Imgur just broke the internet for the UK
Imgur just broke the internet for the UK
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Funk

Original Poster:

27,025 posts

227 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
No doubt as a result of the UK Gov's badly-made and ill-thought-out OSA, we're now seeing the unintended consequences of said terrible legislation.

This morning I had a message that a 'For Sale' ad I have on a hi-fi forum wasn't showing the images, they just said 'Image not available in your region'. Rather than try and comply with the UK legislation, Imgur have decided it's cheaper/easier to just turn off UK users entirely. Imgur is one of the largest image hosting sites and has been around for over a decade. I have loads of pictures that are embedded on loads of sites, none of which are now visible to anyone in the UK. Things like 'how-to' guides, adverts, serious discussion and funny posts.....all now just showing a blank image.

The worst thing is that the Gov are now pretty much forcing people in the UK to have to use a VPN in order to maintain basic internet functionality. And worst of all, people will seek out free VPNs which are an absolute privacy nightmare. The Gov cannot see that they're NOT actually protecting kids, they're simply encouraging them to avoid Government control but in an even more dangerous way.

The ensttification of the internet continues.


Annoyingly I can access Imgur via my VPN but for some reason the link to export all my images doesn't work. Imgur also did this out of the blue with no warning or heads-up to UK users that they would be losing access.

Edited by Funk on Tuesday 30th September 16:24

.:ian:.

2,634 posts

221 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
I`m surprised its not more prevalent. I guess they looked at income generated by the UK and how much it would cost to implement the onerous regulations and the former didnt justify the latter.
It wont impact MPs though as its fairly niche.

stevemcs

9,653 posts

111 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
We tried checking the train times on a mobile last week, but apparently LNER website live trains is 18+

TGCOTF-dewey

6,800 posts

73 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
stevemcs said:
We tried checking the train times on a mobile last week, but apparently LNER website live trains is 18+
Given how excited those middle aged men with the cameras get at the end of the platform at York station - entirely justifiably I'd argue.

illmonkey

19,352 posts

216 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Visiting Imgur even states it... yoiu're not wrong, they've just turned it off for us. This is similar to photobucket starting to charge for images. It ruined a lot of historical forums, as images were hosted there many years ago and people forget or pass, so the DIY guides are useless. Just 1 of the knock on effects.

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error "Content not available in your region."
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status 400

dapprman

2,642 posts

285 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Oh the joys - hopefully they will reverse it. I have over 3500 photos on there linked in to my Wordpress blog (fountain pen related).

InitialDave

13,941 posts

137 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Yep, started last night.

Just another example of what an incompetent clusterfk the online safety act is.

This sort of thing was guaranteed to happen as various entities who don't outright need the UK market decide it's more hassle than it's worth to try and comply with the government's ill thought out bullst.


Lucas Ayde

3,979 posts

186 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Yeah, but think of the children won't you! biggrin

The government won't give a toss so long as it has the power to track you down should you post something online that it doesn't like, which is the whole point of the legislation. Sold to the public on a lie - as usual, exactly like the even more odious 'digital ID' that they are pushing to 'stop illegal immigrants taking jobs'. Just as much horsecrap.

Alex_225

7,070 posts

219 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Actually came to this part of the forum to post exactly this!!

What an utter sh!t show and as said, seems it's easier to just turn the whole of the UK off. Just like when Photobucket got greedy and wanted a silly amount to host photos, this is a royal pain for many. I admit all of my photos are backed up but linked to various forums and now who nothing.

Utterly ill thought out Government crap, although we seem to be seeing a lot of that lately!

camel_landy

5,280 posts

201 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Alex_225 said:
Utterly ill thought out Government crap...


hehe

M

Funk

Original Poster:

27,025 posts

227 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Info: https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/415926652...

They can still fk off for not giving anyone a heads-up or a chance to prepare for it.

dhutch

17,222 posts

215 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Funk said:
No doubt as a result of the UK Gov's badly-made and ill-thought-out OSA, we're now seeing the unintended consequences of said terrible legislation.
I understand the legislation also effect Wikipedia, which may also have to pull out of the UK. FTW!

judas

6,191 posts

277 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Why are the incompetent cretins in government even allowed to make decisions about stuff they're wholly ignorant of, or willfully misunderstand? The internet is no longer a hobby thing - hasn't been for a long time. They wouldn't be allowed to tell engineers how to build a viaduct or nuclear reactor, so what the fk makes them think they're qualified to make decisions of this importance without understanding the impact?

Just bandying about the fking idiotic 'but the children' facile arguments does not make it ok in any way, shape or form.

Cretinous performance politics at its worst.

fk them all.

Funk

Original Poster:

27,025 posts

227 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Here's an example of what a nightmare this just caused:

https://ariadnereviews.com/2025/09/20/masterchef-2...

https://ariadnereviews.com/2025/09/30/technical-tu...

It would be impossible for her to rebuild her blog with the right images, hosted elsewhere, inserted in the right places on the correct pages... All that work now rendered useless.

We're seeing it here on PH as well - the 'show us your hifi' thread is now significantly broken and pointless.

Imgur should have at least offered users a way to migrate their photos elsewhere, along with tools to try and assist with replacing the blocked images. But no. Just break things without giving a fk.



Edited by Funk on Tuesday 30th September 16:51

Getragdogleg

9,623 posts

201 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
All part of the big plan.

The Internet is too free and you might talk badly about high command.




dhutch

17,222 posts

215 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Funk said:
Info: https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/415926652...

They can still fk off for not giving anyone a heads-up or a chance to prepare for it.
Bit toss, but to an extent, what else can they do.

And to be fair, forums etc who still rely on 3rd party image hosting sites in 2025 are bonkers. With the forum I administrate we took a very early proactive step to bring image hosting internally to ensure security of images. I cant remember exact timelines, but it was early enough that when Photobucket pulled the plug on hotlinking (2017 according to google) it had not real effect. So maybe ten years before that, two decades ago.

Hosting is cheap.

Funk

Original Poster:

27,025 posts

227 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
dhutch said:
Funk said:
Info: https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/415926652...

They can still fk off for not giving anyone a heads-up or a chance to prepare for it.
Bit toss, but to an extent, what else can they do.

And to be fair, forums etc who still rely on 3rd party image hosting sites in 2025 are bonkers. With the forum I administrate we took a very early proactive step to bring image hosting internally to ensure security of images. I cant remember exact timelines, but it was early enough that when Photobucket pulled the plug on hotlinking (2017 according to google) it had not real effect. So maybe ten years before that, two decades ago.

Hosting is cheap.
But then you move the responsibility for compliance from the image hosting company to you. You'll need to be sure that none of the images you're hosting that others have uploaded have a boob or something visible or the Government's Porn Police will fine you.

The issue here is that the law was written by cretins and worded appallingly with significant overreach built-in. That is now resulting in unintended (but foreseeable) consequences. The real problem is obviously our Government for their stty law (which will do fk-all anyway in the real world as any kid with a phone can tell you to use a VPN to get on Pornhub) but Imgur are s for the way they've just blocked UK users with no warning, and breaking probably millions of webpages that use their images. They've handled this extremely poorly.

Edited by Funk on Tuesday 30th September 17:03

dhutch

17,222 posts

215 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Funk said:
But then you move the responsibility for compliance from the image hosting company to you. You'll need to be sure that none of the images you're hosting that others have uploaded have a boob or something visible or the Government's Porn Police will fine you.
To an extent. However we already have a team of moderators who actively and reactively monitor the site and a content report system and a diligent core community of members, so the risk feels manageable at this stage.

Alex_225

7,070 posts

219 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
camel_landy said:
Alex_225 said:
Utterly ill thought out Government crap...


hehe

M

Haha sounds about right! hehe

768

17,896 posts

114 months

Tuesday 30th September
quotequote all
Personally, I'm hoping other sites do exactly the same to increase the pressure to roll back our Chinese copied legislation.