The above image is all us folk in the UK see when you do, and if we try to use a VPN + incognito, we get this:
403 means forbidden, so the message is disingenuous.
They must have put some effort into block lists for VPN servers. Even if it works for some of us, it’s not worth it.
For more information on this, see this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo
Fucking hell. As someone in the UK who used Imgur, this sucks. Like fuck sake, I’m being fucked by the OSA and the reaction to the OSA.
Also happens to me, even if i’m not in the UK. I am on Iliad(italy) btw.
People still use imgur?
It sounds like the platform of choice for talking shit about the UK these days.
Until this I used it as my daily meme scroller
so what you say is, we have a means to post things in such a way the british can’t see them… 🧐 /j
wait am I british o.O
sorry you had to find out this way 😔
wait it doesn’t work for me either
"both the ICO and Ofcom - the media regulator enforcing the Online Safety Act - said Imgur suspending access for UK users had been its own “commercial decision”
They’re just trying to avoid getting fined by the UK.
Imgur has been shitty for years at this point. They kept fucking with the UI when all I wanted to do was upload images and share the link. They should have stayed in their lane, not try to reinvent their platform as social media. Then their wholesale blocking of VPN traffic? Tired of that nonsense. I use imgbb now.
I will say I don’t like the direction imgur went, but to play devil’s advocate, I don’t think there was any way around it.
The problem is that being an image host used by millions of users is incredibly expensive, and between needing to pay for the infrastructure, content moderators, and (in this case) regulatory compliance, it all adds up.
The only income model they have is ads, which is why they needed to re-tool the UI to hinder users’ ability to direct share images, and converting it to a more social media type of format keeps users on the site so they can cycle in more ads for more revenue.
An ideal internet would not need to rely on ad money to work, but I’m struggling to think of what else could be done at the scale imgur operates, as donation models can barely even keep Lemmy instances above water. If ad money wasn’t a thing, would sites like imgur be able to exist? Maybe they shouldn’t, I don’t know.
Always wondered how Imgur stayed afloat in the first place. As to people whining about ads, yeah I block everything I can, but I’m not about to bitch about Imgur providing me a free service and sending ads.
Like you, I don’t see a way around it. Sites like Imgur have to be provided by private enterprise, and that requires funding. Can’t see how a subscription model works, people simply wouldn’t pay.
God forbid the government fund any of it. Look how the Brit and American politicians are fucking up sites that aren’t even government! And don’t start me on what American government sites are deleting and displaying.
And it’s not just known IPs from commercial providers. I rolled my own OpenVPN server on a Digital Ocean droplet. BLOCKED.
They kicked me to the new layout which I abhor, rather not use the site at all. Took me 10-minutes to find the non-obvious place they hid the option to roll it back.
As a brazilian, I’ve been having all sorts of issues with media being geolocked on Lemmy. I feel like the platform is becoming increasingly hostile to me.
This doesn’t seem like it’s Imgur’s fault for trying to avoid prison. Perhaps more fire is needed in your local MP’s home?
Them blocking VPNs is a bit much though. At that point I don’t feel like it’s their responsibility.
Is this because of the UK age verification thing?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_age_verification_in_the_UK
Probably not directly, but we don’t know because Imgur has unprofessionally decided to return an incorrect raw JSON error message instead of explaining the block.
There is a message from the ICO noting the block and that it was considering fining them for failing to take user reported age as part of account creation. This is different from the OSA age verification
See the attached article, but yeah pretty much.
I also see this and I’m not in the UK.
American here. I have my own OpenVPN server, not commercial, and I get this error on Firefox but was not seeing it in Edge until I closed the browser and reopened. It’s how I know I forgot and left the VPN running.
Interesting. Where are you based?
USA 🤠
Oh, is it because some states have the same sort of age verification laws?
Probably because I’m using a VPN. Mullvad specifically. I guess I should have mentioned that
Ah, I use Mullvad and have found their IPs are blocked.
I noticed with some basic testing with VPNs that a PC running Linux and a VPN is fairly obscured with no DNS or IP leaks. But when doing the same with an android phone, even with a good VPN, the browser still passes unique identifiers of the phone.
So I’m thinking the ones who say they can still use imgur are probably accessing it via a PC and not a phone.
It’s not accessible with a pc either.
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Connected to my VPN in Amsterdam, I get this message on Firefox but not Edge. And I could swear Edge was erroring not long ago. Don’t know long that’s been going on, I noticed a few months back.
That sounds like a you problem, sorry.
I feel like making some memes mocking the UK and posting them there now.
Victim blaming much? We didn’t ask for this. In fact, we specifically asked not for this. Same as how most US folk didn’t ask for a dictator to run their country and making fun of them for living in a dystopia is a bit tasteless.
It’s not a big huge deal, sure, but I also think it’s not a big ask for posters to do things differently.
But Trump got the most votes. If they didn’t want a dictator in their country they shuldn’t have voted for it.
