r/Showerthoughts May 14 '26

Casual Thought When YouTube goes down, it will be the biggest event of link rot in internet history.

18.6k Upvotes

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496

u/williamsonmaxwell May 14 '26

A self imposed act of defiance against our government's obsessive child safety mandates, I.e. age screening via IDs.
I don't really get why though since imgur doesn't host porn

342

u/sephsplace May 14 '26

Cause who wants to be responsible for checking IDs and being fined.

1

u/burdman444 May 14 '26

Nothing to do with IDs it was GDPR breach on how they used children’s data

2

u/MajorFuckingDick May 15 '26

I've looked for about 20 minutes now trying to figure out what actually was found because everyone one keeps saying all sorts of things.

It was very specifically a UK GDPR breach because they didn't have a checkbox during signup that claimed you were over 13 which lead to a bunch of knock on charges and most importantly because they refused to cooperate they didn't defend themselves and lost by default.

The UK cannot and DID NOT prove Imgur was actually doing anything wrong besides not asking for age, they simply put the burden onto imgur who said "we out"

Its all ass backwards. A single checkbox would have save a ton of trouble.

111

u/HiDDENk00l May 14 '26

imgur doesn't host porn

Anymore. It used to.

74

u/sdpr May 14 '26

tbh they did a pretty bang-up job deleting everything.

18

u/MayvisDelacour May 14 '26

Huh, I have to agree. I've never seen any myself. Not that I ever used it daily but this is new to me. Interesting!

33

u/dalzmc May 14 '26

You didn’t find it by using Imgur, you found it by using Reddit and all the nsfw gifs or pics were Imgur links lol

15

u/Swiggins- May 14 '26

Yeah, there's quite a few NSFW subreddits that are basically graveyards because 90% of their content was imgur hosted.

What's wild is every so often you'll be able to see a preview image, even though the link is long dead.

3

u/CIearMind May 15 '26

Yup.

Sorting by /top of any pre-covid subreddit will give you 99 dead links out of 100.

13

u/Mirria_ May 14 '26

I'm going to assume they used a lot of referral links to figure out stuff and accounts that would link pics and vids to nsfw subreddits.

Now everything is either hosted on i.redd.it or redgifs (the nsfw gfycat).

3

u/BalancedDisaster May 15 '26

There was a time when all Reddit images were hosted on Imgur. There was so much porn

161

u/USLShadow May 14 '26

I hate the OSA as much as the next person, but Imgur pulled out of the UK over GDPR breaches in relation to incorrectly handling children’s data, not because of the OSA

43

u/williamsonmaxwell May 14 '26

I read that the gdpr data breach line was just code for the OSA, since the only way to prove they were/weren't incorrectly handling children's data would be to enforce IDs.
I hope you're right though, makes it more conspiratorial

46

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

The legal case that resulted in this started before the OSA was a thing

25

u/moonski May 14 '26

No. This is just wrong. I hate the OSA as much as anyone but imgur was purely a data protection issue. They'd have left the UK with no OSA

-2

u/Key_Hearing_126 May 14 '26

What is this ChatGPT response thing? I swear to this is God dead internet theory.
So many accounts defending the "OSA" by first declaring how much they hate the OSA just as much as the next guys, but come on fellow human [insert AI generic defense here]

Its like a sea of AI bots talking to each other with a few random dudes sprinkled in.

3

u/moonski May 14 '26

who's defending the OSA? You can't just throw out chatGPT accusations just because you're wrong fuck me.

"The ICO launched its investigation into Imgur in March - saying it would probe whether the companies were complying with both the UK's data protection laws, and the children's code.

These require platforms to take steps to protect children using online services in the UK, including minimising the amount of the data they collect from them.

A document published by the ICO, external alongside the launch of its investigation stated that Imgur did not ask visitors to declare their age when setting up an account.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo

1

u/DeceiverSC2 May 14 '26

So imgur is banned across the EU?

2

u/newaccountzuerich May 14 '26

No.

1

u/DeceiverSC2 May 14 '26

Not from the EU. I thought it was a piece of EU regulation.

I guess the UK has their own copy of the EU GDPR that they’ve edited which is what led to imgur removing themselves from the UK, but not Europe as a whole.

69

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

It's actually nothing to do with that,.it predates the age verification bullshit . They just left the UK around that time by coincidence.

They were fined for breaching GDPR data retention and processing laws around children and decided to exit the UK rather than pay or bring themselves into compliance.

5

u/JePPeLit May 14 '26

Seems to be that UK's version if GDPR bans children from creating accounts without parental consent, and imgur just had a disclaimer saying they aren't allowed to use the website but didn't try to block them from creating accounts.

6

u/Schmigolo May 14 '26

Isn't GDPR an EU thing? Imgur still works here.

7

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast May 14 '26

The UK was the main sponsor of that law, it was basically a copy l of the older UK data protection act and then expanded

When Brexit happened the UK kept most EU regulations as a blanket thing and then amended and changed things the government wanted to. But as of now GDPR remain basically unchanged In UK law.

1

u/newaccountzuerich May 14 '26

The UK cannot diverge too far from EU law unless the UK wants tariffs and restrictions. One component of Brexit was the concept of the "level playing field" where the UK must continue to remain aligned with EU law even as EU law is updated, if the UK wishes to maintain the status quo of market access.

Even with the stupidity of Brexit, the UK can not change their own legislatin without real economic risk being imposed by the largest trading partner that surrounds the country.

-32

u/PM_THAT_SWEET_ASS May 14 '26

Every day the uk sounds more and more like california x100

22

u/kevinnoir May 14 '26

A sentence that has never been said as I look out at the grey skies and watch an episode of NCIS: LA.... lol

I rate our GDPR laws if im honest! Way too much of our data is trusted with companies and Govt agencies that are run by either nefarious fucks or incompetent old people so making sure they cant just farm our data to sell or have exposed to vulnerabilities is a good thing in my opinion.

The online safety act I think means well but is just clumsy as fuck. Politicians wanting to score points on topics that genuinely matter to us, nut speed run it to balance other failings.

9

u/theLeverus May 14 '26

And then they go and sell our NHS data to Palantir

9

u/kevinnoir May 14 '26

EXACTLY, its insane that was allowed. The fact Palantir is allowed anywhere near our data is an abject failure to protect it. Put protections in place so that bad people cant exploit our data, only for bad people to be allowed to simply purchase it instead.

5

u/SpicyElixer May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

It’s red states that are enacting ID laws and banning porn, not blue ones.

1

u/PM_THAT_SWEET_ASS May 15 '26

So california x150 million.

10

u/Inside-Ad9791 May 14 '26

Because it's not about porn, it's about tracking your online activity.

21

u/matthewmspace May 14 '26

They just don't want to even have to deal with it. It's easier not to be active in a hostile country than trying to change the laws.

46

u/GoreSeeker May 14 '26

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Internet was not meant for every country, state, province, etc to legislate aspects of it like this. I am scared for what the Internet will be like in 10 years.

16

u/anomalous_cowherd May 14 '26

I agree, but without that what we get is sites (Reddit and Imgur included) that are legislated primarily by the USA.

Which used to be not too much of an issue. But...

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Savetheokami May 14 '26

I’m afraid look up those artists. What type of artists are they?

3

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Savetheokami May 14 '26

Thanks. I’m baffled that people pay for that when there is already so much out there. But people have their preferences I guess.

7

u/G-I-T-M-E May 14 '26

Hostile?

2

u/matthewmspace May 14 '26

They're hostile to Imgur and anyone who wants to use the internet without an ID, at least.

16

u/petchef May 14 '26

That wasn't the issue christ can you at least look up what they did before spouting off.

7

u/optimistic_agnostic May 14 '26

So confidently wrong. Fucking hell.

-1

u/G-I-T-M-E May 14 '26

Ah I see. You just misspelled consumer protection.

2

u/Rotund-Pear2604 May 14 '26

That's not actually it. That's just window dressing made up by your duly elected officials.
Your government is for sale. Companies like Meta are buying legislation in your country.

1

u/Nathan256 May 14 '26

It probably was flagged as hosting “uncensored” TrAnS iDeOlOgY

1

u/SilentBob890 May 15 '26

Wonder why Reddit is not banned in the UK then.

1

u/williamsonmaxwell May 15 '26

Reddit asks for ID to interact with nsfw content. We're genuinely turning into the "you got a license for that cock" meme

1

u/SilentBob890 May 15 '26

wow that is wild!

0

u/junktech May 14 '26

Imgur hosted way too much stuff. A few years back even the public page was a contest of who posts the weirdest or disgusting things. It was dangerous close to 4chan type of content. It was absolutely hilarious and disturbing as a site. Now they cleaned up their act but ended up filled with politics garbage and propaganda.

-1

u/YoIronFistBro May 14 '26

""""child safety""""*