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(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!!!!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Listening To: Blood Crushers The Band - Raise Up Your Bat
Mood: Concerned
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Comments
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Ka1 ☆
HI! I live in the UK, and it's been banned fully here. I'm able to access SpaceHey because of Proton VPN. Proton VPN is a free app with no subscriptions, and you can use it as a guest. It has multiple free servers: America, Poland, Netherlands, and Japan.
If anyone has any friends in the UK who can't accsess SpaceHey, spread this along to them.
you should be careful with free vpns and the way they treat your data but vpns can be a great way to bypass the uk's online safety act !
by comazzz; ; Report
PossumGhostz
Man, why is the government doing this?? I wonder who didn't do their job before so that this didn't have to happen? Oh. Wait. It's the parents fault for not protecting their young children.
andras
WTF ARE YOU SERIOUS
good day not to be british but real talk i think this is a wicked way of censorship and these damn governments need to shut the hell up sometimes
KellKilljoy
I hope we can find a way to bypass it since it seems all the world wants 2 do the same that UK
Lyrexios Creator Guardian
How sorrowful it is to witness the neighbors shackled by such cruel restrictions, bound by chains forged in the name of safeguarding the younglings of this world. I understand the dark necessity to shield children from the sinister corners of the media but why cast this net so wide, punishing all denizens of the plain realm?
Is it not the sacred duty of the parent, the guardian of flesh and bone, to watch over their spawn? Yet, alas, some careless wraiths among them abandon their watch, indifferent to the realms their children wander. Still, to condemn everyone for the sins of a few? Such justice feels twisted, a harsh curse upon the innocent.
Would it not be wiser more fitting to craft wards and sigils within devices themselves? Bar the little ones from these shadowy playgrounds with child-locked enchantments, rather than locking the gates against all souls?
But perhaps I wander too far in my musings... For I am but a stranger to the lands of the UK, with no voice in their courts of decree. Still, it pains me deeply for those unable to summon the cloak of VPN, now banished from these digital realms by the failings of careless guardians.
A grievous fate, indeed... in this tangled web of rules and guardianship, where the innocent often pay the price.
☆blanch bunni☆
im in the uk n using a free vpn :( !! xx
The finals boss of glt
Im on vacation rn and ion wanna gk back
rev
Don't use operagx, not that garbage. Use literally anything else but that.
Fr, it's better to use something like brave or duckduckgo
by Afraazssss; ; Report
Yeah, brave is one of the better browsers. If you need a free vpn use something like riseup not that chinese botnet opera.
by rev; ; Report
⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ LG ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ˘ᗜ˘
people use vpn regardless, so it has no use. it's basically just making people's life miserable. mainly artists'...
and the fact that they shamelessly want our data now...
Milky Hazard DVD
I absolutely hate censorship. But I never thought it was a good idea to easily allow kids to access the entire web. The issue is that adults are being affected and i'm sure this has more to do with control over everyone and not about protecting kids.
they should teach the kids internet safety. like we were taught back then. i knew what i shouldn't do, starting with the first rule "no age in bio until 18+"
but the more knowledge people posses, the more aware they will be. God forbid, they might even develop critical thinking
by ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ LG ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ˘ᗜ˘; ; Report
imnot_cliff
Im on holiday in America so im using ts up as much as possible
the ghost of kyiv
i remeber some guys using gmod caracters to trick the facisl recogniton
𝔰𝔦𝔪𝔯𝔞𝔥
im using a vpn
MAD SCIENCE
It's to make it so that when you spread info online the government doesn't like, they can come scoop you up and more easily censor ALL of your content since it is all linked to YOU.
They used to only be able to shadow ban you from a single platform or multiple platforms if they could correlate enough or you were a real thorn in their side. Now they are coming to shadow ban YOU irl. In China they literally have an actual death van where they just drive up to your house take you by force and euthanize/kill you inside of it when you say enough bad stuff about the government.
What is "acceptable" to talk about changes every few years. Different words, different ideas, different jokes. It is only a matter of time before it's your turn to be crushed if you let this kind of thing go through.
First it will be "terrorists", then it will be "dissenters", then it will be "people the small group of elites don't like." Now realize that those are always the same thing!
How many more slips of freedom and protections will you allow? What are you willing to fight for? Back when net neutrality first came out with SOPA/PIPA/CISPA IIRC millions of Americans all got together, wrote the FCC and congress and said hell no!!! They had to pull it back every time.
They also want to prevent us from talking to each other, just like what the owner of Omegle said in his final post on his site. If we can't talk to each other, we have no 1st ammendment effectively and we are screwed, all other protections fail short of the 2nd ammendment shortly thereafter.
It's ALWAYS ""For the KIDS!"" ""For OUR Safety!"" but it's not about security or safety it's just CONTROL. They want to CONTROL every single opinion and THOUGHT, they want to be able to get away with whatever they want with ZERO reprocussions. The first hint of an info leak snuffed out and traced from person to person before it ever gets anywhere. I've noticed that an increasing number of entire ideas/facts/info that are missing from the internet since 2016-2020. They want to even stop the niche groups and the masked punks evading them from spreading what they don't want spread. In their minds maybe it really is security. But what good is it when are we willing to sacrifice so much to "protect ourselves from China" when the sacrifice makes us EXACTLY like China?
Also as a kid who grew up on the uncensored internet, I didn't feel good seeing gore and the horrible things around the world. BUT I was glad to be able to see them because it made me aware of the REALITY we live in. Also hey maybe I should be really careful around lathes and not wear long sleeves! Maybe I shouldn't jump off this bridge into that water for fun because I saw the kid get his skull caved in thinking the water was deeper or he was gonna clear that concrete pillar easily. Seeing people actually get hurt probably actually protected me by preventing me from making the same careless mistakes. It also made me realize how good we have it in America and what we have to lose.
More people seem to hate capitalism now, but hey, you get to pick your job, you get to negotiate and agree to the pay, and you get to quit whenever you want... In Soviet Russia if you didn't want to work they would just kill you. In countries like North Korea they just tell you yeah you are going to go spend 20 years as a slave in this logging camp. If you try to escape or run away we will kill your family and if we find you there will be more than hell to pay for deserting our nation. In other countries like the middle east, if you are gay they tie you up and throw you off of a rooftop in front of everyone in town. In Soviet Russia they would throw gays out of helicopters.
Censorship and not showing people that these things are possible is what leads to the collapse of the system because of people hating it so much, which then leads to it being NEEDED for the government to FORCE people to work for actual peanuts as slaves to prevent extinction...
This tbh
by the ghost of kyiv; ; Report
C4nn0n!
That sucks so much :( I feel bad for the people affected by this ban, and hopefully it doesn't spread to the US :(
sage
thanks for sharing! i live in the usa and honestly it is soooo worrying to me that so many nations are leaning into these policies... id honestly rather leave the internet than share every personal detail about my life online. the implications of this are so concerning especially for people who have no way to communicate with others aside from social media and being online. it just feels like it's one thing after the other ://
Cyraelle
Absolute mess the whole uk online saftey act; im form the Uk myself using a vpn (unfortunately the vpn dosnt let me access amino so i dont have it on a lot) its messing up so much i mean WHAT DO U MEAN U GOTTA BE 18 TO ACCESS FB MARKET PLACE
plus i agree the ai scanners suck, most people in person see me as an adult, scanner cant. Plus theres plenty of adults who dont have ‘adult’ features, its meant to ban adult content then bans SA MH lgbtq and childline helplines, access to news and political things? Like wdym i can vote but cant even access stuff to see who im voting for?
helenalukyanova
i don't live in the uk but this is wild, if people think children need safety on the internet then they should care more about monitoring them, not banning spacehey (which is litterally more innocent than most of the stuff a child can find online)
parents better care more about protecting their children
EXACTLY!!!
by ananya°ᡣ𐭩 . ° .; ; Report
pinhead622
why are all english-speaking countries slowly becoming dictatorships
Kenner Fee
I feel like the face scan thing makes no sense. I've met full grown adults who look younger than me and I'm not even in my 20s yet.