According to my understanding of the UK’s Online Safety Act [2023], the UK government has given itself the power to demand substantial amounts of money from website owners anywhere in the world, if:

  • Their website happens to show UK visitors any content that the UK government deems as illegal under its laws, or,

  • If they do not verify the real-world identity of visitors from the UK.

The onus is on website owners to keep abreast of changes to the UK’s laws.  The cost of verifying every UK visitor’s real-world identity is to be borne by site owners.

The fines specified by the Act are steep, and there appears to be no exemption in the Act for small websites.

The problem here is that even challenging an unfair demand for money from the UK government would be costly.

According to the good people in the Lobste.rs community who had looked into the matter, the simplest way for small websites to protect themselves from the UK government’s demands for money is to simply prevent access by UK visitors.

I have accordingly geo-blocked UK visitors from this site.