Petition to repeal Online Safety Act reaches 280,000 signatures after new rules come into place

People are not happy

The act officially came into effect during the week, with one of the biggest changes being that people need to upload their ID before accessing porn sites.

A petition to repeal the act, created by Alex Baynham, has received over 280,000 signatures.

The petition's description reads: "We want the Government to repeal the Online Safety act.

"We believe that the scope of the Online Safety act is far broader and restrictive than is necessary in a free society.

"For instance, the definitions in Part 2 covers online hobby forums, which we think do not have the resource to comply with the act and so are shutting down instead.

"We think that Parliament should repeal the act and work towards producing proportionate legislation rather than risking clamping down on civil society talking about trains, football, video games or even hamsters because it can't deal with individual bad faith actors."

It's not just porn sites that are restricted; websites like Reddit, X and Bluesky fall under the new measures.

Companies that break the new rules could be hit with an £18 million or 10 percent of their global revenue.

The impact on users

There are an estimated 14 million porn watchers in the UK, many of whom have expressed concerns about handing personal information over to porn sites.

Per the BBC, age verification companies — who are likely to be employed — have said that users shouldn’t worry about potential leaks of personal information, as the firms don’t retain data, and they don’t know what a person has accessed.

How have Ofcom enforced the changes?

Ofcom have sent out letters to ‘hundreds’ of services, making it clear that the ‘mandatory age-checks’ must be implemented.

Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive said: “For too long, many online services which allow porn and other harmful material have ignored the fact that children are accessing their services.

“Either they don’t ask or, when they do, the checks are minimal and easy to avoid. 

“That means companies have effectively been treating all users as if they’re adults, leaving children potentially exposed to porn and other types of harmful content. Today, this starts to change.”

The new details were included in the latest round of industry guidance, ahead of the enforcement of the Online Safety Act.

Under the Online Safety Act, all social media and search services have been required to carry out a children’s access assessment to determine if their site is likely to be accessed by children.

Ofcom said it has published codes of practice for sites that are likely to be accessed by children, which set out how they can implement measures to keep younger users safe. 

Sites have also completed a children’s risk assessment, the findings of which have been implemented.