Online Safety Bill Etc

[Carth]

Originally Posted by Paul

Yet another (predictable) consequence of this ridiculously stupid law.
You can bet more will follow suit, the UK will slowly become internet isolated.

That may be a good thing considering the World of crap that's on it

[jem]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

From today Ofcom is able to issue a 'Preserve data notice' to websites. This is to prevent data from being deleted and lost.

This will be invaluable for cases where children have lost their lives and websites are believed to have contributed to or caused this, but the sites either refuse to hand over the data to delay matters or say that it's been deleted.

Although as mentioned; I’m sure more than once, if said site is based abroad and they simply give OFCOM the proverbial finger, then what?

Or it is a UK-based site but they claim that ‘a hardware failure’ deleted all the data, then what? Or, ‘we suffered from an unfortunate (sophisticated, state-backed) hack, which alas has deleted all of our records, sorry about that; then what?

What will happen is that the larger sites, probably the ones who do make an effort to filter out, shall we say ‘unsavoury material’, will do their best, or decide that it;s not worth it and pay lip service to blocking connections from the UK. I say ‘lip-service’ because anyone working in this field knows that it’s not as easy to do as it might seem and, cough, VPNs and proxies.

Of course the less salubrious sites who probably do host the majority of this material will ignore OFCOM as being the paper tiger that it is and carry on.

The OSA - somehow I don’t think this was well thought out!

[tweetiepooh]

If they block image storing sites then any photo storing site will come under scrutiny. What about backup/sync sites? You can store and share images and content on them and some are encrypted so the site can't see what is stored.

[Carth]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

If they block image storing sites then any photo storing site will come under scrutiny. What about backup/sync sites? You can store and share images and content on them and some are encrypted so the site can't see what is stored.

Govt. are like council road workers, they never seem to do anything but there's always a new hole being dug deeper somewhere

[damien c]

Originally Posted by nffc

The OSA is also now responsible for imgur not being available in the UK (without using you know what).

Another victim of the useless and clueless nut jobs that are the Conservatives and Labour!

I went to grab a link to an image that I used for a game and found that I cannot access it, no email saying pull your images before the date, just a "You cannot access without a VPN".

I need to start looking at some stuff with Oracle, Cloudflare and some other stuff.

I seriously need to get out of this country, it's an absolute shambles!

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by damien c

Another victim of the useless and clueless nut jobs that are the Conservatives and Labour!

I went to grab a link to an image that I used for a game and found that I cannot access it, no email saying pull your images before the date, just a "You cannot access without a VPN".

I need to start looking at some stuff with Oracle, Cloudflare and some other stuff.

I seriously need to get out of this country, it's an absolute shambles!

So imgur are actually saying that people should use a VPN in order to access the site?

[nffc]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

So imgur are actually saying that people should use a VPN in order to access the site?

Why would they say that? They wouldn't block people and then tell them how to access the site anyway.


If you go to imgur.com you get linked to this
https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/arti...United-Kingdom


The key point is

From September 30, 2025, access to Imgur from the United Kingdom is no longer available. UK users will not be able to log in, view content, or upload images. Imgur content embedded on third-party sites will not display for UK users.

There's some more DPA guff on there too, but that's the main facts.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by nffc

Why would they say that? They wouldn't block people and then tell them how to access the site anyway.


If you go to imgur.com you get linked to this
https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/arti...United-Kingdom


The key point is

There's some more DPA guff on there too, but that's the main facts.

I thought it sounded odd when it was claimed that this was what they were doing!

I went to grab a link to an image that I used for a game and found that I cannot access it, no email saying pull your images before the date, just a "You cannot access without a VPN".

[Carth]

Damien probably read all the 'official' blurb, then reduced it down to the basics . . looks like I need a VPN . . which is what most people now blocked would conclude.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Carth

Damien probably read all the 'official' blurb, then reduced it down to the basics . . looks like I need a VPN . . which is what most people now blocked would conclude.

It's in quotation marks though.

---------- Post added at 15:14 ---------- Previous post was at 15:06 ----------

There have been calls to toughen up the measures introduced within the Online Safety Act last July that were designed to protect children, including by Becky Riggs, the Child Protection lead for the National Police Chief's Council.

Researchers signed up to TikTok as 13 year old children and at first were shown innocent material like football clips, but two or three searches later, the algorithm started suggesting highly sexualised content, before eventually showing graphic pornography embedded in other videos.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

So imgur are actually saying that people should use a VPN in order to access the site?

They are saying they have blocked UK IPs.

So the only way you can view it now (from the UK) is to use a non UK IP address, and for most people that would mean by using a VPN.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Paul

They are saying they have blocked UK IPs.

So the only way you can view it now (from the UK) is to use a non UK IP address, and for most people that would mean by using a VPN.

True, but from what was said, I thought that they were actually advising people to use a VPN, which they aren't allowed to do. Been told that a porn site has come to the attention of Ofcom for doing exactly this.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

True, but from what was said, I thought that they were actually advising people to use a VPN, which they aren't allowed to do. Been told that a porn site has come to the attention of Ofcom for doing exactly this.

I've been told the moon is made of cheese, that doesnt make it true.

Stating facts is not illegal, the facts are that most people in the UK would now need to use a VPN.

Their actual info page makes no mention of this btw ;
https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/arti...United-Kingdom

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Paul

I've been told the moon is made of cheese, that doesnt make it true.

Stating facts is not illegal, the facts are that most people in the UK would now need to use a VPN.

Their actual info page makes no mention of this btw ;
https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/arti...United-Kingdom

Whilst it's factually correct that a VPN could be used to access their site, websites are prohibited from advising people of this. It was claimed that.they were advisingpeople to use a VPN, but it turns out that this was incorrect.

[damien c]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

True, but from what was said, I thought that they were actually advising people to use a VPN, which they aren't allowed to do. Been told that a porn site has come to the attention of Ofcom for doing exactly this.

No IMGUR does not tell you to use a VPN, none of the sites that have been banned from providing services to us in the UK, have said "Go and get a VPN" because they and anyone with common sense will understand, that it would land them in a world of legal issues.

However anyone with a little, just a smidge of common sense will understand that in order to access a site, that is now blocked due to the perpetually offended and clueless brigade, that they will require a VPN in order to access it, so when they want to pass that information on to others, they will shorten the BS given by the Website because of the perpetually offended and morons to "You cannot access from the UK, you will need to use a VPN".

Also just because something is in "Quotation Marks" does not mean it's a DIRECT QUOTE, quotation marks are used for all sorts of stuff, whether you like that or not, I do not care, I don't sit on the internet all day looking for something to be offended by or jump like I am a member of the Gramma Police, I have a life!

Finally, if you are that anal about someone giving information that is from reading between the lines and not 100% factually what was stated, then I feel sorry for you!