Under new online rules, some Ukraine and Gaza posts blocked Tech veteran

Social media companies are blocking comprehensive content – which includes posts about wars in Ukraine and Gaza – in an attempt to follow the UK’s new online security act, BBC Veriff has found.

The new law, which came into force last Friday, fines social media companies and other websites, which fails to protect the under -18 under -18 from pornography, in positions promoting self -loss and other harmful materials. In severe cases, services in the UK can be blocked.

But the BBC Verififies found several public interest materials, including parliamentary debate on gangs, ban on X and Reddits for those who have not completed their age verification check.

Experts have warned that companies are promoting legitimate public debate by reducing the law.

Sandra Watcher, a professor at technology and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, expressed an alarm on the restrictions and verified the BBC that the new bill should not have been used to suppress the facts of public interest, even though it was uncomfortable “.

Organizations can be fined up to £ 18m or 10% of their global revenue if they are found to be failed to prevent harmful materials visible on their platforms. Under the Act, harmful materials include pornography positions, or anyone that encourages self-loss, promotes food disorders or promotes violence.

Professor Sonia Livingstone – A expert in children’s digital rights at the London School of Economics said that companies “over time – may be better over time in not blocking public interest materials, while also protecting children” as a law bed with time.

The banned material, known by the BBC Verififer, had a video post on X, showing a man in Gaza that he was destroyed in search of his family bodies, who were buried among the debris of destroyed buildings. The post was banned despite not showing any graphic imagery or bodies at any point in the clip. The X later removed the warning after being contacted by BBC verified.

When those users did not verify their age, they tried to reach the post found with a message: “Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricted access to this material until X estimates your age.”

The same warning was experienced by users who attempted to watch a video of a Shahd drone in Ukraine that destroyed the middle-gathering in Ukraine. The Iranian manufactured drones, which are widely used by Russia in a full -scale invasion, are unmanned and no one was injured or killed in the clip.

Reddit has introduced similar restrictions. The platform, which hosts countless communities, discusses major news events, now requires age tests for some groups when users try to access them through the search engine.

The banned in Reddit communities is called R/Ukraineconflict, which is a message board with 48,000 members who often post footage of war. Similar restrictions, which urge users to “log in to confirm your age”, are imposed on several pages that discuss Israel-Gaja War and Commits that focus on healthcare.

Meanwhile, the clips of parliamentary debates have also been washed away in restrictions. A speech by orthodox MP KT Lam, which has a graphic details of rape of a minor by a grooming gang, is available to look at Parliament’s official streaming website, Parliamentlive without a ban on Parliamentlive, but is banned on X.

Lam, elected in 2024, wrote on social media: “British state will not save children from gang rape. But it will ‘save adults from hearing about it.”

Another post banned on X shared an image of Francisco de Goya’s 19th century painting, in which Saturn ate her son. The striking work depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Chronus – known by the Romans as Saturn – is eating one of his children for fear of a prediction that someone will uproot him and described it as a “supreme male fury”.

Examples collected by BBC verified are largely focused on X and Reddit, as they flagged the content apparently. There is a separate system of meta that has a different type of account with the control of the ‘juvenile’ profile parents -which makes it difficult for us to identify which material age is related.

It is not clear how many posts that comment on the debate of public interest are being banned. X and Reddit did not respond to the remarks request.

But Professor Livingstone mentioned that it was “possible that companies are over-blocking to weaken the Act”.

X owners Elon Musk have been highly important of the online security act. The billionaire has launched a section of attacks against online law and X suggests that it may prevent companies from launching products in the UK.

,[The law’s] The objective is to suppress the people, “Musk wrote on X on Monday, before sharing several positions by far-fetched activist Tommy Robinson, which also opposed the law.

Data suggests that the law can greatly affect adults in the UK. Large ratio of users – 37% on X and up to 59% on Reddit – according to data from platforms, reach these platforms. This means that those users will not be aged and they will experience internet just like children.

The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) insisted on verifying the BBC that it was up to social media platforms to decide how to implement the requirements of the Act, but insisted that the risk-based approach should not “censor the political debate”.

The OCCOM, the UK media regulator tasked the act to implement the Act, warned that the firms may fail not only to fail to protect children, but to violate freedom of speaking under the Act.

The analysis of the BBC Verife also suggested that the law was successful in blocking some harmful materials online. Since Musk had bought X, earlier called Twitter, the platform has earned a reputation for floods with porn materials, as well as violent, antitamic and racist positions.

However, we found that violent and vulgar materials were quite restricted when using an account without age verification.

New obligations effectively keep the firms in a position where they should follow the law. Professor Livingstone suggested that they may still be in the “best” working period to decide on the type of material on their sites, which can be refined over time.

But Prof. Watchter stated that the level of self-regulation to choose the way to choose the way to follow the online security act that “to make effective decisions for well-staged moderation teams equipped with” time, resources, expertise and nuances.

He also said that many major social media companies, such as X and Meta, have reduced their moderation teams in recent years or have completely dissolved them.

“This trend is very worrying when opaque rules are now applied to these decisions, especially in the current political environment,” said Pro Vature.