Submitted 8 hours ago by Armand1@lemmy.world to [deleted]
The above image is all us folks in the UK see when you do, and if we try to use a VPN + incognito, we get this:
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: www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo
People in the UK should vote for non-insane representatives, that would be more helpful
Still waiting on that option 😟
Actually… If every voted libdem that might work
Ah yes, more power to the rich, that ought to fix it
"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.
should be: 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
It’s not due to legal reasons though. They just decided to exit UK, because they’re trying to avoid paying fines for previous infringements.
They just decided to exit UK, because they’re trying to avoid paying fines for previous infringements.
What previous infringements?
Good job Imgur, kick the brits off your site until they stop being wankers.
People still use imgur?
I do, that’s the only one I can remember which I can embed easily here.
What are the alternatives? I wish I could just upload images for comments in PieFed.
Catbox is basically what Imgur used to be before it went to absolute shit. You upload images, you can link to them. That’s it. You don’t need to create an account, but if you do, you can see everything you’ve uploaded. It’s free. Not really sure what more you can ask for in an image host.
I just upload directly to the instance, at least that’s what I think I’m doing. My app lets me do that (Boost).
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
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.
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.
Not really a shit post.
Sucks for the UK.
Works fine with a VPN for me.
I put it on here because it’s one of the communities that posts the most photos and I’ve seen a few Imgur embeds posted here in the last day or two. Feel free to forward to any other channel.
As for it working for you, yeah I suspect they have some IP ban lists, and it definitely won’t cover every VPN, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask someone to use a different VPN to see your post. Not that you were necessarily implying that.
I just don’t see why we should boycott imgur because of something the UK government did.
Yeah I've had this issue when using Mullvad. Definitely a VPN specific issue.
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.
We didn’t ask for this
The UK is a democratic country. The electorate saw fit to put insane greedy cunts with sociopathic traits in power. Also to leave the EU, lol
Fight within your political system, while you still have one, don’t work around its effects.
But Trump got the most votes. If they didn’t want a dictator in their country they should’ve voted against it.
I’ve been wondering about this for a while, what do people recommend for FOSS imgur alternatives (or just simple image hosting)? 🤔
(Of course the UK should just allow free access to information, but I would still prefer to be able to use something FOSS anyway)
For Lenny I think you can just upload directly, which is what I do. More generally I’m not sure.
There’s a million services like this but I doubt many are FOSS as there are significant coats involved in large-scale image hosting.
What kind of coats? I like coats
I don't believe it's FOSS, but Catbox is very simple and allows you to link directly to images/videos that you upload, with no ads and no login required.
This site looks cool, but don’t spread it around too much, because if it gets popular, we all know what will happen.
Is this because of the UK age verification thing?
See the attached article, but yeah pretty much.
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
I also see this and I’m not in the UK.
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.
Why? I don’t post stuff so I don’t really care either way, but free vpns are so easy to find and use and the paid options aren’t that expensive either.
Well done for not reading the post
What do you think you’re paying with when you’re using a “free” VPN?
carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 hour ago
so what you say is, we have a means to post things in such a way the british can’t see them… 🧐 /j
Image of a Union Jack burning, superimposed with the text “imagine being british lol”
carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 hour ago
wait it doesn’t work for me either