When Nadine Dorries first introduced the Online Safety Act (OSA) in 2021, she said it would be ‘watertight’. Now, she is calling it a ‘dog’s dinner’. The former cultural secretary said at the start of this week that her change of heart came after she saw the OSA ‘limit freedom of speech’ and ‘fail to fully protect children online’. 

‘Victims of the OSA’s bureaucratic burden include ‘Dads With Kids’, a forum geared at offering community support, tips and resources to single fathers, and ‘London Fixed Gear and Single Speed’, a forum for cycling enthusiasts.’

‘Victims of the OSA’s bureaucratic burden include ‘Dads With Kids’, a forum geared at offering community support, tips and resources to single fathers, and ‘London Fixed Gear and Single Speed’, a forum for cycling enthusiasts.’

You can see her point if you look at the content the OSA has semi-censored through age-gating. Age-gating is where content requires users to prove their age before viewing certain content. It is enforced by the OSA, which threatens platforms with huge fines, up to £18 million or 10 per cent of their annual revenue (whatever is higher) if they fail to hide content from children. This forces all of the UK’s 68 million internet users to upload digital ID scans or biometric face checks just to access legal, even non-explicit content. 

Reddit has age-gated posts ranging from complaints about littering to images of album covers like Rage Against The Machine (1992). X has also age-gated an image of Francis de Goya’s famous painting ‘Saturn Devouring His Son’, which has been on public........

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