Feedback on The Online Safety Act (an email to my MP)
Now that the Online Safety act has come into effect and the _inevitable consequences_ are starting to play out, I decided to email my MP to try and find out what the Government intends to do to unpick the mess.
Doing this felt particularly important in light of the divisive comments made by Peter Kyle MP (I feel _extremely_ dirty agreeing with anything that Farage has said, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day).
Although I didn't want my email to focus on Kyle, it _is_ a topic which merits some discussion.
Kyle pointed to the cases of Nicholas Hawkes and Tyler Webb as examples of the Act's benefit. With an act as broad as the Online Safety Act, there will always be _some_ successes.
However, both are **also** examples of cases that were pursued without needing _any_ of the act's more draconian measures: Both Hawkes and Webb were caught because of the courage of their victims, who took screenshots and reported the behaviour to the police.
Requiring adults across the country to share sensitive personal information had _absolutely_ no bearing on either case - the only relevance of the Online Safety Act is that it defined some offences which did not previously exist.
As a society, we tend to understand that the ends do not always justify the means - some limited measure of success does not (and cannot) automatically outweigh consequences. Even if it does _some_ good, the Online Safety Act is _still_ bad law.
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#### Email
Hi,
As one of your constituents impacted by some of the (entirely predictable) consequences of the Online Safety Act, I thought I'd reach out with some concerns and questions.
**Background**
I'll start by saying this upfront: The Online Safety Act (OSA) does **not** protect children and was never going to be able to. Instead, it pushes them away from regulated spaces towards entirely unregulated ones, whilst also exposing adults to increased levels of harm.
This is largely Parliament's fault: Ofcom had to work with the cards that they were dealt, and the lack of _meaningful_ definition within the OSA provided no clarity on **who** is affected by **what**.
The inevitable result of pairing a lack of clarity with strong penalties is overcompensation: operators have had no choice but to assume "worst case" scenarios, leading to the chilling effects that are currently playing out across the UK web.
As you probably recall, the Online Safety Act was preceded by the Online Harms bill. At the time, the (then Tory) Government's own analysis noted that it's age-restriction measures may well push minors onto using VPNs (and more concerningly) the dark web, removing the benefit of any protections which had previously existed and exposing minors to more harmful content.
That original attempt to impose an age verification (AV) regime eventually faltered and failed, largely as a consequence of its "ideals" coming into contact with reality.
However, important lessons were apparently not learnt, and the OSA eventually came into being.
As well intentioned as the OSA's introduction might have been, it has had exactly the effects that were predicted years before.
As a few examples:
* UK VPN usage has rocketed (ProtonVPN reported over 1000% increase in UK signups
* Content in grey areas now requires AV - depriving teens of access to sexual health advice and (unbelievably) requiring sexual assualt survivors to provide ID to continue access to support groups (you can find an incomplete list of censored Subreddits here)
* The OSA was supposed to target "irresponsible" providers carrying harmful content who, being irresponsible, have continued to serve content. With "responsible" providers now requiring AV, the "irresponsible" ones are now the only outlets available to minors (see Ofcom's reporting etc)
The consequence that we haven't yet experienced (but inevitably will) is a breach of one or more of the Age Verification Providers systems.
We don't need to look far, though, to see what that will look like because a US dating app (Tea) has just had a breach of data collected for "safety" purposes: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/us/tea-safety-dating-app-hack.html / https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7vl57n74pqo
As a blogger and fediverse server operator, I have also been personally affected by the vagueries of the Online Safety Act.
I wrote about performing an OSA assessment (as well as some of the questions that the OSA raises). You can see that it was difficult to reach any hard conclusions - I did try contacting Ofcom for advice, but they were unable to help.
I'm also aware of impact on a number of other bloggers.
One of those bloggers maintains a popular blog on the topic of their sex life. The stipulations of the OSA have put them in a truly ridiculous position:
* Their writing is not covered: the OSA doesn't apply to text only content
* They had previously been providing audio recordings of someone reading their posts. But the OSA _does_ apply to audio.
The audio contains _exactly_ the same content, but cannot be provided without introducing (expensive and invasive) age verification. The result is that the Online Safety Act has done nothing to protect children (assuming that you believe this was content that needed protecting from in the first place) and instead made the web less accessible to users with accessibility needs.
In fact, without going off on too much of a tangent, the OSA is _weirdly_ prescriptive about formats: Its stipulations around pornographic content call out specific image formats as being covered, leaving open the possibility that a provider may not be covered if they've used a WebP instead of a GIF. I'm sorry, but the introduction of that kind of uncertainty really is just a sign of bad lawmaking.
Parliament seems to have taken the view that operators "just" need to add age verification. Unfortunately, this is ignorant of the realities on the ground:
* AV solutions present significant privacy challenges for users
* AV solutions tend to be extremely expensive for small operators
* There's significant potential social harm in getting users accustomed to random third parties requesting sensitive details "for age verification purposes"
For many operators, the simplest option has been to no longer consider the UK a viable market - geoblocking is cheap, easy and removes all of the overhead associated with assessing and maintaining OSA compliance.
Even I, primarily a technical blogger, have ultimately had to take the decision not to serve some content to UK users.
You can read the OSA assessment that led to that decision at https://www.bentasker.co.uk/pages/legal/osa/osa-assessment-photosarchive-bentasker-co-uk.html but it came as a direct consequence of Parliament (and Ofcom) being unable to define what is and is not covered.
I am **far** from alone. I expect you'll have heard the news that Wikipedia are considering blocking the UK, but here's an (incomplete) list of smaller providers who have shut down or geoblocked the UK, citing the Online Safety Act in the process:
* AWSCommunity: A Mastodon instance for discussing AWS technologies
* Carlbury debate forum
* Dads with Kids: a forum for single and seperated Dads
* Eastleigh online discussion forum: a forum for locals to discuss local issues
* Furry Energy: A server for UK furry and LGBTQA+ communities
* Gaming on Linux discussion forum
* The Green living forum: had over half a million posts about sustainable living
* The Hamster forum: a community about rodent care
* Hexus: A gaming and discussion forum
* Lemmy.zip: an IT centric discussion forum
* London Fixed Gear and Single Speed: A forum for cycling enthuisiasts
* Ready to Go: A discussion forum for Sunderland fans
* Red Passion: A discussion forum for Wrexham fans
* Renault EV Club: A discussion forum about Renault Electric Vehicles
* Sinclair QL: A discussion forum for fans of Sinclair QL computers
* Urban Dead: A MMORPG based on a zombie apocalypse
As you can see, what the Online Safety Act appears to have "protected" the population from is people seeking out others who are passionate about (sometimes important) subjects. Freedom of expression has been taking a bit of a kicking lately.
**Questions**
The background above will almost certainly be outdated by the time that you get to read (let alone respond) to this, but with it in mind, my questions are:
* What does the Government intend to do to address this mess?
* At what point will the Government recognise the need to repeal (or partially repeal) the OSA? Are they waiting for generational change, or are we capable of recognising the negative impacts here and now?
* Does the Government instead intend to double down and attempt a crackdown on VPNs, or to require (the now mooted) digital ID?
* Has the Government yet commissioned any independent analysis into the effects (harmful and otherwise) of the OSA? Do they intend to?
* What measures does the Government intend to pursue to ensure that minors are actually prevented from harm?
* As a small site operator, can I expect that the Government will recognise the harm involved in destroying small communities and driving them onto platforms like Facebook (which, as we know, are also something of a fertile hunting ground for predators)?
* As a small site operator, can I expect the introduction of more meaningful definitions (and/or small site exemptions)?
* What further reassurances can the Government offer small site operators that they actually have this in hand?
* What measures does the Government intend to enact in order to protect and encourage freedom of expression?
I am both a parent and _extremely_ technical: I fully recognise the challenges involved in trying to make the web safer for kids.
My concern is (and has always been) that the Government seems to lack the technical aptitude necessary to understand the impact of these changes. With the resources available, that lack of aptitude and insight cannot have been anything but a _deliberate choice_ , made whilst pursuing idealism over reality.
The UK population has started to pay the price, and will likely continue to do so. The Ashley Madison breach was a decade ago this month and, yet, the Government has still _actively chosen_ to create new silos which link ordinary people's identities to some of their most sensitive and personal behaviours.
In the process, the Government have deprived minors of access to important advice and support on sexuality, sexual health and even current affairs, pushing them towards much more unsavoury sources instead.
Whatever the purity of intention behind it, the Online Safety Act is an actively harmful failure, exposing web users (young and old) to increased levels of harm. It should never have been introduced and should now be repealed. Unfortunately, those are not the noises that the Government is currently making - instead they seem more inclined to try and tighten the grip (for example: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/03/uk-pornography-taskforce-to-propose-banning-barely-legal-content-after-channel-4-documentary-airs).
The OSA really is an embarrassment on the world stage.
Thank you for your time.
