A Response to the Online Safety Act
31 July 2025
The Online Safety Act is a new set of laws that oppresses freedom of information online. It forces website owners to restrict access to UK citizens if their content is something the government believe "too scawy for children", such as mental health support, music, or LGBTQ communities.
The original intention, or so they claim, was to prevent children from accessing unsavoury material such as porn. It has completely failed to do this however, because you can simply bypass it with a VPN, provide it with a fake driving license, or go to a dodgy, less regulated website with even worse material. Plenty of sites or services that are not at all related to pornography are also caught up, many subreddits (e.g. mental health support) are blocked too. Even Spotify needs to be blocked, I presume in case a bad man says fuck? Great, now I need to be blocked.
I touched on it there, but again, this is completely ineffective. It does nothing but restrict UK residents' freedom of information online. Wikipedia is not dangerous. Spotify is not dangerous. Pretending they are is ridiculous, but that is what the UK is doing. Further to that, this policy was introduced by the previous Conservative government but has been picked up and carried to the finish line by the Labour government, the supposed party of the people, the level headed adults in the room. Not only do they do that, but Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, said that anyone opposing the Online Safety Act must be on the side of the corpse raping paedophile Jimmy Saville.
I'll say that again: A Labour minister has said that anyone opposing the Online Safety Act is on the side of corpse raping paedophile Jimmy Saville.
That sort of bullshit binary rhetoric I expect from the Tories or from Reform, but from Labour? Congratulations Mr Kyle, you just guaranteed I will not be voting Labour in the next election. Labour has shown very clearly the kind of oppressive wankers they are, and thanks to first past the post, not voting for Labour will likely lead to a Tory government. Fourteen years the Tories were in power, and the first time Labour win they pull a stunt like this. Thanks for guaranteeing another fourteen years of Tories then.
In the last election I only voted Labour to stop the Tories, the lesser of two evils. However, in only one year Labour are quickly showing that they are basically the same evil. Labour or Tory, it's the same shit so why bother voting for either? I don't know who I'll vote for, Lib Dem or Green are most likely the best options I have but either way it's a thrown vote.
If Labour want to secure votes, three things need to happen:
- Kier Starmer needs to resign. Not only for the ineffective, authoritarian leadership he's shown, but because the British Prime Minister should not be pally pally with Donald Trump, convicted rapist and probable paedophile. Kier's message appears to be "Paedophilia is bad so I'm going to block your access to Wikipedia, but Trump's paedophilia is fine because I need something from him". No. Not good enough. Leave.
- Peter Kyle needs to resign. I think the reasons are clear enough above.
- Proportional representation needs to be a manifesto pledge. I'm not voting for Labour unless I can be sure it's the last time I have to. If Labour have any integrity, any real desire to improve this country then it should be a no-brainer. If all they want is to win an election every decade and a half, they won't.
To those in the UK, keep writing to your member of parliament and make sure they understand why they've lost your vote, and until this insane policy is repealed, maybe chuck a couple of quid at Mullvad.
And that's about all I have to say on that.