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on this whole OSA thingy
4 months ago
Not the kind of thing I'd normally talk about here, but it's relevant so I'm just gonna go ahead and say words, mostly with regards to how it'll affect my stuff, but I guess if you're a fellow Brit who hasn't heard about this then it's probably relevant to you too.
For any unaware folks, a few years ago the UK government passed a bill called the Online Safety Act, which from my understanding is a lot like all those laws various governments have tried (or succeeded) to implement over the years that bring in a load of surveillance, censorship, etc. in the name of protecting kids. I'm not gonna go on a rant about the bill itself, from what I've seen there are plenty of articles out there from the past few years about the details, and the purpose of this journal isn't to lay out my opinions on it. However, there is one part in particular that's relevant here: the part where certain kinds of websites are required to set up ID-based age verification systems for UK-based users to access adult content.
I'm unsure whether FA falls under the criteria that'd require it to implement all that stuff, but if it does, it'll most likely be in place by the 25th, since that's the deadline set out by the law. I suppose I'll have to wait and see how exactly that implementation works, but like I'm sure many people would feel in this situation, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of tying my IRL identity to the wacky art and such that I post here. I'm also not the type to bother with VPNs, and unless things get really bad I doubt that'll change anytime soon. Which means, depending on how things work (assuming this does affect FA) and to what extent this'd actually tie my personal information to the things I do under this handle, there's a decent chance I decide it just isn't worth the hassle and disappear from here indefinitely. Oh, and while I doubt this part would apply to a site as big as FA, some sites will probably just block UK-based IPs entirely to save the effort, so that's also a possibility. Now I'm thinking about the fact I'd have to go through my 7000+ submission notifications before the deadline, oh what a chore that'll be...
In summary, there's a fair chance I'll stop using FA (and probably the contact accounts I've set up elsewhere too) starting from the 25th. If that ends up not being the case, whether it be that FA isn't subject to the act, or the age verification is implemented in such a way that I'd rather go through it than effectively forever abandon this fragment of my online life, then I'll post a journal update sometime after the 25th just to confirm I'll stick around in some form (heh).
For any unaware folks, a few years ago the UK government passed a bill called the Online Safety Act, which from my understanding is a lot like all those laws various governments have tried (or succeeded) to implement over the years that bring in a load of surveillance, censorship, etc. in the name of protecting kids. I'm not gonna go on a rant about the bill itself, from what I've seen there are plenty of articles out there from the past few years about the details, and the purpose of this journal isn't to lay out my opinions on it. However, there is one part in particular that's relevant here: the part where certain kinds of websites are required to set up ID-based age verification systems for UK-based users to access adult content.
I'm unsure whether FA falls under the criteria that'd require it to implement all that stuff, but if it does, it'll most likely be in place by the 25th, since that's the deadline set out by the law. I suppose I'll have to wait and see how exactly that implementation works, but like I'm sure many people would feel in this situation, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of tying my IRL identity to the wacky art and such that I post here. I'm also not the type to bother with VPNs, and unless things get really bad I doubt that'll change anytime soon. Which means, depending on how things work (assuming this does affect FA) and to what extent this'd actually tie my personal information to the things I do under this handle, there's a decent chance I decide it just isn't worth the hassle and disappear from here indefinitely. Oh, and while I doubt this part would apply to a site as big as FA, some sites will probably just block UK-based IPs entirely to save the effort, so that's also a possibility. Now I'm thinking about the fact I'd have to go through my 7000+ submission notifications before the deadline, oh what a chore that'll be...
In summary, there's a fair chance I'll stop using FA (and probably the contact accounts I've set up elsewhere too) starting from the 25th. If that ends up not being the case, whether it be that FA isn't subject to the act, or the age verification is implemented in such a way that I'd rather go through it than effectively forever abandon this fragment of my online life, then I'll post a journal update sometime after the 25th just to confirm I'll stick around in some form (heh).
