I want to request a copy of my data
https://help.imur.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
First off, these should be able to handle data collection.
As for considering other services that are easy to use from the UK or getting suggestions for candidates, let's leave that to other Earthlings.🤔ooO（🛸📡)))))🌏️)
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Another victim of the Online Safety Act. I imagine there will be more in the coming months if the UK government or Ofcom start punishing international websites for not adhering to their newfangled laws. Hopefully not Steamgifts.
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That's odd. I wonder what was the rationale behind the ban. Are other gif sites like giphy and tenor also getting the axe?
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Imgur pulls out of UK after data regulator warns of fines | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/30/imgur-pulls-out-of-uk-after-data-regulator-warns-of-fines/
Well, maybe companies are avoiding ties with them because if the “Censorship Bureau”—created “for the sake of children”—declares something a violation, Britain can seize fines from foreign companies.
(I'd like to think this is an extreme exaggeration and not factual.)
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So i guess it won't be long before it also pulls out of Europe, as our own data regulation fine system is coming into practice these days.
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Yeah, I guess so.
[NSFW]
Earthlings would probably call this timeline “WW3,” and it just looks like preparations for another war on the horizon. There's even talk that Poland might get hit by Russian terrorism... What a crazy era we're living in...
📝Recent statements by influential think tanks
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I don't know about that because it would be on a greater scale and UK is also pushing censhorship further than the EU recently.
We'll see.
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Well it's not censorship. It's about them selling the data of minors instead of securing it as required by law. The EU's recent Data Act also made provisions for the securing of minors privacy and will enforce breaches by fines.
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Well it's not censorship. (..) for the securing of minors privacy
Holly crap. I just found somebody who actually believes that xD
It's never about the minors.
Minors would use games to fool AI and parents ID to bypass locks. All those new laws are made only to make oppression apparatus more efficient. EU, just like GB is moving fast in the direction of authoritarianism. And doxing yourself in order to use internet is one of the steps. Not first. We are like in half way there already.
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Oh look another case of spending way too much time on the dark side of the internet.
Have a nice life.
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dark side of the internet.
Once they are done with the dark side - they will take care of "bright" side too.
Then you will be concerned, but it will be already too late.
Have a nice life too :) While you still can.
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I imagine using a VPN in the UK is going to become necessary for a lot of things; until they try to ban them that is.
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Banning VPNs is usually not a problem. I live in Russia, and with all this censorship VPN is obviously a must; the VPN service I've been using for several years was officially blocked in 2021, but the devs just added a couple of new protocols, and everything has been working perfectly well. But yes, it's sad that VPN is becoming a necessity even outside of totalitarian states.
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Agreed, this is discomforting.
Although the situation is much worse in the US than the UK, I would argue that a state that requires users to use a VPN for perfectly legal & normal use of the Internet is headed towards totalitarianism.
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still got imgur in the US
and guns, got guns for days
could be worse, could be CA
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It is though. For the older generation. They give up faster if there is no one to help them with tech issues
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outside of totalitarian states
Bruh. Brittain is arresting more people for opinions during single week than Russia in a year xD. They already are totalitarian state xD
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I must say UK is turning into a fairly unpleasant country to live in ...
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It seems like this may have more to do with Imgur's new owners, MediaLabs, being repeatedly unwilling (or unable) to provide evidence that they are handling children's details in a safe and legal way, so they are running away from the UK entirely to try to avoid a fine (that they will most likely have to face anyway).
It seems that many of the UK Imgur users are joining other Imgur refugees over at s3nd.pics
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I like companies that are somehow unable to provide evidence of standards and procedures they adhere to.
And ofc they'd rather lose the business because the UK has less than 70 million people so they don't care enough to actually follow the law.
I wonder what they'll do when the rest of Europe comes a-knocking.
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Until that one is banned too. All websites require age verification. Sand to the eyes!
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I remember when the Internet was the Internet... now it's more like a collection of internets.
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Yeah, I remember when the only data they had about us was the IP... then also the browser agent, but that was it.
I remember when facebook launched and people started posting shit using their real names.
It seemed absolutely crazy at the time. But now it's the norm and where does it stop?
How about that teenage girl who started getting ads of infant clothes before she even knew she was pregnant?
Yeah, we're beyond salvation and it's not going to change just because some governments decide this or that.
Because all that data... was shared by us and us alone. The change has to begin from within.
And no, we can't protect the kids by enforcing laws and fines, either. Kids know VPNs, too.
I'm not saying (to the govt) don't do it, I'm saying don't think it will work like you think it will.
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Yeah it's pretty much like back when tv started having ads to pay for content and now it's the ads driving the content and everything is just there to support the ads, have product placement in it and who cares about content?
95% of sites now only exist to make people give away their data so they can be sold off.
How about that teenage girl who started getting ads of infant clothes before she even knew she was pregnant?
Jesus that's scary.
My gf is a lawyer and she's been sent an app by a colleague to literally block her microphone and camera from working unless she gives the app express permission when a specific app needs it. And she finally stopped getting ads on her instagram feed about everything in her life from her dog's incontinence to her mom's issues with her hearing aids. Spying on you 24/7
Because all that data... was shared by us and us alone. The change has to begin from within.
Yeah but most people are too stupid to understand privacy or the need for it so that won't change. And in the case of kids, you should count on parents but again...
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when the internet started it was about sharing data
now its all about selling shit.....
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Man, I miss the old internet. Sharing data and information. Discovering new things. Finding your people.
You know... when people were finding each other over thousands and thousands of miles to share common interest instead of common hatred, fear-mongering and conspiracy theories.
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What is the point if I can just use a free VPN and access is back (which I just did to try)
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The point is that ICO can't fine imgur for breaking UK's regulations, if they pull out of the UK. If UK citizens then still use the service via VPN is irrelevant.
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Weird. I've had the exact opposite experience w imgur and vpns (imgur tends to just not work for roughly 80-90% of the vpn servers I use; using pia and us openvpn servers).
But if it works for you, more power to you . Hopefully, yours doesn't get added to their vpn blacklist like mine apparently did
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Yup, same for me, imgur has been a nightmare with my proxies, which is one more reason why I've always preferred alternative, smaller services.
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Any alternatives you'd recommend that work well on vpn/proxy? I like catbox(dot)moe myself but I have seen some sites that block it due to it allowing nsfw content. I admit that I've never really done a deep dive into imgur alternatives so it'd be interesting to hear what other people use as alts
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I've never had issues with postimages.org, but I don't exactly use image hosts that often
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Thanks. Reading their faq/terms of use, seems like they also allow nsfw so I would think they'd be in the same boat as catbox. Not really sure if sg has issues with them or not (provided the individual user is not linking to nsfw/otherwise bad images)... I didn't see anything in the faq and sg does allow adult games but that's doesn't necessarily mean anything and I don't want to get in trouble lol
(I remember some site blocking posts/temp banning users linking to catbox - even when content was sfw - but don't remember if it was here or somewhere else )
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It hasn't been blocked by the UK government, Imgur (MediaLabs) have stopped access from the UK to attempt to avoid a fine and complying with UK law. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo
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glad UK did not hear about steamgifts because they wlll ban it too for NSFW giveaways
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Absolutely. They are going after every website that doesn't comply, starting with the big ones. Deeply, we know it is an impossible task and a waste of taxpayers money to chase something so incredible short-sighted.
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This is why God and the United States Naval Research Laboratory gave us TOR
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Based on SmartBadger's and f300's comments above, sounds like this may be imgur blocking users rather than governments blocking imgur?
FWIW, imgur seems to pretty aggressively block vpn users too, at least for some vpns. In my experience using pia with us-based servers, imgur links often don't work, but occasionally I find a server they haven't blacklisted yet
So while I can relate to it sucking when you can't access images others posted.... I have to admit that if this created a niche where a more vpn-friendly competitor could replace a lot of imgur links, I'd consider that to be a net positive in the long term.
In the mean time... Does sg allow catbox dot moe images? Afaik that's pretty vpn friendly and works just as well as imgur.
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They are leaving because of a extremely badly written law aproved by the UK goverment.
And literally, in the law they can fine you if you publish something, ANYTHING, that can cause distress to children. Literally. I would pull out of UK too.
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Ah, yes, that does sound like a very poorly written law.
Still would like imgur not to block vpn users but I guess I can understand them pulling out if that is the case
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imgur was sold, all original staff gone. data harvesting site now....
Shara please....
https://youtube.com/shorts/A6tcY7_H-84
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I guess we're gonna need a new default site for uploading the images we share here if we want them to be seen by everyone, specially when the christmas event comes around. I've been using imgur pretty much because it worked fine with SG, so I'm open to suggestions of alternative sites since it sounds kinda sucky that some users will be arbitrarily blocked from seeing stuff.
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I've been using imgur pretty much because it worked fine with SG
I don't think imgur has any particular compatibility with SG. As far as I know, any image hosting service should "just work".
The only reason I can see why almost everyone is only using imgur is that the Internet just happens to have a very sad "winner takes it all" tendency. Which is why some describe the modern, hyper-centralized web as "Minitel 2.0"
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I've heard about Minitel before, from what I understand it was one of the predecessors to the internet that somehow survived well past the point of becoming obsolete.
And about imgur, I'm pretty sure it has been officially recommended for the christmas event, that or my memory is gaslighting me.
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French people tend to hold on to their glorious past so Minitel did hold on until the late 2000s but it was mostly for porn and hookups apparently. So I guess it also was Tinder before Tinder.
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Just to clarify, "Minitel 2.0" is meant as a big criticism, not as a praise 👀
It means the web is turning back to a heavily centralized state, the way Minitel was. Plus maybe it also refers to the paywalls, as Minitel was mostly using some kind of pay-per-view or pay-per-minute model (not really sure how, I never knew that system much).
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Just to clarify, "Minitel 2.0" is meant as a big criticism, not as a praise 👀
Oh I took it that way for sure. The only leg up the Minitel had on all this is that they were not stealing our data and selling it to the highest bidder.
Plus maybe it also refers to the paywalls, as Minitel was mostly using some kind of pay-per-view or pay-per-minute model (not really sure how, I never knew that system much).
Yep it was by the minute except for the yellow pages.
Now the whole of the internet is locked behind subscriptions... and data mining. Hell not just the internet. Even headphones and printers are coming with subscriptions these days. It's ridiculous lol
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Even headphones and printers are coming with subscriptions these days
Yup, "Life as a Service" :/
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lol indeed. And now picture us with a billionaire's chip in our brain to make us smarter, brighter or you know, just to "help" us learn languages, or walk if we're disabled.
There's no way this will come at a price to be paid monthly, right? Nope. no way. It'll never happen.
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There will be a lot of presents without pictures for UK users. There should be a warning at gift creation about this, maybe also a recommendation for an alternative.
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I honestly didn't even know imgur existed before SG. And I have been using it because of SG.
So yeah it would be cool to be able to use alternatives regardless of being in the UK or not since the new owners seem to be the kind that make you want to shower and check yourself for bugs after you've been on their sites xD
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My VPN frequently locked me out of imgur for a while, but I got pretty used to https://postimages.org/ ever since
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Seems like a good alternative. And no massive clickbait page. Thanks
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From September 30, 2025, access to Imgur from the United Kingdom is no longer available.https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/41592665292443-Imgur-access-in-the-United-Kingdom
Will this affect the Christmas presents that we put up each year. I, for one, had all my artwork for that feature stored on Imgur.
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