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UK internet censor Ofcom has provided a statement outlining progress in blocking 14 unnamed websites that it classes as 'small but risky' services. 7 have self blocked all UK users, 2 have introduced ID/age verification, 3 have refused to communicate. Ofcom writes:

Ofcom's Small but Risky Services Compliance Taskforce is a dedicated team focused on identifying and driving compliance from regulated services with small userbases that pose a disproportionate risk of serious harm to UK users.

On 24 July 2025, Ofcom launched an enforcement programme focussing on services whose principal purpose is the hosting or dissemination of Primary Priority Content or Priority Content, to ensure such services used highly effective age assurance to prevent children from accessing the service. Since then, the Compliance Taskforce has monitored and carried out active engagement with providers of 14 services that represent a significant risk of harm to children from the harmful content they host or disseminate. Today we are providing an update on progress.

Geo-blocks implemented:

Following proactive engagement by the Compliance Taskforce, seven of the identified services, each of which were dedicated to hosting particularly harmful types of content - including suicide and self-harm content, violent and graphic content, and eating disorder content - have geo-blocked the UK and are no longer accessible to UK users (including children) as at the date of this update. This includes five services dedicated to hosting graphic violence and serious injury content, and two dedicated to hosting suicide content.

Warning letters:

Providers of three identified services who failed to engage have been sent warning letters from Ofcoms Enforcement team. These notify them of their requirements under Section 12 of the Act to prevent and protect children from encountering content which is harmful to them on their service, including through the use of highly effective age assurance. We continue to assess whether additional action is required and will take into account their response in considering our options.

Highly effective age assurance implemented:

Two high profile services identified by the Compliance Taskforce, dedicated to hosting graphic violence and serious injury content, have implemented highly effective age assurance to prevent access by UK children following engagement.

Next steps:

The work under this enforcement programme has been coordinated across Ofcoms Supervision and Enforcement teams. It has so far demonstrated that seeking voluntary engagement from services is often the most rapid way to protect users. Particularly in cases involving smaller services that may not have a wide reach but that represent a significant risk of harm by hosting or promoting content that is particularly harmful to children.

We have made good progress with the majority of services we have engaged with so far. Going forward, we will continue to prioritise active engagement with services that pose the highest risk of harm to children.

Where service providers do not engage or fail to comply with their duties under the Act, including those in Section 12, we will not hesitate to move to formal enforcement action.

We will provide further updates on the work of the Compliance Taskforce in due course.

A Republican congressman and ally of President Trump, Michael Rulli, has filed a bill that would prevent the British internet censor Ofcom from enforcing Orwellian online safety rules on websites based in the US. This landmark bill would also prevent US courts from recognising or enforcing foreign fines relating to online speech.

Since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, he and his administration have been fiercely critical of the UK Government's approach to free speech, particularly online, repeatedly citing the Online Safety Act. These concerns are also levelled at the EU for its Digital Services Act. In the eyes of the US administration, these censorious legislative regimes have infringed not only on the free speech of British and European citizens, but also on the First Amendment rights of US citizens, while unfairly targeting American businesses.

The bill introduced by Congressman Rulli is called the Granite Act (Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion).

Speaking to The Times, Rulli said: F

Foreign bureaucrats do not get to decide what Americans can say. My bill makes clear that if a foreign government tries to punish an American for speech protected by the First Amendment, that judgment is dead on arrival in our courts.

Ofcom has repeatedly gone after US websites for alleged breaches of the Online Safety Act, notably 4chan and Kiwi Farms. In March, Ofcom fined 4chan a staggering £520,000 after finding that it had failed to comply with its duties under the Act.

Both 4chan and Kiwi Farms have launched legal action in the US seeking an injunction against Ofcom. The regulator responded by asking for the case to be dismissed, arguing that, as a foreign governmental body, it was protected,claiming sovereign immunity, from being sued under US law. Rulli's bill would remove that protection.

It is not expected that this particular version of the bill will make it onto the statute book, but with support from a number of key Trump officials, the House Judiciary Committee, and the backing of both the White House and State Department, similar proposals could be taken forward.

The wording of the bill reads:

LIMITATION ON ENFORCEMENT OF FOREIGN CENSORSHIP JUDGMENTS.

(a) LIMITATION ON ENFORCEMENT

Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or State law, a domestic court shall not recognize or enforce a foreign judgment, or a fine, order, or demand issued by a foreign court or a foreign state, enforcing a foreign censorship law.

(b) RIGHT OF ACTION

A United States person against whom a foreign judgment described in subsection (a) is entered, or upon whom a judgment, fine, order, or demand described in subsection (a) is served or purportedly served, may bring an action in an appropriate district court of the United States seeking declaratory relief that such judgment, fine, order, or demand is unenforceable under subsection (a)

 

US Chief District Court Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a New Mexico abatement fund. He refused to overtly order age verification across Facebook and Instagram. But then he ordered a narrower version of it, aimed at the accounts Meta's own systems predict belong to children under 13, which would ultimately lead to age verification anyway.

New Mexico Attorney General Raoul Torrez sued Meta and Mark Zuckerberg in 2023, alleging that the company failed to protect children from abuse, online solicitation and human trafficking. This legal action was addressed in two trials:

A Santa Fe jury in March found 75,000 violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act and imposed $375 million in civil penalties , the maximum state law allows. The jury determined that the company knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

Now a second, bench asked whether the platforms are a public nuisance, and Biedscheid concluded that they are a significant contributing cause of the teen mental health crisis in New Mexico.

Torrez had asked the court to require Meta to apply various age-verification tools on its platforms , accurate to 99%, enough to keep under-13s off the apps entirely.

Because of the COPPA Rule, it is the Court's conclusion that it cannot order Meta to request children to submit personal data or be passively tracked online, even for age-verification purposes, Biedscheid wrote. But how would Meta know that an account belongs to someone under 13 without at the very least passively tracking them, what they write, say, and do?

What Biedscheid did order on age came from Meta. He adopted the company's own proposed relief, calling it far from ideal or sufficient and, all the same, most appropriate. Meta must keep improving its age assurance models in New Mexico using AI tools, and must attempt within two years to build a dedicated under-13-years-of-age prediction model. Where it cannot estimate a precise age, it must treat the user as under 13 or under 18 until they verify. And verify here likely means adults have to show ID to speak online, even though Judge Biedscheid said he wasn't mandating that.

Meta must also delete the personal information it has already collected on under-13s, and build a portal with schools or a child safety organization for flagging suspected underage accounts.

The money will be paid over five years, with $420 million of it going to treatment and the rest to awareness, prevention, screening, referral and evaluation. It comes on top of the March penalties.

 

Comment: The Meta Settlement: What It Means for Your Speech and Privacy

Under the teen safety provisions is a court-supervised identity system for every Facebook and Instagram user.

See article from reclaimthenet.org

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has once again spoken out against what he sees as France's unjust and politically motivated prosecution of him and his company. He said in a statement:

Two years ago, I was detained in Paris by police for 3 days -- the longest they can hold someone before charging them.

In an unprecedented move, French authorities accused the head of a major platform of crimes committed by its users.

That investigation is still ongoing, although it makes less sense with each passing year.

Why?

Because we now have extensive evidence that Telegram was neither worse than other popular platforms at moderation, nor the worst at cooperating with authorities.

So why was Telegram singled out?

Over the last two years, we have seen a pattern emerge in multiple countries: Telegram is quietly asked to grant political favors -- such as illegal censorship or surveillance. When we refuse, local media and non-governmental organizations launch orchestrated campaigns portraying Telegram as a cesspool of crime, from child pornography to terrorism.

Our moderation is no worse than that of other major platforms. Yet these campaigns instill the idea that Telegram should be persecuted or restricted.

Suddenly, officials start caring about crime and protecting children -- but only on platforms that reject their secret political demands. Platforms that accept such deals get away with almost anything -- including literally selling ads promoting child pornography.

Is the French investigation against me political? It certainly fits the pattern we see elsewhere, mostly in authoritarian countries. And it definitely raises questions.

In time, this investigation may itself be investigated -- especially now that Macron's war against free speech is facing pushback. This month, France's Constitutional Council struck down his social media ban for children under 15 on freedom-of-expression grounds.

In the end, freedom and truth will prevail

Halloween: The Game is a 2026 US survival horror game by Illfonic

The game is uncut and PEGI 18 rated in Europe but was banned in Australia by the Australian Censorship Board.

Versions

uncut	worldwide PEGI 18	Worldwide: Uncut Europe: Uncut and PEGI 18 rated
banned	Refused Classification Australia	Australia: Banned in 2026 The Australian Censorship Board banned the game citing illicit drug use that is linked to in-game rewards.

Fapello is an OnlyFans style adult website. It currently self blocks UK users but is available via VPN.

Ofcom provided details of its fine:

From 25 July 2025, section 12 of the Online Safety Act required Fapello to implement age verification and/or age estimation that is highly effective at determining whether a user is a child, in order to prevent children from encountering pornographic content on its service.

Ofcom has determined that Fapello has failed to comply with this requirement. During the period from 25 July 2025 to 26 November 2025 fapello.com did not implement age assurance measures. On 27 November 2025, Fapello implemented age assurance measures on fapello.com. On 13 January 2026, Fapello removed these age assurance methods and implemented a block to prevent UK users accessing the service and informed us of this change.

On 12 December 2025, Ofcom issued a statutory information request to Fapello requiring Fapello to provide information regarding its qualifying worldwide revenue (‘QWR’) and a complete list of all services operated by Fapello. To date, Ofcom has not received a substantive response to the Notice.

As a result of the above breaches, Ofcom is imposing the following:
• A single penalty of £30,000
• A requirement for Fapello to comply by taking immediate steps to provide the full legal name(s) of the entity and/or individual(s) with control.
• In the event of continuing non-compliance, Ofcom will impose a daily penalty at a rate of £200 per day starting from 9 July 2026 for a maximum of 60 days

On 13 January 2026, Fapello responded to Ofcom stating:

i) there is ‘no legal entity, registered company or corporate structure’ behind fapello.com, and that it is operated by the non-UK based author of the email;
ii) the revenue generated from fapello.com is ‘incidental’ as a small-scale operation, and Fapello is therefore unable to provide QWR; and
iii) Fapello had implemented a full geo-block to prevent UK users accessing fapello.com, and therefore Fapello asserted that the site no longer has links to the UK

Google is rolling out a new system that makes sideloading apps on Android more difficult.

This is happening on two fronts: one is the introduction of what Google calls advanced flow for installing apps from unverified developers and the other is a reminder that Google's controversial developer identity verification requirement is coming.

The first advanced flow is now here, and it makes the process of installing an app from outside Google Play and other major stores much more cumbersome, and therefore less appealing to the average user. Instead of just installing the app, the user must now click through multiple warnings, and then wait 24 hours before the first installation can proceed.

Google claims this is to preserve user choice but in reality, it looks like a way to scare users away from sideloading and route them to the Play Store instead.

The other announcement is a reminder that starting September 30, 2026, developers will have to verify their identity with Google if they want to distribute their apps on certified Android devices in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. This applies not only to those publishing their apps on the Play Store, but also those using third-party stores, such as the HONOR App Market, OPPO App Market, Galaxy Store, Palm Store, V-Appstore, and GetApps.

To verify their identity, developers will have to pay a $25 fee and provide their government-issued ID to Google.

The requirement will expand to more countries in 2027.

In an open letter to Google, a number of organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, F-Droid, Article 19, Fastmail, and Vivaldi, condemned this move, saying that Google is overstepping its boundaries by imposing its rules on third-party stores. The letter said:

Developers who choose not to use Google's services should not be forced to register with, and submit to the judgement of, Google.