this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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Bit shit for UK users though since lemmy.zip is blocked for them. Not exactly going to encourage new users from here.
Lemmy.zip is blocked on a national level for the UK?
Wow. Thanks for sharing.
this is your brain on it being ok for governments to regulate the Internet :(
I'm not sure that the answer to a government's regulation of the Internet should be an individual's blocking of access for an entire country. Seems like 2 sides of the same coin to me.
This is them, to the best of their ability, complying with UK law. If more people tried to comply, perhaps the UK government would realize how foolish their Online Safety Act is and do something about it.
It’s not actually complying with UK law, it’s removing it from the equation so it doesn’t have to. I don’t begrudge the decision though, it will have been a difficult choice to make. That said, it’s a sledgehammer approach to self-censorship, as a response to an inability to comply.
Like I say, I don’t have an issue with Lemmy.zip being unavailable in the UK. But I do think it is potentially damaging for Fediverse uptake to promote a default instance that is unavailable to such a large number of users.
For comparison purposes, the UK easily has the second highest number of Reddit users by country. It is a remarkable decision to exclude that potential market by default.
Wouldn't the UK potential new joiners register on feddit.uk anyway?
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/45919699/19198390
Speculatively, but it would assume prior research, which many people simply won’t do. If a de-facto app (say Voyager on iOS) offers a default option that’s unavailable for a selection of its potential users, it’s another hurdle within onboarding that is already the biggest barrier to entry. If we want to grow as a platform (more users equals more content), putting up a default wall saying “your kind aren’t welcome” to entire countries seems obtuse.
Yes, those potential new UK users can get around it by picking another instance, but the question is how many will give up if they can’t get over the first hurdle.
The suggestion of changing the default instance by region, where those instances prohibit specific regions seems logical enough to me.
Which instance would you use instead of lemmy.zip?
From another post
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/37336391?scrollToComments=true
https://lemmyverse.net/?order=active_month
There's a reason lemm.ee was the previous default instance.
Haha don't put it on me, I'm merely a consumer!
You've already suggested feddit.uk, why not use that for UK Voyager installs? Anything that isn't an instance that they can't actually use would be good.
I was trying to show that it's easier said than done.
Same for the region choice, we all learned that Lemm.ee was closing 24 hours ago. The Voyager dev made the best choice with the small timeframe, he'll probably revisit down the line.
Yeah, and that's fair enough. I hope it does get revisited.
It’s not lemmy.zip that’s blocked in the UK, they (lemmy.zip) block every visitor from the UK as they don’t want to get in trouble for violating the UK’s Online Safety Act.
Have lemmy.zip defederated from feddit.uk as well? If not, why not? Is there a legal difference?
There is no need for us to defederate, the law is around accessing a specific website and the onligations to ensure the content on that website doesnt fall under the OSA.
It doesn't matter where that content comes from, just that UK users don't see specific content. Therefore we don't show UK users any content.
That's kind of a simplified summary, but hopefully makes sense.
It only impacts lemmy.zip because I am a UK resident and run the site, so am liable under the act. Otherwise I'd do what everyone else has done and ignore it.
Wouldn't feddit.uk itself be categorized as a UK user for this purpose?
At the moment, it's seen more like using a proxy or VPN. UK users connect to fuk outside of the UK, then the messages are relayed to zip. Fuk is UK focussed, so tries to work with the OSA.
The best analogy is using a UK-focussed email service (wherever it's actually hosted) to email a non-UK address.
that is okay feddit.uk is blocked by my default blocklist on the router. I've started to add it to the white list a few times but no I think I'll let fate sort it out.
They should direct their concerns to the source of the issue - the ones that put UK in this predicament.
Realistically that is never going to happen. The biggest issue the fediverse has is onboarding. People just looking to try out a reddit alternative aren't going to bother emailing their fucking MP just because the default settings of an app won't let them sign up. They'll just give up and go elsewhere.
If we want to encourage growth, adding additional barriers isn't the way to do it.
I fully agree with you - I'm legally liable though under the act and am not risking fines.
Yeah I don't blame you either. But I do think the default server should be more inclusive than less, particularly at the potential starting point of a user's introduction to the fediverse.
I could see that argument, but I also wanted to pick the best instance for most people, not necessarily an instance that works in every country with every shitty law. We're all volunteers here.
And I might change in the future, or create a way for the app to chose a fallback default instance for a better user experience.
Yep, a region check that sets an alternative default for countries that are blocked by the default server makes way more sense than the default being inaccessible for them.
A region check might be a good way to handle it and load balance at the same time. Pushing people to a larger variety of instances while also making it easy on them. The down side is certainly the overhead of vetting and maintaining the list.