Home » UK ISP News Archive » Article Tag: Censorship (328 Posts)

Articles for Category Tag - Censorship

Streaming broadband video between two hands by 123RF ID174000861

Ofcom Investigate TikTok Over Weak UK Internet Age Verification Measures

16th July, 2026 (1 Comment)

Popular video streaming site TikTok, which can be used by those who are 13 years of age or older (18+ for livestreaming), appears to have landed itself in hot water with Ofcom’s enforcement of the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) over their use of “age inference” technology to identify the age of their users (i.e. this is not something the regulator considers to be “highly effective” for age verification).

Blocked and censored internet content on Smartphone by 123RF ID185419411

Gov Sets Out More Detail of UK Social Media Curfews and Restrictions for Under 18s

14th July, 2026 (6 Comments)

The Government has tonight set out more details of how they intend to implement their recently announced internet Social Media ban for children under 16 (original news), which among other things includes new details on overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under 18s.

Access denied UK internet block and censorship tag by 123rf ID8774126

ISPs Say Rights Holders Must be Held Accountable for Blocking Innocent Websites

1st July, 2026 (4 Comments)

The EuroISPA (European ISP Association), which represents over 3,300 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) across the EU and EFTA countries (including the United Kingdom), has called for copyright holders to be “held accountable” when their measures to stop access to online piracy (copyright infringement) creates “collateral damage [due to] overbroad blocking actions“.

Sky-Broadband-Max-Hub-with-Coloured-Lines

Sky Broadband Users Accidentally Blocked from UK NHS Website and App

26th June, 2026 (13 Comments)

Some customers of Sky Broadband reported that they were unable to access the main NHS website and app earlier in the week, seemingly after the internet provider accidentally managed to block it. But Sky has since suggested that the fault might have been with the NHS. The issue prevented people being able to access their medical data and manage appointments etc.

Stop Killing Games Forms Sister Campaign to Stop Killing the Internet

17th June, 2026 (8 Comments)

The Stop Killing Games group, which is a consumer campaign that seeks to preserve video games after they are taken offline, has joined with a number of global rights respecting organisations to create a sister campaign called Stop Killing the Internet. The aim is to defend the open internet against policies and practices that “impose surveillance, exclusion and excessive centralised control” in the name of online safety.

Government Confirms UK Internet Social Media BAN for Children Under 16 UPDATE2

15th June, 2026 (39 Comments)

The Prime Minister of the UK Government, Sir Keir Starmer, has today confirmed that they will introduce an internet Social Media Ban for children under the age of 16 against ten popular platforms (TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, X, Threads, Facebook and Kick). But that’s not the only restriction they’ll be introducing.

Rights Holders Gain More Control to Block UK Access to Internet Piracy Sites

26th May, 2026 (15 Comments)

The High Court has granted rights holders, such as Columbia Pictures and others, more flexibility to require the UK’s major broadband ISPs (e.g. BT, EE, Plusnet, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk) to block customers from accessing websites that have been found to facilitate internet copyright infringement (piracy).

Censorship image of hands bound by rope by 123rf (133819162)

Tech and Civil Society Groups Warn Against Blanket UK Internet Restrictions

5th May, 2026 (2 Comments)

The Open Rights Group, Index on Censorship, Mozilla, Tor Project, Big Brother Watch, plus many other technology and civil society groups, have signed a new statement that urges UK policymakers to reconsider their approach to online safety legislation – warning that proposed age-gating measures and access restrictions threaten to fragment the open internet and erode the rights of all users.

internet censorship forbidden written on keyboard - 23208292 - 123rf

Gov Intend to Restrict Social Media for Under 16s Even Without Full UK Ban

28th April, 2026 (18 Comments)

The government’s Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has revealed that – regardless of the outcome from their current consultation on a proposed internet Social Media ban for children under the age of 16 (here) – they will still “impose some form of age or functionality restrictions” even if they stop short of a full ban.

Sky-Broadband-Max-Hub-on-White-Background

UK ISP Sky Broadband Fixes Accidental Block of Bitbucket’s SSH Service

25th April, 2026 (4 Comments)

Internet provider Sky Broadband has resolved a fault that caused the ISP to accidentally block Secure Shell (SSH) communications to Bitbucket.org, which is a cloud-based Git repository hosting service owned by Atlassian that is designed for professional software (business) teams.

blocked internet content website uk isp by 123rf

Government Set to Restrict UK Children’s Use of Internet VPNs and Social Media UPDATE

16th February, 2026 (52 Comments)

The UK Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, has today proposed last minute amendments to two Bills that will enable the Government to set a minimum age limit for social media (i.e. greater use of Age Verification), as well as options to age restrict or limit children’s use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN), where it “undermines safety protections and changing the age of digital consent“.

Illustration of a VPN Virtual Private Network on UK Computer by 123rf ID184214833

House of Lords Votes to Ban UK Children from Using Internet VPNs

26th January, 2026 (64 Comments)

Last week saw the House of Lords pass a vote that would, if approved by the Government, introduce an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (CWSB) that aims to “prohibit the provision” of Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to children (under 18s) in the UK. The goal is to stop children allegedly using VPNs to bypass age verification systems.

Survey Warns a Third of UK Adults Use VPNs to Bypass Internet Porn Age Checks

7th January, 2026 (26 Comments)

A new survey of 1,469 adults, which was conducted by the child protection focused Lucy Faithfull Foundation, has “warned” that 45% of adults who don’t want to verify their identities to access porn – a requirement of the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) – have turned to using sites without age checks. In addition, 29% have used Virtual Private Networks to bypass age checks on sites that have them.

Ofcom Monitoring UK VPN Use Due to Circumvention of Online Safety Act

11th November, 2025 (66 Comments)

The UK telecoms and internet content regulator, Ofcom, has revealed they’re using an unidentified third-party monitoring tool – seemingly with AI capabilities – to track the public’s use of Virtual Private Network (VPN) tools as part of Government concerns that they’re being used to circumvent internet censorship measures under the Online Safety Act (OSA).

30th September, 2025 (40 Comments)

The popular online image sharing website Imgur.com, which was first founded in 2009 and has been widely used to host viral images, short videos and memes that can be linked to from other sites, appears as if it may have responded to a recent Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) investigation by blocking UK IP (Internet Protocol) addresses.

NordVPN Names UK as Third Most Targeted Country for Internet Malware

6th August, 2025 (11 Comments)

The latest Q2 2025 threat protection report from NordVPN, which is a familiar Virtual Private Network (VPN) provider, has revealed that the UK now ranks third in the world for the number of cyberattacks it attracts – having seen a surge of 103 million incidents (up by 7% in Q1) of malware being sent to Brits via emails and texts, malicious sites and infected attachments etc.

Study Claims UK Public WiFi Networks Failing Child Safety Standards

5th August, 2025 (18 Comments)

A new study from Guest Metrics, which has a vested interest in selling content filtering solutions, claims to have identified “widespread failures in public WiFi compliance” after it identified that 80% of the venues it tested had no content filtering (no age checks, no splash pages, no logging) to protect children from adult content – a key part of the UK government’s new Online Safety Act (2023).