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:
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
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.
Can you just browse other peoples uploads on there looking for funny pics and memes?
Asking the important questions. I need the shitposting, not just the image hosting.
I just upload directly to the instance, at least that’s what I think I’m doing. My app lets me do that (Boost).
Wdym? Can’t you see this image I am just embedding on the fly rn?
I can see it, But in PieFed I can’t upload one.
Until this I used it as my daily meme scroller
It sounds like the platform of choice for talking shit about the UK these days.
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 to them.
I’m not calling us to not use it as a boycott measure. It’s more of a practical consideration for other users like myself who won’t get to see your posts at all.
There are alternative approaches that don’t cause these problems so I’d like people to use them.
You’re not being asked to, the UK govt hasn’t done anything to them… they did this to themselves by failing to do anything about age verification long before the online safety act came in recently. This is about their failings over the prior years to do basic age checks that have been common on the internet for decades now… going dark in the UK doesn’t affect the ongoing investigations or the fines that will be imposed… they’re basically throwing their toys out of the pram and shouting LALALALALALALALA we can’t hear you anymore.
Imgur had gone to dogshit anyway, it’s no real loss and the new owners keep making it worse and after the last round of protests from users, went on a mass banning and censorship campaign to further alienate and anger the users they desperately need to shove an ever increasing amount of ads too.
Blame the right people… the greedy, ignorant techbros who want to extract every ounce of ad revenue they can to line their own pockets at the expense of killing the product they bought.
they did this to themselves by failing to do anything about age verification long before the online safety act came in recently
Good. They shouldn’t. Online age verification is an authoritarian scam.
What they are being fined for (potentially) is not asking for users’ age during account creation. Not whatever you think (in spite of op being clear)
Good for them.
Why is that good?
You’ve failed to understand the problem entirely… the entire internet asks users to confirm they are above a certain age when creating accounts… and that happened because the USA demanded it. There’s nothing authoritarian about it… it’s a simple ‘Are you over 13yrs of age’ and you tick yes… that was it.
Funny how it doesn’t seem to be a problem in any other country.
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
Yeah I’ve had this issue when using Mullvad. Definitely a VPN specific issue.
Is this because of the UK age verification thing?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_age_verification_in_the_UK
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
No, it’s because imgur has refused to conduct the simple ‘are you over the age of XX’ when people create accounts, which is required by law… there’s no verification of anything involved. Just a tick the box exercise… they couldn’t even be bothered to do that and that’s why they’re being investigated and are facing massive fines for years of refusal to do what every other site has done for probably 2 decades now… It’s got nothing to do with the draconian online safety act that was recently brought in… it’s imgur throwing their toys out of the pram and screaming ‘LALALALALALALA’ we can’t hear you now. it will have zero effect on the investigation and fines for their previous failings to follow the law… it’s literally cutting of their nose to spite their face.
Good job Imgur, kick the brits off your site until they stop being wankers.
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 Lemmy I think you can just upload directly, which is what I do. More generally I’m not sure.
There are a million services like this but I doubt many are FOSS as there are significant coats involved in large-scale image hosting.
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.
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 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.
It’s been dying for a long time, the vpn blocking started ages ago and the UK block entirely was recent as they’re facing massive fines in the UK… nothing to do with the online safety act that recently came into effect… but due to an ongoing investigation over imgurs failure to do basic age checks at all… and blocking the UK is tantamount to them throwing their toys out of the pram and going LALALALALALALA we can’t hear you now. It won’t affect the investigations and fines over the years of failings prior to that.
After the last wave of protests over the shitty new owners and their repeated firings of staff and the degredation of the service… they went on a mass banning and censorship spree and further alienated the users. I can’t imagine there are that many left there now.
Not worth the effort trying to get around it… there are alternatives that are actually better.
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.
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.
I also see this and I’m not in the UK.
Interesting. Where are you based?
USA 🤠
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.
What do you think you’re paying with when you’re using a “free” VPN?
Well done for not reading the post
Let’s give this classic poem a tweak shall we…
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trans community (The UK is currently here) And I did not speak out Because I was not trans
Then they came for all people of colour (The USA is now here) And I did not speak out Because I was not a person of colour
Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
Not caring because it doesn’t directly affect you is how you end up on this road to fascism to begin with. It’s why there have been thousands of arrests of innocent people in the UK for simply protesting about a ban on a group of people who threw paint on some RAF planes and vandalised some genocide supporting israeli weapons manufacturer… because some people do care about others, because they have compassion and a conscience.
If the UK goes ahead with plans to ban protests entirely as they saying… those numbers will increase because it won’t stop the people and the numbers continue to grow and if you try to stamp it out, there will only be one way it ends… with state authorised violence and death against people protesting the killing of innocent civilians.
That’s the road you are on with that attitude, and then you’ll be screaming that last line and playing the victim.
