why spacehey has been banned in the UK

(disclaimer: i'm american! all of this info comes from my friends in the UK, other online UK users, and websites from the UK)

hi guys!!! 

a lot of you may have gotten messages from your friends in the UK today or even gotten this error message when you tried to log into spacehey today. (i have included ids for all of these images)

this is because the UK has began to enforce their Online Safety Act. it was passed in 2023 and is intended to protect children and adults online from harmful content, such as p*rnography, self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders. Though this act is intended to make the internet safer, some options of verification are not available to all people or even not offered by the website (hence the screenshot above)

the methods of verification are included but not limited to are facial scanning, showing your credit card info, testing your phone number for age filtering, sending in your id, or estimating your age based on things like your email.

SpaceHey has NONE of these verification methods in place, though the "currently unable to offer" portion of the screenshot above MAY imply that this will come in the future.

this is being enforced not ONLY on SpaceHey, but on platforms like Discord, Twitter, and BlueSky, and potentially sites like AO3 and tumblr.

you can read more about it here. 

here is a petition you can sign if you live in the UK to repeal the act.

if you want to access SpaceHey and other websites without an age verification system, you can use a VPN! OperaGX has a free one you can use, and ProtonVPN is free as well. there are many other options available as well. (If anyone has recommendations for VPNs, or tutorials on them, please comment some!!)

from here on out this blog post will be more about the issues with the act, what you can do about it, and what to do about the verification.

i already mentioned a couple of the methods of age verification already, so i'll go down the list of issues with each of them. a few more issues and a small expansion upon them can be found here on tumblr.

facial scanning - this is EXTREMELY faulty, and the ai used to check it cannot tell the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old. there is hardly a difference in appearance. it's also a security risk as it feeds your face into the software. this is already an option on discord. do NOT do it, if you are sensed to be underage your account will be banned until you're old enough.

showing your credit card info - self explanatory, but if there's a leak, now cyber criminals can gain access to your account. this works because in the UK you have to be 18 years old to own a credit card.

testing your phone number for age filtering - similar to the one above, if there is a leak someone could gain access to your phone number. in the

sending in your id - again, privacy risk. ids contain a LOT of personal information on them, enabling doxxing should they get leaked.

a couple of issues i've seen raised:

the obvious security/privacy risk and concern, some adults do not have access to these kind of options, especially regarding credit cards, takes away the opportunity for a lot of abuse victims to get help or even contact their support system, children may go seek out other websites that do not enforce the verification which are likely MORE dangerous and riddled with viruses and more even more graphic, unhealthy content, some websites with a huge uk customer-base will lose money, especially if they're a small business, this could easily enable the government to push the boundaries of policing, controlling, and surveillance on the population, minors will be unable to access important content regarding the education, safety, and help for struggles like eating disorders and self harm, the verification will tie things you do online to your legal name and credit card information which is dangerous for example for queer people who are still closeted

a few positive qualities i've seen talked about:

it will be far more difficult for young people to access and see things like gore, p*rnography, methods of performing and the encouragement of s/h and suicide, far more difficult for people to get groomed, women/girls will be left less vulnerable (regarding p*rn), misinformation will more frequently get corrected, harassment/stalking/similar will go down, and overall the harm done to children/minors will be reduced

⭐ edit 7/26/2025: awesome post by tumblr user hypexion explaining another issue that this act raises; the assumed nonexistence of malicious actors

i have also seen it discussed that some websites that have optional mature content, like tumblr and ao3, will require age verification to see the content. otherwise, you will be able to use the website as normal.

again, here is a petition you can sign if you live in the UK to repeal the act. you can also call or email your representatives (i'm not sure if that's the same name for it in the UK!!! please correct me if i'm wrong) to ask for it to be repealed.

if i've mispoken on anything please inform me so i can correct it. i tried my best to only provide info as well and leave out opinion. thanks guys!!!!

Mood: Concerned
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------