UK will be blocked early July 😢

[SpectreAgent]

It now looks like members of the UK government are vowing to ban VPNs within six months… 

Edited Monday at 07:06 PM by SpectreAgent

[bbslutuk]

I was holding out for the UK changes to be reversed ... but they look here to stay. 

 

Got a VPN and it seems to be working fine accessing this site again! 😁

[pupHawaii]

i've heard from a couple of followers in the UK and EU .. i'm hearing that on twitter - unless you pay for the blue checkmark - you're not going to see any NSFW .. VPN or no VPN .. no NSFW without paying for the blue checkmark .. AND you'll only see NSFW if the account you're looking at has a bluecheck too!  (i haven't been able to verify that yet) .. i don't think this applies in the US yet - cuz i'm still seeing NSFW posts on US guys who don't have a blue checkmark .. 

what I do see is that my UK daily followers have dropped from about 3.9% to 3% in the past week .. and my overall follower numbers from all over are dropping every night .. 

many have said (roughly) stop supporting Musk and twitter .. not that easy to leave twitter .. none of my accounts anywhere are monetized - i make no money, i don't accept tips or gifts .. so i'm not staying for that reason .. but i do mainly repost others to help them get more followers and help them earn more money - for some it's their main source of employment .. so while leaving wouldn't hurt me monetarily - i don't want to walk away from others i've been helping .. 

and the alternatives are slim pickings .. tumblr - they can't make up their mind what they allow or don't allow .. bsky/bluesky has about 37m users now - about 10% of twitter .. and the new imaglr.com has just over 20k followers .. so leaving twitter means i leave a lot of users i've been helping behind .. 

not saying i'm never leaving twitter .. just not right now .. 

[kitpig]

14 hours ago, pupHawaii said:

i've heard from a couple of followers in the UK and EU .. i'm hearing that on twitter - unless you pay for the blue checkmark - you're not going to see any NSFW .. VPN or no VPN .. no NSFW without paying for the blue checkmark .. AND you'll only see NSFW if the account you're looking at has a bluecheck too!  (i haven't been able to verify that yet) .. i don't think this applies in the US yet - cuz i'm still seeing NSFW posts on US guys who don't have a blue checkmark .. 

what I do see is that my UK daily followers have dropped from about 3.9% to 3% in the past week .. and my overall follower numbers from all over are dropping every night .. 

many have said (roughly) stop supporting Musk and twitter .. not that easy to leave twitter .. none of my accounts anywhere are monetized - i make no money, i don't accept tips or gifts .. so i'm not staying for that reason .. but i do mainly repost others to help them get more followers and help them earn more money - for some it's their main source of employment .. so while leaving wouldn't hurt me monetarily - i don't want to walk away from others i've been helping .. 

and the alternatives are slim pickings .. tumblr - they can't make up their mind what they allow or don't allow .. bsky/bluesky has about 37m users now - about 10% of twitter .. and the new imaglr.com has just over 20k followers .. so leaving twitter means i leave a lot of users i've been helping behind .. 

not saying i'm never leaving twitter .. just not right now .. 

I plan a Twitter world tour to help stay in touch - I'm currently electronically visiting Canada

[bare28]

There is more to come. The UK government is currently debating a ban on VPN:
cybernews.com/security/vpn-wikipedia-uk-online-safety-laws/
If that becomes law, that will be interesting.
Also:
"While interest in VPNs surges, Ofcom reminds that platforms must not host, share, or permit content encouraging the use of VPNs to circumvent age checks."

From the above link. So this whole thread is enough to cause trouble already.

Oh, before I forgot: Wiki is also in the firing line.

There is actually an online petition about to petition "repeal the Act has racked up over 280,000 signatures on the official UK Parliament site, most of them in just the past week." Go and sign it!

 

[pupHawaii]

4 minutes ago, bare28 said:

There is more to come. The UK government is currently debating a ban on VPN:
cybernews.com/security/vpn-wikipedia-uk-online-safety-laws/
If that becomes law, that will be interesting.
Also:
"While interest in VPNs surges, Ofcom reminds that platforms must not host, share, or permit content encouraging the use of VPNs to circumvent age checks."

From the above link. So this whole thread is enough to cause trouble already.

Oh, before I forgot: Wiki is also in the firing line.

There is actually an online petition about to petition "repeal the Act has racked up over 280,000 signatures on the official UK Parliament site, most of them in just the past week." Go and sign it!

 

VPNs are also used for security reasons, right?   so .. they want to take away a security tool?  (no pun intended!)   🙂

What I'm also hearing about X/twitter and the UK/EU .. twitter has not complied with the requirement for positive identification .. instead - anyone living in the affected countries just cannot see NSFW any more .. BUT .. if you pay the fee to twitter to get a blue checkmark - you'll be able to see NSFW that other uses with a blue checkmark post! .. i don't know how long the UK/EU will allow this.   

[SpectreAgent]

25 minutes ago, bare28 said:

There is more to come. The UK government is currently debating a ban on VPN:
cybernews.com/security/vpn-wikipedia-uk-online-safety-laws/
If that becomes law, that will be interesting.
Also:
"While interest in VPNs surges, Ofcom reminds that platforms must not host, share, or permit content encouraging the use of VPNs to circumvent age checks."

From the above link. So this whole thread is enough to cause trouble already.

Oh, before I forgot: Wiki is also in the firing line.

There is actually an online petition about to petition "repeal the Act has racked up over 280,000 signatures on the official UK Parliament site, most of them in just the past week." Go and sign it!

 

As always, the UK government uses a sledgehammer to miss a nut. VPNs are invaluable in protecting people online, so if they go ahead and ban VPNs the effect of the Online Safety Bill will be to make online unsafe. It will also leave us with the most repressed internet this side of China.

We really are led by dunderheads. 

[rublthlad]

On 7/28/2025 at 6:34 PM, bare28 said:

Solution: stop using X and thus support Musk who clearly has problems with LGBTQ+

There are other services out there which are not run by people like Musk.

any suggestions twhich ones?

Edited Thursday at 09:42 AM by rublthlad

[Godliath]

On 7/29/2025 at 2:42 PM, SpectreAgent said:

As always, the UK government uses a sledgehammer to miss a nut. VPNs are invaluable in protecting people online, so if they go ahead and ban VPNs the effect of the Online Safety Bill will be to make online unsafe. It will also leave us with the most repressed internet this side of China.

We really are led by dunderheads. 

How long before His Majesty's Government implements a social credit rating scheme?

[Tommy Tank]

I honestly didn't think that even this dimwitted government would be clueless enough to implement a law like the Online Safety Act without realising it could be bypassed by a VPN - but apparently it has come as a total surprise to them - and they are now rushing towards even more legislation to stop people using them.

[bare28]

The Online Safety Act was conceived by the previous Tory government, dating back to May when she was home secretary if I recall correctly. But you are right, Labour could and should have stopped it. The idea of banning VPN as such is as good as the idea of banning and switching off the internet: yes, you can do it but at what cost? Even China does not ban VPN as such.

The same goes for this 'banning encryption' or 'we need full access to encrypted data': that is the end of online banking, shopping, delivery services, flight/train/coach booking, in short: any kind of e-commerce; and could well bring the UK banks down as no non-UK bank will trade with UK banks any more.

That said, the UK was stupid enough to not only vote for Brexit in 2016, but also confirmed their wrong decision and elected Johnson in 2019 'To Get Brexit Done!'. So, the governments in power were elected by the populous and thus represent 'the will of the people!'. There were and are alternatives but people decide not to use them. Given the current trend, the next government could well be the ultra-right wing Farage, unless people finally wake up and kick these racists and frankly often fascists out of the country. I doubt that will happen though.

[rublthlad]

16 hours ago, Tommy Tank said:

I honestly didn't think that even this dimwitted government would be clueless enough to implement a law like the Online Safety Act without realising it could be bypassed by a VPN - but apparently it has come as a total surprise to them - and they are now rushing towards even more legislation to stop people using them.

my view is that they ahve all been very naïve about the whole thing, yes people would move to using VPN's my question is if they bring in legislation aropund VPNS, how can they stop/enforce people from using a VPN?