British users of X, formerly known as Twitter, were among the first to feel the impact. Numerous posts containing videos from recent anti-migration protests were suddenly blocked behind new age-verification walls. The restricted footage includes scenes from demonstrations in Epping, Essex, following reports that a 14-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by a migrant housed in government-funded accommodation.
"Our fears appear to have been vindicated on the very first day of the Online Safety Act's enactment. Some footage of protests taking place this evening against illegal immigration is unavailable on X for at least some U.K. users, with a warning about a restriction due to 'local laws' appearing as the Online Safety Act comes into force. If you have a standard X account in the U.K., presumably the majority of British users, it appears that you may not be able to see any protest footage that contains violence. We're aware of one censored post that shows an arrest being made. We warned repeatedly about how censorious this piece of legislation would be," The Free Speech Union posted on X.
Users trying to view these clips encountered warnings such as: "Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age." To proceed, they were prompted to verify their identity using more invasive age estimation tools. (Related: U.K. Reddit users now required to verify their age under new Online Safety Act.)
In line with this, a petition to repeal the OSA has already
gathered over 160,000 signatures, triggering a mandatory Parliamentary
debate. Meanwhile, VPN usage surged by more than 700 percent in the U.K.
that same day, as users scrambled for ways to access restricted
content....<<<Read More>>>....
