [1], and Italy.

Canada and Australia are jumping in [2] [3].

[0]: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...

[1]: https://www.twobirds.com/en/insights/2024/france/la-loi-sren...

[2]:https://facia.ai/news/canada-proposes-age-checks-for-online-...

[3]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-11/age-verification-sear...

mna_•10m ago

Just looking at raw population isn't good enough because some countries are more "online" than others and the UK is one of those countries.

crashprone•20m ago

Would you mind elaborating on your statement? How is the GDPR invasive? Invasive from the content providers' POV?

j1elo•54m ago

> reddit discussion about a type of bowel surgery

Are they really going to register individual topics for Reddit?

Wait,

> Post on social media website X claiming that content relating to protests has been age-gated due to the Online Safety Act.

Now we're reporting individual tweets?!?

Popeyes•52m ago

I think it is based on tags, so if you tag stuff as NSFW then you get an age challenge.

hdgvhicv•29m ago

The Reddit link works fine with old.reddit. New Reddit has always required an account for nsfw subs.

II2II•24m ago

Judging from how most of the reports are phrased, the shutdowns and blocks are initiated by the content providers. Some are for legal reasons, some because they are legitimately concerned that they may be covered by the act, and some to protest the act. Those who are claiming that the government shut down these sites are spreading disinformation. It is more accurate to describe it as a chilling effect.

coldtea•20m ago

>Those who are claiming that the government shut down these sites are spreading disinformation. It is more accurate to describe it as a chilling effect.

Same difference. Making a pedantic distinction to mud the waters is the real disinformation.

imtringued•54m ago

Stop smoking subreddit and irish music site considered harmful to children.

The amount of geoblocked/shutdown sites by far exceeds the "intended" [0] targets.

[0] Everyone knows that the collateral damage is intentional and this was never about porn.

trinix912•39m ago

As well as seemingly completely innocent things like renaultevclub.co.uk - Renault EV Club. What on earth did they think was going on there to get them on the list?

HPsquared•37m ago

Any forum, really. Abundance of caution. It's a cost/benefit thing. Also I suppose forum users of an EV site will be able to get around the block anyway.

PeterStuer•6m ago

It's a site were users can post content that can be seen by other users. Yes, it is that simple. Can't have the common folk spouting uncontrolled narrative without us knowing their identity now can we.

KillenBoek•53m ago

This is insane, how long will it take them to overreach and abuse their power for political gain?

Mk2000•41m ago

They already are...

swarnie•41m ago

It happened almost immediately. Certain protest footage posted to X was already blocked in the UK.

Get back to work Nicholas 30 ans. The Uniparty demands another day of sacrifice.

coldtea•18m ago

This is already part of a long line of laws specifically used for abuse of power and political gain...

perihelions•47m ago

Some similar discussions from earlier this year,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43152154 ("In memoriam (onlinesafetyact.co.uk)"—147 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42433044 ("Lfgss shutting down 16th March 2025 (day before Online Safety Act is enforced) (lfgss.com)"—555 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43152178 ("Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act"—87 comments)

akomtu•41m ago

100 years ago the British Empire tried to thought-control India. Today the empire is a bunch of demented aristocrats who are thought-policing those few who are still under their control.

b800h•28m ago

If the aristocrats were in control we wouldn't have these problems. They stopped running things a long time ago.

cess11•19m ago

Fine, it's not as much an aristocracy as a more general nobility, to an extent competing with foreign oligarchs and governments for control.

E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords and so on.

michaelt•12m ago

Yes, these days our prime ministers normal, everyday knights, etonians and billionaires. Sometimes they'll be photographed without a tie, or they'll have a chummy nickname like Tony or Dave or Liz.

You know, normal people like you and me.

LAC-Tech•37m ago

At this point, I am pretty confident I can live the rest of my life without ever entering British air space.

So I ask myself - could I come up with a simple HTML page that would be illegal in the UK without age verification checks? I won't host pornography, but it seems to cover a lot more than that. Photos from contests? Calls to overthrow the government?

I'd put it under some creative commons license so other people could host the exact same content. What if there were thousands, or tens of thousands of sites that did it. It'd be wonderful if people were willing to put their money where their mouth is how them how impotent and illegitimate their laws really are.

trinix912•29m ago

I don't think it will take long for most people in the UK to realize what's going on, they're already protesting, and it's clear that protest footage is being blocked too.

I also don't think it would take the UK too long to block sites like what you're describing. It's now totally doable that ISPs would run non-whitelisted websites through an AI screening before serving them to the user. Or they might choose to go after individuals accessing them multiple times, as repressive governments go after individuals possessing/viewing politically "harmful" material.

LAC-Tech•26m ago

I would love to be blocked by the UK government. I'd wear that badge proudly.

Do you think I could get them to send me a certificate and everything?

ENGNR•20m ago

Blocked. By Order the Queen.

I'm sure someone could whip up some merch super quickly as souvenirs/protest

gschizas•15m ago

> By Order the Queen

The King. Sorry to spoil The Crown for you, but Queen Elisabeth II has been dead for a few years.

Digit-Al•11m ago

What rock are you living under; our Queen died a while ago now. It will be by order of the King these days : - )

alpaca128•9m ago

Block Save the King

nickweb•36m ago

Fully understand the reasons for the site - and the title on HN is shutdowns and site blocks - but the site itself displays self-enforcinging sites and shows them as potential government blocks.

There are blocked sites but you have to look for them in different sections of the site.

One site shown at the start of the other pages, adult friend finder is showing as blocked, however I can access it from my UK provider so honestly not sure what value this site brings (yet) apart from highlighting those that have a self-enforced blackout due to "451 Legal Reasons".

I'm on mobile so difficult to copy and paste - but that site was the top of an alphabetical list after I made my way past a few VPNs.

pjc50•33m ago

Note that this is not just a UK thing but also in several US states: https://avpassociation.com/4271-2/

haritha-j•27m ago

True, but certianly doesn't make me feel any better about it. If we started getting school shootings in the UK, and someone said ah but the US has that too, I wouldn't feel much better.

ascorbic•29m ago

This is a confusing mix of sites that have decided to geoblock UK users because they don't want to deal with the regulations (fair enough) but also ones that have age verification and no geoblock

b800h•26m ago

What's frustrating me about this is that theoretically this list should include every MUD and BBS, if they don't want to get in trouble. It's a horrible law, which forces people into the pockets of the largest sites which can afford to do the age verification.

Speaking as a Brit, I wish Wikipedia would just go black for the UK. That might focus some minds.

cs02rm0•8m ago

> Speaking as a Brit, I wish Wikipedia would just go black for the UK. That might focus some minds.

Likewise. People (organisations/companies), as far as possible, shouldn't be pandering to this stuff, it's not the answer, it doesn't help them or us.

silon42•7m ago

Even if they don't, maybe go black for all weekends.

coldtea•22m ago

Yeah, the government that let the strets go rampant with crime, that they don't even bother tracking anymore, is concerned about the people's "online safety"...

randomNumber7•3m ago

They don't want you to be able to talk about their incompetence or organize protests.

__loam•3m ago

The idea that the uk is a remotely dangerous country is probably why it's now seeing more and more nanny state laws. It's also probably part of why Brexit happened.

rapsey•2m ago

Not to mention decriminalizing rape of white girls.

santiagobasulto•18m ago

They blocked irish.session.nz: "Resources for learning Irish music by ear". This is either a mistake or a very early example of a political abuse of the OSA. Both are wrong of course and prove what a stupid and concerning thing OSA truly is.

nickweb•17m ago

They didn't block it. The site owners have chosen to not show the site to UK users for Legal Reasons.

miohtama•15m ago

If I am right it is the opposite. It's because website owners block the UK IP addresses, as otherwise they could face criminal charges unless they buy an expensive compliance-as-a-service solution to check the age of all visitors and hire lawyers to craft "compliance policy" Ofcom can read. Otherwise you have a criminal liability.

Think it as a bit like GDPR but 1) much more expensive 2) with criminal liability 3) Makes even less sense than GDPR as it does nothing to prevent harm for minors 4) derimental for user experience and users.

"Funnily enough" the companies who lobbied for Online Safety Act, and former Ofcom employees, are now selling age verification check services and compliance services related to Online Safety Act. They have pretty good profit margins there, making even Google and Facebook look poor.

More here:

https://x.com/moo9000/status/1950866445186818209

dan-robertson•12m ago

The data quality here seems poor, eg it lists reddit.com as having shut down, which is clearly false. I think some list like this would probably come across better with some curation so it isn’t largely a list of unsympathetic porn sites and no-name blogs being blocked to spite the UK.

thrown-0825•11m ago

Being British sounds genuinely awful.

awaisrauf•11m ago

Why are people so bothered with govt requiring a single photo for some websites when private companies already have all the data of almost all humanity?

ZunarJ5•9m ago

Because it's going to a third party.

trinix912•3m ago

Because it could end up with the government blocking access to websites critical of it, or go after individuals accessing such websites as they will now have all "proof" they'd need for that.

In an extreme case, they could blacklist your ID to prevent you from spreading "harmful" political views.

PayPal use on Steam is currently unavailable in my currency. Why?

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