Online Safety Act – shutdowns and site blocks

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Scope and Nature of the Blocks

  • Many listed sites are not state‑blocked but are self‑blocking UK users (“451 Legal Reasons”) to avoid OSA liability or to protest it.
  • Others implement age-gates, often crudely (e.g., any Reddit “NSFW” tag, including benign topics like medical discussions).
  • Commenters stress this is a chilling effect via threats of large fines, not direct TLS/IP blocking by the government.

Comparison to GDPR and Other Jurisdictions

  • Parallels drawn with US local news sites blocking EU over GDPR: in both cases, smaller or low‑traffic sites choose geoblocking over compliance cost.
  • Key distinction: GDPR is seen as privacy‑protective, OSA as identity‑demanding and speech‑restrictive.
  • Several EU states, Canada, Australia, and some US states are also pursuing age verification, but EU is working on a central, privacy‑preserving ID‑based solution; UK is seen as “you figure it out” outsourcing to third‑party vendors.

Chilling Effects and Collateral Damage

  • Non‑porn, low‑risk communities (stop‑smoking subreddit, Irish music site, EV owners’ forum, MUDs/BBSes) are closing or geoblocking out of “abundance of caution.”
  • Small forums and hobby sites can’t afford compliance lawyers or commercial age‑verification and are expected to die off, pushing users toward large platforms.

Age Verification and Privacy Concerns

  • Strong worries about mandatory upload of IDs, photos, or video to multiple third‑party providers (often US‑based), creating hackable troves linking real identity to browsing history.
  • Fear of future misuse: de‑anonymization, political targeting, or even blacklisting IDs from online participation.
  • Some note “kids will VPN around it,” so the burden and risk fall mainly on ordinary adults.

Effectiveness, Parenting, and Alternatives

  • Several argue real child safety comes from parenting and education, not nation‑scale surveillance.
  • Proposed alternatives:
    • Device/browser‑level parental controls with simple whitelisting.
    • Legal metadata/headers (or schema.org tags) marking adult content for client‑side filters.
    • Separate child‑safe TLDs or age‑graded namespaces.
  • Others lament that the tech industry failed to proactively shape such standards, leaving lawmakers to design clumsy, overbroad rules.

Politics, Crime, and Authoritarian Drift

  • Law is widely seen as part of a broader authoritarian trend and “nanny state” response to perceived crime and moral panic.
  • Some fear eventual political censorship (e.g., protest footage, controversial causes), though others note current law text doesn’t explicitly authorize that.

Data Quality of the Block List

  • Multiple commenters find that some “blocked” sites (including Reddit, Bluesky, certain porn sites) still work from the UK.
  • The blocked.org.uk list is described as a confusing mix of self‑blocks, age‑gated resources, and apparent misreports, undermining its evidentiary value even as it illustrates the overall chilling effect.