Our documentary about censorship is being censored

Perhaps we should take it as vindication. Within hours of releasing our new documentary, Think Before You Post, about the rise of censorship in Britain, we found out it was being censored, thanks to Britain’s authoritarian speech laws.

On X, the doc has been slapped with age restrictions, meaning you need to have verified your age in order to watch it or share it, even though it has zero age-inappropriate content in it. We even bleeped interviewee Allison Pearson’s judiciously used f-bomb just to be on the safe side. But no dice.

Dear @elonmusk, X appears to be censoring our documentary about censorship. It has been slapped with age restrictions, despite there being no age-inappropriate material in it. Any chance of getting this lifted? @Support https://t.co/vWgbAol2wr

— spiked (@spikedonline) October 28, 2025

As our friends at the Free Speech Union have pointed out, we likely have to thank the Online Safety Act – the great honking law that requires big social-media firms to verify the age of their users.

A few months ago, when the checks came into force, everything from speeches about grooming gangs to Goya masterpieces to threads about the Online Safety Act were suddenly muzzled on X, thanks to the legislation.

Now it seems we can add anti-censorship documentaries to the list. All the more reason to give ours a watch below:

Tom Slater is editor of spiked. Follow him on X: @Tom_Slater