alt Hacker Newsthis is the message i got when i clicked on the link:
>Unavailable Due to the UK Online Safety Act
The Online Safety Act imposes new compliance duties on web sites with the potential for staggering penalties. I'm concerned my blog might fall under the OSA's definition of a Part 3 regulated user-to-user service. It might also qualify as a Part 5 service which provides pornography. Unfortunately, Ofcom's guidance for small services has been exceedingly vague.
I don't have the time, money, or interest to set up highly effective age assurance on a personal blog; nor do I care to spend any more of my nights and weekends working through thousands of pages of guidance and writing up risk assessments. I'm geoblocking the UK instead; Ofcom indicates that's sufficient to comply with the law.
Geoblocking is not precise. If you are not in the UK and seeing this message, you can use Tor or a VPN service to access aphyr.com.
There's a lot of uncertainty among small sites regarding what the OSA means and how Ofcom will enforce it. If you run a web site and you're struggling to interpret the OSA guidance, you might want to reach out to Ofcom's Online Safety team at [email protected].
I know it's off topic but i think it has some relevance since it shows how this poorly conceived law is actively degrading my experience online, as was predicted here on hn.
Replies
It is disappointing that they went to this hassle but apparently didn't read the first link that comes up when you search this:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/226/made?hl=en-GB
Tl;Dr at the most stringent you need at least 3 million UK monthly users. Depending on what your site offers in terms of functionality it then allows 7 million or even 34 million UK monthly users before you need to care.
With respect, I doubt this blog has 3+ million active UK viewers. This legislation is designed for Facebook et al, not for random personal blogs on the internet.
But hey it's a free world so if you want to take the moral high ground go-ahead. Just be sure you understand first :)
Kyle is a peerless genius when it comes to his technical content about distributed systems, but he has a tendency for histrionics when it comes to this stuff.