The UK’s draconian Online Safety Act effectively places such onerous requirements on any site “with a link to the UK” or “where the UK is a target market”. I have no idea what these mean in practice or how a personal blog is supposed to comply with them. The “guidance” is thousands of pages of impenetrable legalese.
My blog has been around for 20 years. It contains a wealth of memories and information from early kink exploration, 3D printing, kink DIY, and laterally my transition. I don’t want it to just vanish from the internet.
As far as I can tell though text-only content is fine.
So my approach is sadly the following:
- Geoblock the UK from accessing any images and video.
- Disable comments for all.
The way I’ve chosen to do this means the site will look broken if you’re in the UK but you’ll still be able to read information. I think it’s important that people still have access to information when they’re trying to discover more about themselves even as sites like reddit go behind age verification.
The risks of implementing AV are too great, the companies doing it cannot be trusted, and the mechanisms are easily circumvented. I will never introduce it and would rather kill the blog but I hope my changes are the right balance for now.
I can only hope the OSA is paired back in scope in time, but if you are “outside” the UK then you should be able to see everything as normal.
