Online Safety Act petition: 300,000 sign petition to repeal Online Safety Bill - what happens next
The new Online Safety Act rules came into force last week 🚨
- Online Safety Act’s age verification rules came into force on July 25.
- A petition calling to repeal it has passed 300,000 signatures.
- But what will happen next - and will it be debated?
A petition urging the government to repeal the new Online Safety Act has passed 300,000 signatures - just days after the new rules came into force.
The changes came into effect on Friday (July 25), and one of the measures included requiring UK residents to verify their ages before accessing websites with pornography or other content that could be considered harmful to children. This can be done by uploading a picture of yourself for ‘facial age estimation’ or a photo of ID.
It is not just porn websites that have been affected, with popular sites like Reddit, X, Bluesky and Wikipedia also now having to enforce the rules. Internet users were quick to bemoan the new regulations and raise privacy concerns.
Some savvy internet users have found a way around the rules - by using images of The Walking Dead actor Norman Reedus from the video game Death Stranding 2 - instead of their own faces.
Hundreds of thousands of people quickly flocked to a petition calling for the bill to be repealed. Started by Alex Baynham it has been signed more than 330,000 times at the time of writing (July 28).
The petition states: “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 resources 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.”
Having passed the 100,000 signature threshold it will be considered for a debate in Parliament - and will also get an official response from the government. Wikipedia has also launched a legal challenge at the High Court, which is set to be heard this week.
What do you think of the Online Safety Act rules - is it worth it to keep children safe on the internet? Let me know your thoughts by email: [email protected].