this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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This is the law in the UK. Once mastodon become more commonplace, you can expect servers to start receiving warnings from the UK government... I don't think being not for profit allows you to get away with it either.
Being based in another jurisdiction might allow them to tell the UK government to suck a fat dick.
I mean, yeah, and the government might just order ISPs to block the infringing domains. That's usually how it goes.
I see no problem with that.
It does render the original advice somewhat moot though doesn't it.
Just use Mastodon, except of course that won't work, oh I don't care then.
That's true. But there isn't any advice that will work against such totalitarian practices and be legal at the same time. Either you circumvent the law with some VPN, or you relinquish your right to privacy.
The VPN route won't work with sites like Blue Sky, as they've already bent to the state so you won't have privacy there, even if your face or ID isn't in their database.
I don't think circumventing the restrictions with a VPN is illegal. It's one of those dumb laws where everyone just has to basically play along but everyone knows it won't achieve anything.
This from the government that routinely leaves laptops on trains, with post-it notes stuck to them as to what the password is (this is not hyperbole they have actually done this).
I think that was the Johnson govt? Was a while ago now? Or more recent? Can't find anything after 2021 myself
I am not a lawyer anywhere, nor a citizen of the kingdom, but usually, when you circumvent an ID check, that's not legal.
Well that's where it gets muddy. Technically it's only illegal to circumvent an age verification check if you're subsequently found to be underage, the actual circumventing of the check isn't the illegal part, it was buying the product underage.
Not illegal yet. I'm joking. Makes sense.
The problem is they're trying to implement a law that was put in place to stop kids buying alcohol to stop people looking at pornography. It doesn't translate well into the virtual realm.
Circumventing the checks isn't illegal because they don't want to be arresting a bunch of kids. So they just take the fake ID or whatever off them. They haven't bought any alcohol, because they were found out, so no crime has been committed. The law makes no allowances for adults buying alcohol legitimately but still bypassing the safety checks because no one assumed that would happen, and where you're just handing over your driving licence to a store clerk it wouldn't.
But we're being asked to trust third-party companies who routinely lie about their cyber security. Now there absolutely is a reason for adults to want to bypass the checks even though they're overage.