"The Online Safety Act, sold as child protection, now hides Gaza's suffering, silences dissent and exports censorship to the world. The United Kingdom's Online Safety Act was meant to keep children safe. Instead, it is keeping the public uninformed. Within days of the law taking effect in late July 2025, X (formerly Twitter) started hiding videos of Israel's atrocities in Gaza from UK timelines behind content warnings and age barriers."
"The roots of Britain's online censorship crisis go back almost a decade, to MindGeek, now rebranded as Aylo, the scandal-ridden company behind Pornhub. This tax-dodging, exploitative porn empire worked closely with the UK government to develop an age-verification system called AgeID, a plan that would have effectively handed Aylo a monopoly over legal adult content by making smaller competitors pay or perish."
"Once one democracy entertained the notion that access to online content should be gated by identity checks, the precedent was set. The Digital Economy Act 2017 laid the groundwork, and the Online Safety Act 2023 made it law. Today, several European Union states, including France and Germany, are exploring similar legislation, each cloaked in the same rhetoric of protecting children."
The Online Safety Act, nominally designed to protect children, is functioning as a broad censorship mechanism that limits public access to content such as videos of Gaza. Platforms quickly began hiding graphic footage behind warnings and age gates after the law took effect. The law's powers build on earlier UK moves toward identity-gated content, including the AgeID plan developed with MindGeek/Aylo and the Digital Economy Act 2017. Ofcom gains sweeping enforcement authority and heavy fines, while several EU states consider similar measures, framing corporate capture and state control under child-protection rhetoric.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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