2w ago

Important News - Geoblocking of the UK

Hi All,

Some sad news, but it has become apparent in order to safeguard the longevity of this site, there are no options left other than to cease allowing people from the United Kingdom to access Lemmy.zip.

Just to reassure everyone else right at the start - this ONLY affects users from the UK accessing Lemmy.zip. There is no effect on everyone else, and nothing in your Lemmy experience will change.

Due to the implementation of the Online Safety Act, we will be restricting access to Lemmy.zip to UK users starting 15th February 2025 —one week from today.

Why is this happening?

Lemmy.zip is hosted in Finland, and we have always strived to operate with respect for privacy and in line with all applicable laws. However, the UK’s Online Safety Act presents significant legal and operational challenges for small, independent fediverse sites, just like this one. The Act’s vague and overbearing requirements, combined with the potential for disproportionate and extreme fines, force us to make this decision to protect both the site and its users.

This law impacts a wide range of content with vague or conflicting definitions, and as a volunteer-run site, we cannot ensure full compliance. We do not wish to compromise your privacy or force you to verify your identity through intrusive age checks, which is the only method allowed under the Act. Therefore, we have no choice but to block access from the UK.

This won't impact on federation, nor accessing the communities from an instance that tries to comply with (or ignores) the Act. Obviously if you're from any other country in the world that isn't the UK, this won't apply to you at all.

If this affects you, then you are able to export your data (subscriptions etc) from your profile settings, and import them on to another instance (Feddit.uk is a good shout for brits!)

Unfortunately this is also brought about by my personal circumstances as the site owner - I'm not in a position to just ignore the Act like many are. Complying with the act would mean we would either have to implement Age Verification for all users to access the site, or we would have to disable NSFW entirely, which means communities that use NSFW tags for spoilers or content warnings also wouldn't be accessible.

For those curious, UK users will instead be directed to this page when they try access the site.

This has been a really hard decision to make, and I fear many more fediverse sites that are somehow linked to the UK will need to take this step in order to protect themselves.

If this is overturned by the courts in the UK, then the block will be removed as soon as possible. I have my fingers crossed.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Demigodrick.

68 comments

Just a couple of quick answers to potential questions.
Will this affect federation? No - even sites in the UK will still be able to federate with Lemmy.zip both ways. This just affects users trying to access the lemmy.zip website
Does this affect apps? Possibly - the front ends will definitely be affected (i.e. m.lemmy.zip). Apps like voyager etc remains to be seen, as I haven't done any testing on these yet.

So ... People in the UK can still access all the content at lemmy.zip ... just not at the site lemmy.zip.
This is what happens when people who have no idea how technology works are in charge of making laws about technology.
- Yes, that's the beauty of federation and the stupidity of the law :)

I'm from the UK, this is disappointing to hear. The Online Safety Act is absolute shit.
- It really is 🫤
- Make your voice heard
  https://www.writetothem.com/
  
  I don't think anyone ever cared about online petitions tbh.

Just to avoid potential issues because this is a common misconception, Ireland is not in the UK. 🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪
- Haha I wouldn't dare get them confused 😅 how i wish I had an Irish passport
  
  I missed out by one generation when the majority of my friends are eligible.

Jesus Christmas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Act_2023
despite warnings from experts that it is not possible to implement such a scanning mechanism without undermining users' privacy.[6] The government has said that it does not intend to enforce this provision of the act until it becomes technically feasible to do so.[7]
Platforms failing this duty would be liable to fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their annual turnover, whichever is higher.
It obliges large social media platforms not to remove, and to preserve access to, journalistic or "democratically important" content such as user comments on political parties and issues.
What the FUCK
- Yes - wtf indeed.
  The whole thing is insane. If it was targeted just at platforms like Meta or X, I'd totally get it (and maybe even agree with parts of it).
  The fact it is a blanket provision and affects even single user mastodon instances, or 93 year old Betty's gardening tips forum, in the same way as Facebook and Instagram, tells you a lot about the idiots/morons at OFCOM/UK Gov who put this together.
  If 93 year old Betty's gardening forum doesn't currently have all the paperwork in place right now, btw, she's liable for that fine.
  That's how stupid this all is, and why I'm nope-ing out of it.
  
  Yeah. It’s like they went out of their way to make every part of it as backwards as they could manage.
  The part about making it illegal to moderate political content makes me wonder if some aspects of this have roots in trying to disable efforts to combat foreign interference in the UK’s elections.
  
  That fine is more than more money than most of us will make in our entire lifetime.
  I absolutely understand why you are doing the geoblock
  
  Does anyone know if this has ever been used as a base for litigation so far?
- £18 million pounds is a huge amount. That is around $22.3 million USD. Do they seriously think some hobby website has that kind of cash? Does the UK not have laws about cruel and unusual punishment?

Thanks for the clear post.
If anyone on here signs up at feddit.uk be sure to mention it in your reply.
For other OSA discussion, I've started a community to help everyone working through and figuring out how to comply with the legislation: !onlinesafetyact@feddit.uk
- Compliance by non-service will be the best way for anyone who can afford to lose UK users for an undetermined amount of time.
  It's the easiest way and it pushes people to do something about it. Either by instigating change or working around it to make it publicly ineffective.
  Complying the 'proper' way only normalises the draconian legislation. It is not normal, and frankly the folk need to be told as such.
  
  I'm afraid we don't have a choice about compliance with the rules. We are the largest UK Lemmy instance (so geoblocking isn't an option) and, if we did ignore the laws, we'd be hit with ruinous fines.
- I’ve already subscribed to this, but thank you creating it. I don’t know all of the implications, I just know the OSA is a crap idea.

As someone completely unaffected, it sucks that you had to make this decision, but I respect the hell out of it and appreciate your openness.

or we would have to disable NSFW entirely, which means communities that use NSFW tags for spoilers or content warnings also wouldn't be accessible.
On this note, why is it that so few sites seem to have implemented spoilers tags and instead relies on everyone using the nsfw tag instead?

Well that's a shit.
I am a UK user and a recent supporter. I don't want to leave - this instance is busy enough to be useful, quiet enough to not be overbearing and also aligns well with my own values.
As a hypothetical, how would you handle (or not handle...) users that work around such restrictions?
The way the OSA is going, I can see VPN usage happening at a network level at home, rather than just when required.
- I would have no way of knowing if you found a common and easy workaround... :)
  Sales of VPNs etc will go through to roof as more sites start to block the UK.
  
  Brill.
  No hard feelings. I think it's the best thing to do too.
- I have an always on VPN on my mobile and planning to do the same for my PCs soon. Highly recommended :)
  
  Same - but it ties back to the home network where my self hosted stuff runs. Primarily for adblocking with the rest of the network accessible as a bonus.
  I guess now I'll just have to rejig it up so the home network exit point is the mullvad connection.

We live in a "interesting" time. While I'm sad that this is necessarily I am also glad Lemmy.zip isn't getting shutdown entirely.
- I'm hoping this is temporary and something changes and I can lift it in the near future. I'm hoping enough sites will shut down for someone with some power to take a second look at this
  
  Does the UK not have some sort of bill if rights or equivalent? Surely this can't be enforced in the courts.

A sad day for this instance indeed.
While I am glad to hear that otherwise all federation goes on, only blocking the site directly for UK residents, the underlying issue still remains. I am not a UK citizen nor do I live in the UK, but it's just disappointing nonetheless.

Out of curiosity, what are the risks of violating this law with a site hosted in Finland? I don't believe the UK has the ability to effectively fine people in other countries. Seems like the worst they could do is block the site themselves.
- The regulator claims this can be enforced anywhere in the world (doubtful at best). I imagine most global site admins will ignore this and carry on as normal, and if the UK ever comes knocking politely tell them where to shove their requests.
  However there are personal reasons why this applies to me with the scope of the Act, even with the infrastructure in Finland, and I can't risk being on the other end of that fine. It's simpler all-round for me just to deny access to the UK.
  If they removed the insane (and I suspect corrupt) age verification requirements, then I could do the work to make the site comply with the Act, but as it stands I can't guarantee it so I won't risk it.
  
  the insane (and I suspect corrupt) age verification requirements
  This absolutely honks of a Capita/Palantir gov handout contract.

It's a shot at an inverse firewall. You don't have to block your people's access if you make the rest of the world block their access.

That's unfortunate for our UK brethren. Hopefully that law gets fought, because it sounds incredibly stupid.

Complying with the act would mean we would either have to implement Age Verification for all users to access the site,
Isn't that just the usual [ ] Yes I totally swear I'm over 13 checkbox?
- Nope, it's called "Highly effective age assurance", which under the OSA is open banking, photo ID matching, facial age estimation, and digital identity wallets. The OSA specifically states that relying on users to self-declare their age cannot be considered an effective means of age assurance (i.e. guilty until proven innocent)
  
  That's genuinely absurd.
  
  Ooooh that makes lots more sense.
  And it's also lots more stupid. Oh well. Carry on, internet!

Just a thought - I'd love to see a side-by-side of how this affects traffic by geolocation in the next monthly.
Not by a lot probably, but it would be an interesting tidbit.
- I've implemented it today, so definitely happy to see what side by side impact it has.
  FYI I think apps still work (as I suspected they might with the way I was trying to set this up)
  
  Yep, apps are still OK.
  Desktop redirects to uk. as intended, across all frontends.
  Something to do with Cloudflare I guess. Have you gone for IP or WAF rules?

Ah crap. Im from the uk. This sucks. But i get its not your fault.
I only access this from Boost For Lemmy app but i suspect it will still fail to load data regardless.
I wonder would a vpn work? In theory it should.
- A vpn would work. Some people use one 24/7 these days if their router/device supports it.
  
  I keep one on my devices at most times anyway so that is no problem. I have no intention of leaving. Not for a while anyway

Limeys taking Ls like usual

68 comments