Yesterday I was out and about, having to use mobile data. Suddenly, Jerboa reported a certificate error wile browsing feddit.de. I figured it was just a glitch, but the error persisted. Tried accessing it via browser on mobile and suddenly I’m getting some Vodafone gateway telling me I need to unlock 18+ content…WTF? I’m not even on Vodafone, so presumably my phone was data-roaming. Accessing Reddit was, naturally, no problem. I’d love to know how many orders of magnitude more porn there is on Reddit than on Feddit lol…but feddit is blocked??
Anyway, I swiftly put my VPN on my phone and it’s no longer an issue. Very bizarre to see this, though. Has anyone else encountered it?
Are you on one of the MVNOs that piggyback Vodafone UK’s network? I think those are VOXI, Asda Mobile, Lebara and TalkMobile. Data roaming is unlikely as the main networks all prevent roaming from users from other UK networks.
Either way, this is standard. All UK networks that I am aware of have a content filter that is on by default, and you have to deliberately opt out of it. It’s been that way for at least 10 years, probably longer. When opening a new mobile account, getting it turned off is usually the first thing I do after porting my number. There will either be an option in the network’s user portal somewhere to turn it off, or customer services should be able to do it once they’ve verified you’re over 18.
Even if you don’t want to access sites that contain NSFW content, the false positive rate is generally fairly high, and at least in the past, it caused performance degradation on some networks.
The default is for 18+ content to be restricted by UK mobile networks, you will have to contact your network customer service and ask them to remove the restrictions.
Why was Reddit allowed then? And it’s even stranger that this was a Vodafone gateway, when I’m not on Vodafone. When I checked which network I was on, it did not even seem to be Vodafone in my phone settings. Anyway, VPNs solve that problem. Seems like the “18+” content policy is applied arbitrarily.