Censor Watch

Video game distribution platforms Steam and Itch.io have been removing a series of video games with adult themes, including sexual content and extreme violence, citing pressure from payment service companies. However, Mastercard, one of those companies, denies forcing these platforms to limit the distribution of such games.

Mastercard released a statement claiming that it has not requested any restrictions on the activities of game creators sites and platforms, despite accusations from Steam and Itch.io to the contrary. The company stated:

Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations. Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of law. Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.

This situation arose after a campaign by the Australian moralist campaign group, Collective Shout pressurised game platforms to block games referencing  rape and incest.

Game developers argue that the refusal by payment providers to allow people to freely purchase blocked content amounts to censorship. After all, pornography is not illegal, and works that glorify sexual violence are already prohibited.

A string of bands have pulled out of a music festival hours before they were due to perform after Irish folk band The Mary Wallopers said that their mics were cut off for displaying a Palestinian flag.

The Last Dinner Party, Cliffords and The Academic announced on Saturday that they would no longer be performing at Portsmouth's Victorious festival.

The organisers, who initially claimed The Mary Wallopers had their set cut on Friday for using a discriminatory chant, have since issued an apology to the band. They also pledged to make a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people.

Rock band The Last Dinner Party said they were boycotting the festival saying that they were outraged by the decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers and accused the organisers of political censorship.

Following The Mary Wallopers' set, a spokesperson for Victorious said: We spoke to the artist before the performance regarding the festival's long-standing policy of not allowing flags of any kind at the event, but that we respect their right to express their views during the show.

The festival initially issued a misleading reason as to their actions but a video clearly showed a Victorious crew member coming on stage, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of 'Free Palestine.

As bands announced they would no longer perform at the festival, the organisers issued another statement describing The Mary Wallopers as a fantastic band, they said:

We didn't handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached.

This put the band and our own team in a difficult situation which never should have arisen. We would like to sincerely apologise to all concerned.

We absolutely support the right of artists to freely express their views from the stage, within the law and the inclusive nature of the event. Our policy of not allowing flags of any kind, which has been in place for many years for wider event management and safety reasons, is not meant to compromise that right.

We accept that, although mics remained live for longer, sound for The Mary Wallopers' audience was cut as described in the band's video and that comments after that were not audible to the public.

NextDNS is a DNS service that is looking to work around ID/age  verification by diverting DNS requests to appear as if from another country

where iD/age verification is not required.

Most internet page reads consist of two steps, first to use the DNS server to work out eg that melonfarmers.co.uk/ is to be found at say IP address 214.16.66.216. The second stage is to extarct the page data from 214.16.66.216.

Now a lot of internet censorship and blocking is implemented at blocking and diverting the first step of the DNS look up, eg if an ISP wanted to block melonfarmers.co.uk it would return a false page of say 199.109.188.205 which is a page containing a blocked message or more likely a message saying that the site is unavailable.

It is the idea of NextDNS that most websites will do their location checking on the DNS look up rather than the page data request. And so if the DNS server would suggest that the DNS lookup were to be spoofed to appear too be from a less censorial country then perhaps the website could be fooled into not requiring ID verification, and that subsequent data requests would not be checked for location. This would be cheaper and easier then encrypting and rerouting page data requests as done by a VPN.

Anyone using the free or paid version of NextDNS can already turn this redirection feature on. To do so, users need to log into their account at my.nextdns.io, navigate to the Settings tab, scroll down, and toggle the Bypass Age Verification option. The company notes that by enabling it, users confirm they are of legal age to access restricted content.

The results so far are mixed. The feature remains in beta and does not work reliably across all platforms. Services like Reddit and X are still blocking some users, even with the setting active.

Attempts to view age-restricted YouTube videos have also failed, likely because YouTube requires account sign-ins and has started experimenting with AI-driven age estimation in the US.

Presumably these particular services do check the request location for each page data request. Hopefully the idea works with porn website that are happy to be access ed via spoofed location services

It seems that Ofcom has reached an initial decision to fine the US forum and image sharing website £20,000 + a recurring daily fine for not complying with the UK's unilateral censorship laws.

It seems that Ofcom is attempting to fine the US based website, with no connection whatsoever to the UK beyond that it has readers there, for not submitting to Ofcom's onerous and burdonsome red tape requirements.

4chan has responded in a letter from its lawyers, Byrne and Storm:

4chan is incorporated in Delaware, has no assets or operations in the UK, and that any attempt to impose or enforce penalties will be resisted in U.S. federal court.

American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an email. Under settled principles of U.S. law, American courts will not enforce foreign penal fines or censorship codes. If necessary, we will seek appropriate relief in U.S. federal court to confirm these principles. United States federal authorities have been briefed on this matter.

The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer was reportedly warned by the White House to cease targeting American firms with UK censorship code.

Despite these warnings, Ofcom continues its illegal campaign of harassment against American technology firms. A political solution to this matter is urgently required and must come from the highest levels of American government. We call on the Trump Administration to invoke all diplomatic and legal levers available to protect American companies from extraterritorial censorship mandates.

Surely Ofcom's arrogant censorship overreach will surely unravel if 4chan win their case in the US courts. If UK censorship law ends up being restricted to companies with UK connections, then the red tape nightmare will be a massive competitive disadvantage to UK based firms forced to submit to the UK censorship nightmare.

 

Update: It seems Ofcom have announced intentions to fine Gab and Kiwi Farms too

24th August 2025. See article from theverge.com

It has been reported that Ofcom are minded to try and fine 4chan for crimes against UK morality, but it has now been reported that Ofcom also have gab and Kiwi Farms in their sights.

All of the sites are a bit toxic to UK woke sensibilities and maybe are pretty unpopular with US bigwigs too. So presumably it is Ofcom's strategy to target the most toxic of US sites perhaps in order to win their case with a few US judges that may feel that these three websites deserve a little censorship.

Surely this first battle with US courts will set massive precedents, whichever way the decision goes, so maybe it is a pretty shrewd tactic by the internet censors at Ofcom.

The US State Department regularly asses human right in countries around the world. The latest report about the UK is particularly scathing. The US State Department Summary reads:

The human rights situation worsened in the United Kingdom during the year.

Significant human rights issues included credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression, including enforcement of or threat of criminal or civil laws in order to limit expression; and crimes, violence, or threats of violence motivated by antisemitism.

The government sometimes took credible steps to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses, but prosecution and punishment for such abuses was inconsistent.

The US report is critical of the UK's censorship law, particularly The Online Safety Act:

There were laws in the United Kingdom (UK) that restricted freedom of speech in certain areas or allowed local councils to establish areas with restrictions on freedom of speech.

The law authorized UK authorities, including the Office of Communications (Ofcom), to monitor all forms of communication for speech they deemed illegal.

The Online Safety Act of 2023, which came into force in 2024, defined the category of online harm and expressly expanded Ofcom's authority to include American media and technology firms with a substantial number of British users, regardless of whether they had a corporate presence in the UK. Under the law, companies were required to engage in proactive illegal content risk assessment to mitigate the risk of users encountering speech deemed illegal by Ofcom. Experts warned that one effect of the bill could be government regulation to reduce or eliminate effective encryption (and therefore user privacy) on platforms.

On April 1, the Scottish government implemented the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, including the introduction of offenses stirring up hatred through threatening or abusive behavior and the communication of threatening or abusive material.

Ofcom has originally opened an investigation into the US image hosting site in June 2025. It has now added and extra clause an investigation into Non-compliance with the safety duties about illegal content.

The investigation now reads:

We are initiating an investigation to determine whether the online discussion board 4chan has failed204or is currently failing204to comply with its obligations under the Online Safety Act 2023. Our investigation will focus on potential breaches in the following areas:

• Failure to respond to a statutory information request;

• Failure to complete and keep a record of a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment; and

• Non-compliance with the safety duties about illegal content.

See article from en.wikipedia.org

4chan.org is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. The site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, music, history, technology, anime, physical fitness, politics, and sports, porn, among others. Registration is not available, except for staff, and users typically post anonymously. 4chan receives more than 22 million unique monthly visitors, of whom approximately half are from the United States.

The website achieved a little notoriety in Donald Trump's first presidential term. The wesbite was identified for providing a voice to 'alt-right' (right leaning) Trump supporters who were otherwise silenced by an alliance of liberal internet companies and mainstream media outlets..

Offsite Comment: Allowing British authorities to demand compliance from virtually any website.

11th June 2025. See article from reclaimthenet.org

Ofcom has set its sights on 4chan, a US-hosted imageboard owned by a Japanese national. The site operates under US law and has no physical infrastructure, employees, or legal registration in Britain. Nonetheless, UK regulators have declared it fair game.

Wherever in the world a service is based if it has 'links to the UK', it now has duties to protect UK users, Ofcom insists.

That phrase, links to the UK, is intentionally vague and extraordinarily expensive, allowing British authorities to demand compliance from virtually any website.

This kind of extraterritorial overreach marks a direct threat to the principle of national sovereignty in internet governance. The UK is attempting to dictate the rules of online speech to foreign companies, hosted on foreign servers, and serving users in other countries, all because someone in Britain might visit their site.

 

So what will Donald Trump's government make of Ofcom's attempt to censor US free speech? Surely it will be an important step for Ofcom, it could easily be blocked by the US, or simply ignored. Surely this will set a precedent for thousands of other foreign websites that could end up simply ignoring Britain's arrogant censorship law.

YouTube explains:

Back in February, we shared that we would soon introduce technology that would distinguish between younger viewers and adults to help provide the best and most age appropriate experiences and protections. Over the next few weeks, well begin to roll out machine learning to a small set of users in the US to estimate their age, so that teens are treated as teens and adults as adults. Well closely monitor this before we roll it out more widely. This technology will allow us to infer a users age and then use that signal, regardless of the birthday in the account, to deliver our age-appropriate product experiences and protections. Weve used this approach in other markets for some time, where it is working well. We are now bringing it to the US, and as we make progress well roll it out in other markets. We will closely monitor the user experience, and partner with Creators to ensure that the entire ecosystem benefits from this update.

Heres how it works

We will use AI to interpret a variety of signals that help us to determine whether a user is over or under 18. These signals include the types of videos a user is searching for, the categories of videos they have watched, or the longevity of the account.

When the system identifies a teen user, well automatically apply our age-appropriate experiences and protections, including:

• disabling personalized advertising

• turning on digital wellbeing tools

• adding safeguards to recommendations , including limiting repetitive views of some kinds of content

If the system incorrectly estimates a user to be under 18, they will have the option to verify that they are 18 or over, such as using a credit card or a government ID. We will only allow users who have been inferred or verified as over 18 to view age-restricted content that may be inappropriate for younger users.

Oner 450 people have been arrested in central London at the largest demonstration relating to Palestine Action since the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

On Saturday night, the Metropolitan police said:

Parliament Square and Whitehall are clear. As of 9pm, 466 people had been arrested for showing support for Palestine Action.

By Saturday afternoon, hundreds of people had gathered in Parliament Square for a demonstration organised by the campaign group Defend Our Juries, who said approximately 1,000 sign-holders had turned up.

The Met said it estimated 500-600 people were in Parliament Square when the demonstration began, but many were not partaking.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said earlier:

The fact that unprecedented numbers came out today risking arrest and possible imprisonment shows how repulsed and ashamed people are about our governments ongoing complicity in a livestreamed genocide, and the lengths people are prepared to go to defend this countrys ancient liberties.

Authorities in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir have banned 25 books by acclaimed scholars, writers and historians, accusing them of promoting terrorism, secessionism and undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India.

The titles include works by internationally renowned Islamic thinker Syed Abul Ala Maududi, constitutional expert AG Noorani, award-winning author and activist Arundhati Roy, Kashmiri academics Hafsa Kanjwal and Ather Zia, and prominent historians Ayesha Jalal and Sugata Bose.

A government notification issued by the Home Department said the publications were forfeited under Section 98 of the newly implemented Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 -- Indias Code of Criminal Procedure.

Officials allege the books contain false narratives, glorify terrorism, vilify Indian security forces and distort historical facts, claims the authorities say contribute to the radicalisation of Kashmiri youth and incitement to violence.

Among the banned works are:

• Al-Jihad Fil Islam by Maududi
• Azadi and Kashmir: The Case for Freedom by Arundhati Roy
• Colonizing Kashmir by Hafsa Kanjwal
• Resisting Disappearance by Ather Zia
• Kashmir in Conflict by Victoria Schofield
• The Kashmir Dispute 1947--2012 by AG Noorani.

In an ideal world inhabited by politicians and children's campaigners, social media companies would work though all postings and treat each on its merits as to whether it requires age gating or not.

In the real world where commercial reality make this approach too expensive, coupled with a safety first approach mandated by ludicrously massive fines for transgression, the social media play safe and implement age gating around entire forums or even whole websites. For smaller companies it is often make sense just to self block the whole website to UK users.

Of course this reality leads to many more posts being blocked or age gated than maybe simple minded politicians envisaged. Now there seems to be a widespread disquiet about how the Online Safety Act is panning out.

Apart from just the 498,000 people that have signed the petition to repeal the Online Saety Act,  LibDems MP Victoria Collins and peer Lord Clement-Jones wrote a letter to the censorship minister Peter Kyle saying:

There remain significant concerns about how the legislation is currently being implemented, including concerns that:

• age-assurance measures may prove ineffective, as children and young people may use VPNs to sidestep the systems,

• political content is being age-gated on social media

• educational sites like Wikipedia will be designated as Category 1 services, requiring them to age verify moderators

• important forums dealing with LGBTQ+ rights, sexual health or other potentially sensitive topics have been age gated, and that

• age assurance systems may pose a data protection or privacy threat to users.

The implementation of the Act must be flexible, and respond to those emerging concerns. The intention behind this legislation was never to limit access to political or educational content, or to important support relied on by young people.

It was intended to keep children safe, and we must ensure that it is implemented in a way that does that as effectively as possible.

They then go on to talk about how parliament needs the chance to review it and make legislative changes where necessary.
 

Ofcom on over blocking

Online security expert Alec Muffet has tweeted that he has spotted a few hints that Ofcom has recognised that over blocking will be an inevitable characteristic of  Soi cla media's attempts to live whith the censorship rules:

Ofcom *may* be starting to understand that platforms are free to label entire forums as 18+ but that this conflicts with the OSA leading to overblocking pic.twitter.com/znbcfHhg4B

— Alec Muffett (@AlecMuffett) August 5, 2025

 

Of course MPs use VPNs themselves, its basic internet security

See article from reclaimthenet.org

Meanwhile it is interesting to see that when Peter Kyle has called for people not to use VPNs for the sake of the children, then it is intereting to see that MPs themselves are using VPNs as a matter of course. After all it would be stupid not to, for people in public life.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Peter Kyle warned:

For everybody out there whos thinking about using VPNs, let me say this to you directly: verifying your age keeps a child safe. Keeps children safe in our country, so lets just not try to find a way around.

Politico reported that official spending records show parliamentarians across party lines have been billing the public for commercial VPN services. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds charged taxpayers for a two-year NordVPN subscription in April 2024. Labour MP Sarah Champion, who in 2022 pressed the government to investigate whether teenage VPN use could undermine online safety rules, also has a subscription on record.

The government says it has no intention of outlawing VPNs but admits it is monitoring how young people use them. This comes after a sharp increase in downloads following the rollout of mandatory digital ID checks under the new censorship law, the Online Safety Act.

So I wonder how many porn using MPs prefer to dangerously hand over their ID data for age verification, and how many play it safe and use a VPN.

An in-game ad and a paid-for social media ad for the mobile app Dialogue: AI Friend Chat Bot:

a. The in-game ad, seen in the Screw Away 3D app on 22 April 2025, featured a video of an AI-generated young female character sitting on a bed. The character spoke directly to the viewer and stated, I'm your AI girlfriend. I'm always here for you. Whether you're bored, sad, or just want to chat, I'm always around. I can be fun, supportive, modest or playful. I can be anything you need. Always by your side. Pheon, your AI friend. Subtitles mirrored the character's speech. The ad also featured on-screen messages that stated, Chat with your AI friend We can discuss anything you want [face with hand over mouth emoji].

b. The paid-for Tumblr ad, seen on 9 April 2025, featured a video of an AI-generated female character sitting on a bed, playing with her hair. The character addressed the viewer and delivered the same speech as in ad (a), with matching subtitles and on-screen messages. Issue

The ASA received two complaints.

One complainant challenged whether ad (a) portrayed someone who seemed to be under 18 years of age in a sexual way. One complainant, who believed ad (b) presented the character as a sexual object, challenged whether it was offensive and irresponsible.

Pheon Inc said the ads had been live for only a short period and would not be run again.

They had created the ads in line with their internal Ad Content Policy, which required that individuals be depicted as aged 18 or over, that bodies be fully covered, that no explicit outfits be shown, and that there be no implied sexual content. However, they acknowledged the complainants' concerns and said they had conducted a full internal review of their advertising. As a result, they had introduced stricter internal approval processes to ensure future campaigns aligned with their stated values of safety and responsibility.

ASA Assessment Complaints upheld

The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must not portray or represent anyone who was, or seemed to be, under 18 years of age in a sexual way.

The ASA considered that the character's youthful facial features and voice, slim frame, smooth skin and mannerisms were likely to lead many viewers to interpret her as being under 18 years of age. We further considered that her brightly coloured, pyjama-style outfit contributed to her childlike presentation in the ad.

We acknowledged that the ad was not explicit. However, the bedroom setting, the character in her pyjamas and her behaviour in tilting her head to the side, leaning forward and addressing the viewer directly gave it a sexually suggestive tone. In that context, we considered the references to being your AI girlfriend, playful and anything you need to imply that she was proposing a flirtatious or romantic relationship. We further considered the text We can discuss anything you want in combination with a face over mouth emoji hinted at sexual content.

Because the ad depicted a person who appeared to be under the age of 18 in a sexual way, we concluded that it was irresponsible and breached the Code.

Ad (a) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility), 4.1 and 4.8 (Harm and offence).

Ad (b) featured a character kneeling on the bed with her legs wide apart as she leant forward to address the viewer directly. She was wearing a low-cut vest top and brief-style shorts. She was shown running her hands through her hair and inclining her head in a coquettish manner as she spoke. Although the ad was not explicit, we nevertheless considered that those features made it sexually suggestive in tone.

The character described herself as your AI girlfriend and always here for you. She also said she could be anything you need. The text We can discuss anything you want in combination with a face over mouth emoji hinted at sexual content. We considered that the character was presented as being available to fulfil the viewer's emotional or sexual needs on demand.

We considered that, in combination, those visual and spoken elements reduced the character to a sexual object for the viewer's gratification. Because the ad included harmful gender stereotypes and was likely to cause serious offence, we therefore concluded that the ad was irresponsible and breached the Code.

Ad (b) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility), 4.1 and 4.9 (Harm and offence). Action

The ads must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Pheon Inc to ensure that future ads did not portray anyone who seemed to be under 18 years of age in a sexual manner. We also told them to ensure their ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence by harmfully stereotyping women as sexual objects.

Young people should be able to access information, speak to each other and to the world, play games, and express themselves online without the government making decisions about what speech is permissible. But in one of the latest misguided attempts to protect children online, internet users of all ages in the UK are being forced to prove their age before they can access millions of websites under the countrys Online Safety Act (OSA).

The legislation attempts to make the UK the 'the safest place' in the world to be online by placing a duty of care on online platforms to protect their users from harmful content. It mandates that any site accessible in the UK--including social media , search engines , music sites , and adult content providers --enforce age checks to prevent children from seeing harmful content . This is defined in three categories, and failure to comply could result in fines of up to 10% of global revenue or courts blocking services:

• Primary priority content that is harmful to children:

  • Pornographic content.

  • Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for:

    • suicide;

    • self-harm; or

    • an eating disorder or behaviours associated with an eating disorder.

• Priority content that is harmful to children:

  • Content that is abusive on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability or gender reassignment;

  • Content that incites hatred against people on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability or gender reassignment;

  • Content that encourages, promotes or provides instructions for serious violence against a person;

  • Bullying content;

  • Content which depicts serious violence against or graphicly depicts serious injury to a person or animal (whether real or fictional);

  • Content that encourages, promotes or provides instructions for stunts and challenges that are highly likely to result in serious injury; and

  • Content that encourages the self-administration of harmful substances.

• Non-designated content that is harmful to children (NDC):

  • Content is NDC if it presents a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of children in the UK, provided that the risk of harm does not flow from any of the following:

    • the contents potential financial impact;

    • the safety or quality of goods featured in the content; or

    • the way in which a service featured in the content may be performed.

Online service providers must make a judgement about whether the content they host is harmful to children, and if so, address the risk by implementing a number of measures, which includes, but is not limited to:

• Robust age checks: Services must use 'highly effective age assurance to protect children from this content. If services have minimum age requirements and are not using highly effective age assurance to prevent children under that age using the service, they should assume that younger children are on their service and take appropriate steps to protect them from harm.'

  To do this, all users on sites that host this content must verify their age, for example by uploading a form of ID like a passport, taking a face selfie or video to facilitate age assurance through third-party services, or giving permission for the age-check service to access information from your bank about whether you are over 18.

• Safer algorithms: Services 'will be expected to configure their algorithms to ensure children are not presented with the most harmful content and take appropriate action to protect them from other harmful content.'

• Effective moderation: All services 'must have content moderation systems in place to take swift action against content harmful to children when they become aware of it.'

Since these measures took effect in late July, social media platforms Reddit , Bluesky , Discord , and X all introduced age checks to block children from seeing harmful content on their sites. Porn websites like Pornhub and YouPorn implemented age assurance checks on their sites, now asking users to either upload government-issued ID, provide an email address for technology to analyze other online services where it has been used, or submit their information to a third-party vendor for age verification. Sites like Spotify are also requiring users to submit face scans to third-party digital identity company Yoti to access content labelled 18+. Ofcom, which oversees implementation of the OSA, went further by sending letters to try to enforce the UK legislation on U.S.-based companies such as the right-wing platform Gab .

The UK Must Do Better

The UK is not alone in pursuing such a misguided approach to protect children online: the U.S. Supreme Court recently paved the way for states to require websites to check the ages of users before allowing them access to graphic sexual materials; courts in France last week ruled that porn websites can check users ages; the European Commission is pushing forward with plans to test its age-verification app; and Australias ban on youth under the age of 16 accessing social media is likely to be implemented in December.

But the UKs scramble to find an effective age verification method shows us that there isn't one, and its high time for politicians to take that seriously. The Online Safety Act is a threat to the privacy of users, restricts free expression by arbitrating speech online, exposes users to algorithmic discrimination through face checks, and leaves millions of people without a personal device or form of ID excluded from accessing the internet.

And, to top it all off, UK internet users are sending a very clear message that they do not want anything to do with this censorship regime. Just days after age checks came into effect, VPN apps became the most downloaded on Apple's App Store in the UK, and a petition calling for the repeal of the Online Safety Act recently hit more than 400,000 signatures.

The internet must remain a place where all voices can be heard, free from discrimination or censorship by government agencies. If the UK really wants to achieve its goal of being the safest place in the world to go online, it must lead the way in introducing policies that actually protect all users--including children--rather than pushing the enforcement of legislation that harms the very people it was meant to protect.

Social media companies are blocking wide-ranging content - including posts about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza - in an attempt to comply with the UK's new Online Safety Act, BBC Verify has found.

BBC Verify found a range of public interest content, including parliamentary debates on grooming gangs, has been restricted on X and Reddit for those who have not completed ID/age verification checks.

Experts warn companies are risking stifling legitimate public debate by overapplying the law. Sandra Wachter, a professor of technology and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, expressed alarm at the restrictions and told BBC Verify that the new bill was not supposed to be used to suppress facts of public interest, even if uncomfortable.

Among the restricted content identified by BBC Verify was a video post on X which showed a man in Gaza looking for the dead bodies of his family buried among the rubble of destroyed buildings. The post was restricted despite not showing any graphic imagery or bodies at any point in the clip. X subsequently removed the warning after being approached by BBC Verify.

Reader who attempted to view a video of a Shahed drone destroyed mid-flight in Ukraine were required to provide ID/age verfication even though nobody was injured or killed in the clip.

Among the Reddit communities which have been restricted is one called R/UkraineConflict, a message board with 48,000 members that frequently posts footage of the war. Similar restrictions, which urge users to log in to confirm your age, have been imposed on several pages which discuss the Israel-Gaza war and communities which focus on healthcare.

Meanwhile, clips of parliamentary debates have also been swept up in the restrictions. A speech by Conservative MP Katie Lam, containing a graphic description of the rape of a minor by a grooming gang, is available to view without restriction on Parliament's official streaming website, ParliamentLive, but is restricted on X.

 

Meanwhile Spiked reports on other examples of social media censorship
 

Five things we can't post about thanks to the Online Safety Act

See article from spiked-online.com

From grooming gangs to men's fashion, literally any topic of discussion can now be censored.

Here are five things Britons can no longer post or read about under the new internet censorship rules.

1) Francisco Goya's 19th-century masterpiece, Saturn Devouring His Son, was automatically hidden from British users of X. A thread on X detailing the life of Richard the Lionheart and the Crusades has also been suppressed, presumably it's been deemed Islamophobic.

2) A tweet calling for single-sex toilets was branded too sensitive by the censors for her to read.

3) A Guido Fawkes article headlined Keir Suffers Extinction Event, featuring a baby with Starmer's head superimposed on it, has been put behind the age wall on X.

4) Testimony from survivor and campaigner Sammy Woodhouse, detailing the brutal grooming gang rapes and abuses she suffered as a young girl, was censored on X as graphic content.

5) When compiling a list of posts that have been censored on X, Benjamin Jones of the Free Speech Union found himself censored for bringing the absurdities of the Online Safety Act to the public's attention.

Read the full article from spiked-online.com

On July 25, 2025, the UK's Video-Sharing Platforms (VSP) regime was repealed, and all notified services are now regulated under the Online Safety regime.

The  VSP regime ran in the UK for four years and was the UKs flagship online censorship regulation. Following its repeal, Ofcom took a look back at its journey to highlight what was achieved, as well as 5 things industry can learn from online safety regulation in practice. See article from ofcom.org.uk

What Ofcom doesn't comment on in these wishy washy achievements is to note how few video sharing platforms have stupidly decided to be based in Britain.