32 ms·

VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

• mmarian 1y ago
  https://archive.is/GWdx5 https://archive.is/GWdx5
• fakespaghetti 1y ago
  [flagged]
• userbinator 1y ago
  This was an entirely predictable outcome.
  • pixxel 1y ago
    [dead]
  • arrowsmith 1y ago
    As is the next step: a slow but steady expansion of what's considered "unsafe" or "harmful" used to justify ever-increasing restrictions and censorship.
    • wkat4242 1y ago
      And VPNs will probably end up in that category too :(
    • lisbbb 1y ago
      As a student of 1930s and 1940s history, I can say for sure that the most terrifying aspect of what took place wasn't the "Gestapo" and all the open terror, it was the propaganda that fooled so many people and the censorship that kept the lies alive. Humanity still has not fully come to terms with the layers upon layers of lies that took place before and during WWII.
• elitistphoenix 1y ago
  Headline should be edited to put safety in quotes
• kelseydh 1y ago
  Australia is set to adopt these rules in December, it's going to be another boom for VPN providers.
  • octo888 1y ago
    So funny how countries move in lock-step
• sixothree 1y ago
  I went on a weekend vacation with three guys. I was asked what I thought a good VPN was. They all have VPNs on their phones apparently. Here I am thinking they are technologically adept, maybe a little bit security conscious. Or maybe misled by advertisements. It wasn't until after I got home I realized it was because of adult content.
  • lisbbb 1y ago
    Whatever it is for, let freedom ring. These puritanical laws do nothing but empower government with the end goal of totally controlling online speech.
  • xdfgh1112 1y ago
    Until like a week ago there was no age checking system for porn and no reason to use a VPN really. Although your friends could have been into some very strange stuff.
    • octo888 1y ago
      There has been a good reason to use a VPN for 25 years now (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000)
  • blitzar 1y ago
    > They all have VPNs on their phones apparently They listen to podcasts and watch youtube. They know that a good VPN will stop their internet banking details being stolen, protect their family in their home and add 2-4 inches to their manhood. Use code "Grifter Affiliate Marketing" for 10% off at checkout, thats code "Grifter Affiliate Marketing" for 10% off at checkout. Protect your privacy today.
• ethan_smith 1y ago
  Classic Streisand effect - attempts to restrict content access inevitably lead to widespread adoption of circumvention technologies.
  • itake 1y ago
    seems to be working in China. While many Chinese use VPN software, many don't bother with the friction and are fine just using rednote and friends.
    • bapak 1y ago
      Leaving the complexity of attempting to circumvent the great firewall aside, VPN isn't free. Not many are willing to drop £60+/year just to avoid identifying yourself on PH. Easier to find a website that doesn't enforce it.
      • dns_snek 1y ago
        > VPN isn't free. Not many are willing to drop £60+/year Yes it is, well, the shady ones that make you part of a botnet are. Those are the ones people are going to predominantly use.
      • voidUpdate 1y ago
        In the UK case, TOR seems to happily get around these restrictions for free (I gave it a quick check yesterday). I'd imagine that there might be some kind of crackdown on TOR exit nodes in the future though
        • crimsoneer 1y ago
          Tor is not an ideal browsing experience.
          • voidUpdate 1y ago
            nor is submitting your ID to a third party agency to allow you to go to a website
• sefrost 1y ago
  It is only a matter of time before they attempt to regulate VPN usage. Here is an article written by a British MP hinting at that: https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/online-safety-bill-must-do-more-to-protect-children-from-abusers-sarah-champion-3943313 https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/onli...
  • scott_w 1y ago
    It definitely seems like she’s conflating two issues: access to pornography and child grooming. I don’t see why she thinks regulating VPNs would reduce the latter.
    • pydry 1y ago
      She doesnt, she just wants to put in Putin-like levels of control and surveillance for the same reasons Putin does.
      • userbinator 1y ago
        Jinping is probably a better comparison.
        • derelicta 1y ago
          Xi is fairly popular in China tho, unlike this "labour" govt.
          • dkdbejwi383 1y ago
            Do they regularly poll British political parties for popularity in China?
            • derelicta 1y ago
              It was obvious to everyone that i was talking about the popularity of these govts in their respective countries.
• owisd 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • neoglow 1y ago
    Don't underestimate the will of young children to do what is 'forbidden'. Especially when in puberty, they will find ways. They are humans as well and can therefore think ;)
  • lisbbb 1y ago
    I really think the whole human race's ability to exchange information freely is bigger than "porn addiction" bs. We do this over and over and it always ends the same stupid way--millions upon millions of deaths that were avoidable.
  • _trampeltier 1y ago
    I should not let your 8 years watch tv alone, nor should you let 8 years old alone in the internet.
• tapoxi 1y ago
  I really don't understand why it wasn't just a requirement for Apple and Google to include a client side filter. Parent sets up the phone and it's enabled by default. Much simpler option for everyone involved.
  • john01dav 1y ago
    It's because this law isn't about protecting children, but about control of the Internet. They want online activity tied to real identity as a power grab.
    • airhangerf15 1y ago
      Yea, it's all about a permanent Digital ID and the end of any independent forums. It's the first essential steps before you get to great firewalls and social credit scores. Remember, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas already have similar laws in place in the US, so even a nation with better speech and gun laws is still not immune from the slow descent into technocracy.
      • ls612 1y ago
        At least in the US the Supreme Court ruled that these sorts of laws are only kosher because they target porn, which is afforded a lower degree of legal protection (albeit not no protection at all). Trying to restrict access to protected political speech or the like the way the UK and Australia did would likely be a very different court case.
        • flumpcakes 1y ago
          What political speech is the UK blocking? If the 'political speech' is not adult in nature, which is true 99.9% of the time, then it can't/won't be blocked under this rule. Unless of course this political speech is happening on a porn site, or a subreddit that has been deemed 18+. Which I can't see a legitimate reason for.
          • 1y ago
• cakealert 1y ago
  What message does it send when your government tries to impose costs on your preferred behavior while at the same time being unable to do it when you download a single app? The words that come to mind are malicious and incompetent. The only 'achievement' is to increase contempt towards the government. And the times aren't exactly stable to begin with.
• zaptheimpaler 1y ago
  Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.
  • kevinventullo 1y ago
    Neither, they’re just the most convenient excuses for instituting draconian laws.
  • happymellon 1y ago
    Because the media always paints other countries in certain lights, as it helps them build a narrative for their own governments? > complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government I disagree with this sentiment, however it does show how bad "democracy" can be when voting for a complete government change results in absolutely no change whatsoever.
    • MaxPock 1y ago
      Authoritarian CCTV cameras in Shenzhen Vs democratic CCTV cameras in London
      • happymellon 1y ago
        Heavily monitored London, freedom America. https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-prevalence-cctv-cameras-large-cities.html https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-prevalence-cctv-cameras-... Oh wait, Paris, NYC, SF, Tokyo have more cameras per sq. Km. Narrative.
        • Saline9515 1y ago
          Paris and Seoul are much denser than London. A better measure is the cameras/habitant or the % of coverage. London has 100% coverage for instance.
• thdhhghgbhy 1y ago
  The new online safety rules are already being used to shut down government criticism. How it works is their new elite protection squad, if someone is deigned an influential critic of government policy, trawls through your social media posts until they find something against the laws. A lot of government critique is coming from the working class here now, who have virtually no political representation in the UK. As you can imagine, some of these social media posters don't mince their words, and end up getting caught out and arrested.
  • ChrisKnott 1y ago
    Do you have any examples of people being arrested for criticising a law? Most of the time these dystopian descriptions of the UK turn out to be completely overblown nonsense when you look into them properly.
    • ls612 1y ago
      https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/05/15/britains-police-are-restricting-speech-in-worrying-ways https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/05/15/britains-police... Tons of people are arrested and charged every day for thought crimes in Britain.
      • Steve16384 1y ago
        Paywalled. Might be better: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/parents-arrest-school-whatsapp-complained-cowley-hill-b2723751.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/parents-arre... It sounds like there was harrasment involved, but it is scant on details.
        • pjc50 1y ago
          Whenever one of these stories come up, we find there is a side missing. In this case, it's a school, so for safeguarding reasons they're not going to say anything at all about the children. Quite often "arrested for saying X" turns out to be "arrested for a lengthy campaign of targeted harrasment, culminating in X"
• gg82 1y ago
  The safety rules are also being used to block content about protests in the UK. How convenient for them. https://freespeechunion.org/protest-footage-blocked-as-online-safety-act-comes-into-force/ https://freespeechunion.org/protest-footage-blocked-as-onlin...
  • alwa 1y ago
    > “West Yorkshire Police denied any involvement in blocking the footage. X declined to comment, but its AI chatbot, Grok, indicated the clip had been restricted under the Online Safety Act due to violent content.” I’m not involved with X or with its chatbot. Is its chatbot ordinarily an authoritative source for facts about assumptions like this one, that the law “was used to take down” politically sensitive video? It’s a bad look either way, but I feel like there are important differences between the law leading to overly conservative automated filtering, vs political actors using it deliberately in specific cases. Bad symptom either way, but different medicines, right?
    • portaouflop 1y ago
      Of course LLMs are a rubbish source for facts, one should always verify. Not possible in this case so I would assume it just made it up
      • exodust 1y ago
        In this case, Grok is stating the obvious. I'm not sure how you can arrive at any other conclusion. The clip is inaccessible to some users in the UK on the day the act comes online, replaced with a message about local laws and age verification.
      • Devilspawn6666 1y ago
        For clear evidence it's happening see https://youtu.be/YQDC4EklerM?si=krX2KP5tv8MEzaTj https://youtu.be/YQDC4EklerM?si=krX2KP5tv8MEzaTj
    • exodust 1y ago
      > that the law “was used to take down” politically sensitive video? You've misquoted the chatbot, which is a new one. The video wasn't "taken down" and Grok never said that. It was blocked for some users in the UK due to the new authoritarian age verification laws which everyone should be concerned about if access to newsworthy content requires "papers please".
• renegat0x0 1y ago
  We all know how people in position of power, governments like kids. Trump also likes kids. They do it for kids, sure. If not for kids, then why they introduce data-gathering solutions? I wonder why...
• dottjt 1y ago
  This might be a dumb question, but is it possible for the UK government to ban VPN usage within the UK?
  • xdfgh1112 1y ago
    They banned porn with choking in it. They banned toy advertising in the evening. They tried to ban client side encryption for iCloud. Make no mistake they will go for vpns too.
    • isaacremuant 1y ago
      100%. Funnily enough. They just need to claim it's "protecting the children" and people fall for it. The funniest part is that high profile criminal cases go unpunished very visibly. Even if they have minors in their context, because the elite figures in question must be protected from the enforcement of rules.
      • badpenny 1y ago
        I may well be wrong, but I suspect that the number of people who "fall for" the protect-the-children narrative, at least to the degree where they believe the proposed change is effective enough to justify it, isn't very large. I'd argue it works because it's a rhetorical tactic that's highly effective at suppressing dissent. Anybody sticking their head above the parapet is going to get painted as somebody who favours pornography over the safety of children, even though this legislation and opposition to it has very little to do with either.
        • isaacremuant 1y ago
          In my experience, people in real life do absolutely parrot the talking points that are deemed to be good (TM). Whether they do it out of fear or not, ends up being a moot point since they create an environment of apparent cohesion.
    • Spivak 1y ago
• OutOfHere 1y ago
  UK and Australia are slowly going the way of China in their blocking, and the eventual end effect could be that they will get their citizens cut off from the internet.
  • exodust 1y ago
    They're coming for AI tools next. Here in Australia they're rolling out the academic socialist activists on the public broadcaster. These experts know how to keep us safe apparently. This morning it was all about "think of the children" in the context of banning AI tools that could potentially be used to make AI generated CSAM. Even adult nudity is in the firing line. Ban the lot was the advice from the expert. Not just banning access, but making it a crime to even possess the tools. What next? Ban paint brushes because someone might use them to paint offensive images?
    • Jigsy 1y ago
      Some countries (like the UK) make it illegal to draw things. Hell, the UK are currently criminally investigating anime artwork websites.
      • exodust 1y ago
        Just noticed Flickr is jumping on the child-safety alarmism: "Flickr will now require all new users to be 18 years of age or older to create an account" Not just for UK but global.
  • isaacremuant 1y ago
    The EU too. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-verification https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-ver... It's just that Australia and UK tend to lead the way when it comes to authoritarianism and then it becomes "this has always been like this, you conspiracy theorist".
  • Steve16384 1y ago
    And several states in America.
• gorgoiler 1y ago
  The VPN trick potentially won’t last long. We’ve seen it go stale already in the world of intellectual property rights. For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.) One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP. The more troubling thing about these laws is enforcement. The threat of fines only works against websites that map to a business entity. For anything else there will surely see a ramp up in the size of The Great British Firewall Ruleset, edited by the courts, and distributed to the Big N (5?) ISPs. What will become of the smaller ISPs that refuse to block illegal sites?
  • nly 1y ago
    This isn't about illegal sites? I don't think many people object to blacklisting known sources of child pornography etc. The fact is you now have to verify your identity (name and photo id) in the UK to access an adult subreddit.
    • gorgoiler 1y ago
      You need to be able to shut down websites and apps which do not implement age verification.
      • morkalork 1y ago
        Right, anything that doesn't cooperate with the ID verification is defacto illegal in the UK's eyes?
        • immibis 1y ago
          not de facto illegal, but actually, de jure, illegal
      • pjc50 1y ago
• aydyn 1y ago
  Gee, maybe Trump isnt so bad
• oliwarner 1y ago
  I don't care for the framing: users evading the law. First, this is a law limiting the actions of service providers not users. But by using a VPN, I'm making my own safety choices. I wish there was an easier opt-out (like an ISP account-level flag), but it I want to present to service providers as (eg) Swedish, so what? I'm an adult, the "safety" laws do nothing for my safety. The truth is service providers and ISPs have done next to nothing to stop children signing up for (eg) Snapchat, despite a plethora of laws. Of course the parents are to blame, but fixing shitty parenting is hard.
• elric 1y ago
  So, is internet freedom still a thing in any countries? And what's their immigration policy like?
• password54321 1y ago
  Destroy cultural integrity, national identity, create a low-trust society, become more authoritarian to manage low-trust society, import more immigrants at an exponential rate while house costs rise along with unemployment. The list keeps going. This is why far-right is surging on the polls. The country has completely lost all sense.
  • nindalf 1y ago
    Incredible that you’ve managed to bring this conversation to immigration. In fact, it sounds like you’re saying the root cause of this crappy policy is somehow immigrants. Far fetched and not cool.
    • fennecbutt 1y ago
      It's a valid topic for discussion. Even as a foreigner who was in UK on a visa and eventually got ilr I'm still concerned about it. The current situation regarding small boats is not sustainable, particularly when it's proven that the majority are not fleeing persecution but are economic migrants. They're taking advantage of a system designed to help people in trouble, how could you defend that? And when does it end? Will the UK always accept small boats ad infinitum? I played by the (harsh) rules and got here legitimately. Why should I have bothered.
      • Arkhaine_kupo 1y ago
        > It's a valid topic for discussion not on a thread about vpn useage > The current situation regarding small boats is not sustainable the current situation regarding small boats is the inevitable conclusion to a badly implemented brexit policy and a negligent tory party rule over 13 years. Startmer took 5 months in power to talk to France and have them agree to tackle it on their side of the water. Also no brexit, no boats. The anti immigration chest thumpers caused the problem and then scurried like rats. Farage was impossible to be found the year after brexit won, dude aws the face and suddenly wanted to part of the "glory"
        • 1y ago
• chrismatheson 1y ago
  There are a lot of comments and thinking along the demo and gloom lines. On the "silver lining" side, could be a eye-opener for the population of the UK, that things they take for granted cant get summarily yanked away if they don't actually do something. And with any luck it will pull up the technical competency of every person using these services (pretty much every adult). With any luck parents might even be forced to gain the skill their kids already live and breathe and don't think twice about. :)
  • hkon 1y ago
    Any suggestions?
  • reflexco 1y ago
    I used to be optimistic that way, but if you look somewhere similar developments happened before like China: yes, people adapted to circumvent their regime's oppression, but the laws never changed. Since surveillance is only a 2nd tier issue in terms of mind share (at best), it's untouched by electoral democracy. And because rulers automatically support more surveillance, there are no mechanisms for positive developments on that side, both in the UK and in China.
  • isaacremuant 1y ago
    If COVID policies and mandates including the vaccine passports which absolutely paved the way for digital IDs for any action in society, didn't wake up populations around the world, nothing will. You just need to scare them when there's an appearance of dissent and that's that. Few people can combat them effectively from a tech and legal framework, for sure, but don't expect magic from nowhere. Every time this comes up, an accusation with some label becomes sufficient to dismiss any arguments from a person.
  • renewiltord 1y ago
    Everyone with any ability to open their eyes migrated to the US from the UK ages ago. The civilization that exists today is what happens when people too scared to get on a boat live in the dregs of a dying empire.
  • 1y ago
• blini-kot 1y ago
  [dead]
• nemomarx 1y ago
  Kinda worried they'll just get to work banning consumer VPN use?
  • nebben64 1y ago
    how would that work? Besides blocking the websites to download some VPN. Or if someone already has a VPN installed.
    • nemomarx 1y ago
      Get the websites blocked too, some kinda minor fine if you're identified as using one, make it seem scary in the public eye to discourage it, ban advertisements? You can't really stop it, but you can start treating it like Piracy. Maybe ISPs could snoop and report traffic that seems to be going to a VPN even if they can't inspect it.
    • dijit 1y ago
      I see you’ve never been anywhere that blocks VPNs. First they will make it seem like only criminals would use VPNs, then they’ll target some actually shady VPN services to use as a scapegoat, then they’ll apply punitive measures to them specifically; then they will use the fact that they have already used punitive measures as a reason to use them blanketly. Technically: it’s pretty trivial to block almost all VPNs at an ISP level. I think only anyconnect/openconnect is difficult (not impossible) to block. That this would affect businesses is of no consequence.
      • jeroenhd 1y ago
        DPI can figure out standard VPNs, including anyconnect, pretty well based on timing and packet sizes. There are tools designed to evade DPI detection, but even those don't make out out of the Great Firewall of China most of the time. Technical solutions to political problems only go so far.
      • vidarh 1y ago
        > That this would affect businesses is of no consequence. This is a historically unpopular government, where a significant proportion of their own membership is opposed to the government as well, dependent on business donors because its membership numbers has crashed. I think the effect on businesses would make going after VPNs entirely dead in the water.
• cornfieldlabs 1y ago
  How should small social network sites, forums or any sites that post user-generatrd content etc who can't afford to do age verification respond to this law? Block all requests from UK IPs? We are building a niche social network and don't want to be in the cross-hairs. Is anyone in a similar position? How's your company dealing with this? Edit: apart from cost, storing user IDs etc goes against our goal of building a private social network. We would like to retain least amount info https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev
  • jart 1y ago
    Focus on building and don't worry about being in regulatory crosshairs until you're actually in their crosshairs. The less you know about this stuff the better.
    • raverbashing 1y ago
      This right here (also applies to GDPR, and even though GDPR has wider applicability, devs should focus on the low-hanging fruit first instead of going around in what-ifs and exceptions)
    • varispeed 1y ago
      If you are building competing service and your competition has links to government, you will be one brown envelope away from being crushed. These regulations are meant to serve big corporations and protect their monopoly.
      • tharmas 1y ago
        >These regulations are meant to serve big corporations and protect their monopoly. B*I*N*G*O!
  • xd 1y ago
    The new legislation likely won't apply to you: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2025-0043/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-... - the section "Threshold conditions for categorisation of services".
• BoxOfRain 1y ago
  I genuinely think that some 20% of the population are incurable moral busybodies, and the main function of liberal democracy is to protect the rest of society from these people. In this case liberal democracy has failed to protect us from some truly terrible legislation. Its impact goes far beyond adult content, it's an open attack on freedom of expression in this country that will lead to the proliferation of scams and identity theft. The amount of absurd things I've been asked to show ID for already when I've forgotten to turn on the VPN is exactly as bad as predicted, and I'm not going to trust some two-bit identity checking service. The depressing thing is this seems the one thing a government that's famous for U-turning won't U-turn on. Even if (let's be honest, when) a list of MPs proclivities emerges from a data breach the most they'll do is exempt MPs from the provisions rather than admit this is a terrible law that makes the UK more dangerous rather than safer.
  • cmeacham98 1y ago
    Liberal democracy's actual function is to convert the will of the people into a functioning government. If it was actually true that 80% of the population opposed this law, MPs would be falling over themselves to run against it and it would be gone immediately after the next election cycle. I think it's a dumb law, but I also don't think the UK's democracy is that broken. It's pretty clear a majority of UK voters support or are at least ok with this law.
    • MattPalmer1086 1y ago
      Why do you think it's clear a majority of UK voters support this?
    • johnisgood 1y ago
      I think it is not that they are OK with it, the majority probably does not care, or has no clue of its implications.
• Simulacra 1y ago
  Is this just people who REALLY need their porn, or a backlash like when people buy lots of guns because they think they will get banned?
  • lucasRW 1y ago
    Or maybe they just want to access X content which is now censored from the UK, like migrants put in hotels ?
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • BugheadTorpeda6 1y ago
    The first thing. Governments let it fester uncontrolled for decades, it's going to be a huge shitshow to try and control it now.
• dwedge 1y ago
  The obvious stage two being the UK targeting VPNs as technology to get around think-of-the-children laws
  • flumpcakes 1y ago
    I doubt they would bother - it's practically impossible without the investment of the level of China. They will probably pass a law that says you have to be 18+ to purchase a VPN however.
    • dwedge 1y ago
      Or target it under the same law. All you need to do is shift the blame for providing adult content onto the vpn provider and suddenly they'll stop providing services to the UK. Might be a little more tricky to enforce globally but perfect enforcement isn't necessary to be a deterrent
• PaulKeeble 1y ago
  A lot of people are going to be putting their ID details into all sorts of websites and giving this to all sorts of third parties because of this law. Its going to cause a huge increase in ID related theft and fraud in the coming years and its not even going to achieve its stated goal. Worse is its blocking sites it really shouldn't, wikipedia is fighting this in court at the moment because they want to censor it! This is terrible legislation, there is a petition that has reached 350k already to repeal it. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
  • cornfieldlabs 1y ago
    This. Even sites who don't want to store IDs because they are small or it's against their ethos have to do it or pack their bags
  • tmaly 1y ago
    There is definitely some questionable VPN providers.
  • a5c11 1y ago
    I've tried accessing one of the most famous porn sites, and I was asked to verify my age by giving either credit card details or bank details to a 3rd party company registered in Cyprus. Lol. I'm temporarily living and working in UK, and I'm amazed how once big empire turns to a third-world country so easily.
• crossroadsguy 1y ago
  Since it's about VPNs - what are good VPNs for someone looking for safety/privacy but not anonymity or even IP hiding? Not even for streaming. But for general "safety while on the Internet" when the devices (Mac, iPhone) are mostly on public or not-so-secure WiFi (at the residence or on the go). Plan is to keep it always ON or almost always ON. Not necessarily for the UK. (Other than Mullvad)
  • lan321 1y ago
    This sounds more like a task for NextDNS than a VPN, tbh. Or are you worried about no TLS?
    • crossroadsguy 1y ago
      I have tried NextDNS and I think I should try it again but the last few experiences ended in a lot of sites breaking. Maybe this time I will try someone from country who has written a tutorial about it. But a VPN would have been more appropriate for this task and if ever I needed to use a different IP from a different country (that would be rare and mostly to access websites for a short period) I could just do it easily.
      • lan321 1y ago
        For me, it doesn't break anything with their filters. Using it on both phone and PC and I don't manage to hit the free limit for the month. (unless I forget to close the GOG launcher, which for some reason is pinging all the time and blows through the monthly usage limit in a week) Mullvad, however, leads to Captcha City and is straight up blocked on a couple of sites, namely McGearHub and, for a time, Runescape. Btw, if you have a friend using it, you can likely mooch off their sub. I share mine with 2 other people since the device limit is 5, and I only have my phone and PC on it. I'm guessing the captcha city situation might be better with more "casual" VPNs but I doubt it makes much of a difference once you have a bunch of people on the same IP.
  • jnwatson 1y ago
    The best VPN is to host your own. I used Digital Ocean. They have preconfigured droplet images for OpenVPN access server. The droplet even serves a client pre-configured with the connection settings. It took me all of 10 minutes to set up.
• justref 1y ago
  I wonder which company is gonna be the first one to leak all of the ID and Selfies. After that, I'm expecting these laws to be lifted off.
  • Ylpertnodi 1y ago
    > After that, I'm expecting these laws to be lifted off. Bollocks (nicely). A shit-load of 'the 1%', just got a free pass. If anything, after that!, 'I'm expecting these laws to be doubled-down on.'
  • Jean-Papoulos 1y ago
    If anything they will double down to "track cyber-bullying" or some other load of horsecrap.
  • tim333 1y ago
    My Reddit selfie was a bit rubbish looking. I think they'll have to abolish the law if that gets out.
  • VerdisQuo5678 1y ago
    its already happened that tea app got all its ID verification photos stolen and published online and yet were still going full steam ahead
• rich_sasha 1y ago
  Clearly, the next step is to regulate VPNs
• zb3 1y ago
  Turns out the Great Firewall was ahead of its time and it will soon become the standard in the so called "free" world too.
• irusensei 1y ago
  Slightly related question. How Matrix, Mastodon, Bsky and Nostr handling this? More specifically the small and personal instances.
  • brandrick 1y ago
    Bluesky asked for a picture or a credit card auth.
    • irusensei 1y ago
      That’s the main instance right? I am curious about the small and individual instances.
• mathgradthrow 1y ago
  pornography does not harm children.
  • alt227 1y ago
    That is an incredibly neive view which has been proven wrong many times over. Exposure to pornography early on in life dramatically increases the chance that person will be affected by things like sexual addiction, or gravitate towards extreme views in the same vein like incels. Testosterone is a very powerful drug, and young brains need protecting from explicit content if we want to bring up mentally healthy males in our societies.
    • mathgradthrow 1y ago
      Every male on earth looked at pornography as a child. Any problem it creates is literally as bad as it can possibly be. You also don't have a control group, and social media is a much better guess for whats wrong with men anyway. Basically all of the hyper masculine bullshit aimed at children advises them to not consume pornography. This is just fear-mongering.
• ionwake 1y ago
  Just a reminder “Brexit” happened just a few years ago. Suddenly no British man can be more than 3 months in another European country before being “banned”. You can’t even move to Switzerland and setup a company. Yes technically it’s possible but I was told my a Swiss accountant “just don’t bother trying unless you can get a European passport - if you can” This is from personal experience. As odd as it sounds Brexit really affected business ( always thought it was posturing) I can’t imagine what it did to mega corps etc Just thought I’d share my xp
  • nemomarx 1y ago
    Is that unexpected? You'd have the same issues immigrating to any country, right? It seems like British people got very used to being able to move to the continent but how long was that state of affairs around for, I wonder.
  • ricardobeat 1y ago
    > Suddenly no British man can be more than 3 months in another European country before being “banned” That’s how visas work in most of the world. I’m curious now, did you vote for it and not expect this? It doesn’t sound odd at all, it is exactly what everyone said would happen other than people promoting Brexit as some form of nationalism/pride movement.
  • Profan 1y ago
    I uh, surely you knew about visas before this?
    • tim333 1y ago
      I think people assumed there would be an ongoing deal on free travel. Personally I thought there might be. Still no there wasn't and I'm German now.
      • Profan 1y ago
        Yeah that's fair enough really, it is still surprising that there wasn't
• lucasRW 1y ago
  It baffles me that some people vote for socialists and are then surprised to have soviet-style laws.
  • Doctor_Fegg 1y ago
    The Online Safety Bill was introduced by the previous Conservative government.
    • octo888 1y ago
      And criticised by the current party in power for not going far enough. Then passed by them
    • lucasRW 1y ago
      The application of that law has nothing to do with online safety. Soviet-style politics are very good at taking a law ("we need to protect children from suicide websites") to turn it into something completely different ("... so we need to censor footage of protesters outside of the Britannia hotel").
  • blitzar 1y ago
    It baffles me that some people blame "the other side" for the things "their side" gleefully ushered in.
  • dkdbejwi383 1y ago
    socialism is when you have to provide ID to download porn
• nashashmi 1y ago
  This alternative approach is fine. When people use extra money to pay for such services, it boosts economic activity and creates a market-driven filter. If you are economically advanced, you can afford this workaround. If you are not, well you are surrendering to govt safety rules. And thus everything works.
• anoncow 1y ago
  Now they will ban VPNs
• benbojangles 1y ago
  Sandford Police are on the scene
• p0w3n3d 1y ago
  I must be honest with you, as far as I am pro net-neutrality, I can observe people using internet irresponsibly. As the internet stood up to allow sharing of science publications, now mostly shared is the pornographic type of content. When Tim Berners-Lee was thinking about people sending themselves a book he probably (we still may ask him) haven't predicted people sending boob/dick pics. As the content technical level lowers, amount of people sharing their stupidity increases. Meanwhile other irresponsible people give phones to their children (I am amongst them) hoping the children won't go into the bad places and trusting in freedom. Currently my kids got already out of my hand, and I really wonder how could I filter the content that goes to them. Internet became something else, so maybe I won't install a VPN to their phones and they won't be able to see the most horrible things anymore.
  • rpdillon 1y ago
    You can just configure their DNS to use 1.1.1.3. No need for the government to step in and manage your child's internet access.
    • alt227 1y ago
      You obviously have no experience with trying to block a modern teenager from the web. That will stop them for seconds, maybe minutes. Im not for this bill at all, but I agree with what the government are saying about parents being unable to protect their children because the children know more about the systems than the parents do.
  • Pooge 1y ago
    > now mostly shared is the pornographic type of content What is your source? I believe you are incredibly biased. Netflix is one of the biggest user of bandwidth worldwide, and if we're talking about the percentage of "pornographic" IP packets, I think it's even less than the former. > and I really wonder how could I filter the content that goes to them Parental control on device and DNS-level blocker (think AdGuard, PiHole, ...). Hosts file could also work as long as they're not admin on their PC. If they're skilled enough to circumvent all of that, then I think your kids will be fine.
• louthy 1y ago
  Welcome to the Cloudflare captcha on every site you visit, the internet is now broken for you.
• RealCodingOtaku 1y ago
  There is a petition to repeal the Online Safety Act[0]. The initial government response can be read as “lol, no”. [0] https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
  • jonathantf2 1y ago
    I'm not sure I've ever seen a petition on that website with a positive outcome.
  • koakuma-chan 1y ago
    Government responded "I would like to thank all those who signed the petition." Who "I" ?
  • vorticalbox 1y ago
    > The Government has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and is working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections.
  • bloqs 1y ago
    i dont understand after (15?) years of petitions with zero results, how anyone is stupid enough to keep thinking they should be mentioned
  • raincole 1y ago
    Whether age verification is a justified idea or not, it feels awfully like the UK is createing a new generation of single-issue voters here. Even wilder, they're lowering voting age to 16 [0]. So there would be a demographic group who can vote but cannot watch porn...? [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c628ep4j5kno https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c628ep4j5kno
    • pfortuny 1y ago
      Well, you cannot drink alcohol if you are less than 21 in the USA, but you can vote.
• SheinhardtWigCo 1y ago
  Predictable own goal. If a lot of UK users end up routing their traffic through a foreign VPN then GCHQ's backbone taps become far less useful.
• jonplackett 1y ago
  I’m sure it’s only the adults using VPNs so don’t worry, this is still a fantastic law that is definitely helping children not watch porn and absolutely not just a massive attack on civil liberties in disguise.
  • commandlinefan 1y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the only people who _couldn't_ get around this were legal adults.
    • jonplackett 1y ago
      Yep that was my point really
• blitzar 1y ago
  The "VPN use surges in UK" articles are bought and paid for by the VPN industry. I don't believe it is possible to convince me that VPN's as sold and marketed are anything but a massive scam. Yes, that includes the company that you say is honest.
  • raincole 1y ago
    ...that's a really wild take and I seriously wonder what it means.
  • octo888 1y ago
    I want to believe Mullvad is legit but I'm too old, have read too much and I'm way too cynical
  • doix 1y ago
    What do you mean by "scam"? That you pay and that they don't work at all? That they don't bypass the geo restrictions? Because they do. Perhaps you mean that they are bad value(ripoff vs scam)? Then sure, probably they are. But you're basically paying to not get flagged by cloudfare. Back in the day, you bought a cheap server from OVH or some other lowcost provider, stuck openvpn on it (nowdays wireguard) and you were golden. But now that Cloudfare middle-mans half the internet, it doesn't really work anymore. You pay the VPN providers for "clean"(ish) IPs so you don't get stuck behind Cloudfare captcha-loops.
  • qualeed 1y ago
    They do what they say on the tin (i.e. not a "massive scam"). If people think they do other things, that's not a "scam", that's people being misinformed about what a VPN is and does. That's on them.
  • vpShane 1y ago
    Believe it or not, there's some of us who believe in privacy. There's many that believe in encryption, and believe in transparency, and believe in systems and network security. 'Honest' in what regard? That security and encryption can't be attained to value people's privacy? Let's not take away from the fact that things like Wikipedia are blocking entire countries (UK) to its services. When deleting/blocking the forum becomes easier than compliance or risking fines/being punished, they will _delete the forum_
• qingcharles 1y ago
  British VPN users right now: https://x.com/NoContextBrits/status/1949181229791592887 https://x.com/NoContextBrits/status/1949181229791592887 or https://xcancel.com/NoContextBrits/status/1949181229791592887 https://xcancel.com/NoContextBrits/status/194918122979159288...
  • noncewatch 1y ago
    [flagged]
• blendo 1y ago
  I need to prove my age to buy a lottery ticket or purchase alcohol. The merchant typically doesn't save my id info. What if I could purchase a unique QR code, good for maybe a month, that I could use online to prove my age? There'd still be problems in the US with 1st amendment issues, but I'd at least remain anonymous.
  • filoleg 1y ago
    > what if i could purchase a unique qr code, good for maybe a month, that I could use online to probe my age? I can already smell a business opportunity to start illegally reselling/dealing age-verification qr codes.
    • Larrikin 1y ago
      It's called selling a fake ID, which is already illegal.
    • triceratops 1y ago
      That also happens with alcohol and tobacco. Cops can run sting operations to catch illegal dealers. But IRL id verification removes easy access for most children while preserving the privacy of adults.
  • staplers 1y ago
    I don't think anyone has a problem with verifying their age. What many people do have a problem with is requiring disclosure of unmodifiable biometric data and government documents that once "hacked"/sold into the data collection pipeline becomes forever tainted and easily stolen. You can't "reset my password" with biometric data once a malicious actor has it
    • mulmen 1y ago
      I have a problem verifying my age or any other piece of information that isn’t critical to whatever service you are providing to me. Beyond that it’s none of your or anyone else’s damn business. If you don’t have a legally issued warrant then leave me the hell alone. This isn’t an area for compromise.
• mgaunard 1y ago
  Any advice of which country I should set my VPN to for the best experience of freedom?
  • octo888 1y ago
    Albania works pretty well. I think Youtube doesn't show ads either.
  • Ylpertnodi 1y ago
    ...depends on your vpn.
  • tim333 1y ago
    I tend to select Singapore or USA in the drop down. I think Singapore on balance. A lot of crypto type sites freak out if they think you are in the US.
• lenerdenator 1y ago
  This sort of thing is why the US has turned into a governance-averse society in some pretty bothersome ways. People suggest some sort of regulation for something, or some social service, often ones that are similar to those in the UK, and people who oppose it will point to things like this and use them to illustrate the slippery slope fallacy.
  • wagwang 1y ago
    I mean, it quite literally is a slippery slope. Its only a fallacy if the causal indicators aren't so obvious.
    • lenerdenator 1y ago
      Well, if you look at the US, similar laws are being enacted at the state level as those you see in the UK, often by the same people who would reject the other features of governance you see in the UK (the NHS, stricter firearms regulations, etc.) because of them being "overbearing".
      • wagwang 1y ago
        They are overbearing, this UK-esque "do you have a loisence for that" governance, is exactly why we have a permitting crisis in SF.
        • lenerdenator 1y ago
          Aye, but the one thing you very likely won't have in SF is the need to have your government ID stored in a system in order to view NSFW material.
  • RetpolineDrama 1y ago
    >the slippery slope fallacy I see the slippery slope fallacy-fallacy more than the base fallacy.
  • thegrim33 1y ago
• jjangkke 1y ago
  I see many are focusing on the aspect of VPN itself and not enough as to why this is occurring in UK in particular and we should expect it in countries like Canada, and other EU countries as well in the near future. The fact of the matter is conservative movements are surging not only in UK, EU, US but in Asia as well (ex. Recent surprise seat gains by moderate right parties). The reason there is a common reaction across borders is the decoupling from globalism which pushed the overton window so far left that its brought a yo-yo effect to the right. Globalism isn't a conspiracy theory its real established and demonstrable political movement to dilute all cultures by attacking their national identity, heritage through mass immigration which ultimately leads to a low trust social dynamic via crime (proven by statistics) or incompatibility (belligerence against their host counry and refusal to integrate and pushing imported foreign culture and values). It's no wonder that such reckless push to gaslight its own ethnic/religious incumbents have swung polls in the opposite direction, and in a desperate attempt to hold on to the power that globalism has given to those that preach it, ironically turn to fascist tactics such as censorship, criminalization of speech and increased surveillance that only emboldens more overton window shift to the right. You kept calling people "far right" yesterday for slightest disagreements to progressive policies in order to censor and intimidate them and today you have huge number of people who no longer care for that label as they find safety in size and number. At this rate, given the way things are going in UK and EU and many other countries, its going to manifest in extremely far right wing policies being normalized and coming to power as majority of the population becomes "far right" and the new normal center, and those that called themselves "liberal progressive left" will find themselves outside the Overton window. We've probably seen these ebbs and flows in politics countless times throughout human history and I understand better as to why things like Bolsheviks, Nazis, Communists came to rise. The demand to bypass political censorship and surveillance increasing in the West, the so called bastion of democracy and freedom, will backfire into wide scale civil unrest. We've already seen a preview of it in Spain recently, where a group of Moroccan migrant gangs have attacked locals and in turn locals fought back and burned down a large mosque. I've been to UK, France and Ireland recently and there is deep deep resentment from the locals towards the Muslim and North African population, and it reminded me of my childhood growing up in Lebanon, witnessing the arrival of Muslim refugees, neighborhood demographics changing, ppl being jailed and labeled racist for complaining, then came civil war between the new majority group and the incumbents, political concession by virtue signaling equity and harmony which lead to even more corruption within those demographics that did not respect agreements and its ultimate demise today. I cannot see a future without the same events unfolding in Lebanon playing out in UK. All it takes is one major event (for us in Lebanon, it was Muslim militant group attacking a church) to ignite the flame, and as you saw Torres, Spain it finally took an elderly Spain man being victim of attack by 3rd gen Moroccan youth to explode into violence. Remigration unfortunately is the only way that can peacefully diffuse smoe of the tensions and to avoid the same fate as Lebanon but I can see this will be a difficult path especially innocent individuals of that demographic caught in the middle during this rapid Overton Window shift accelerated by an increasingly sophisticated users and dystopian surveillance apparatus....
• supportengineer 1y ago
  If you need to use a VPN in your country, maybe your government and elected officials have failed you, are not representing you, and need to be voted out.
  • A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
    Yeah, that's the problem. In the UK, thanks to the party system, "first past the post," and certain longstanding procedural and cultural norms, it's literally impossible to vote them out. At best, as we're now seeing, they'll go from Tories to Labour to Tories to Labour. With the members of both parties from the same schools, the same social circles, living in the same neighborhoods, and supporting the same policies. There's no voting their way out of this mess. At this point they need something like the Restoration of the Stuarts. Failing that, they need divine intervention.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
• xyst 1y ago
  When will governments and people learn prohibition doesn't work?
• mhh__ 1y ago
  Complete joke. The state in Britain needs to be basically completely repealed back to about the early 90s.
• buyucu 1y ago
  Mullvad is going to make a lot of money from English stupidity.
• nly 1y ago
  I've been using a VPN exclusively in the UK on my home laptop and mobile phone for well over 10 years. Ever since the snoopers charter.
• EasyMark 1y ago
  To any Brit citizens, do you feel like the general populace won't fight back about their freedom being taken, or do you think that this will continue until a semi-autocracy result? Is it a topic of conversation in the general population, or is it just a shrug of acceptance?
  • nebben64 1y ago
    I think a decent amount of people don't even realize what is happening. For example, lots of people still don't know about the iCloud backdoor that's trying to be implemented by the government. Those who know are annoyed but not enough that it will cause change; I don't think most believe it will get worse either. Unfortunately the default will be people going on the App Store, getting the first app that has 'VPN' in the title, download, and forget. Completely failing to address a systemic issue.
  • tim333 1y ago
    Shrug mostly. Tech savvy like me think maybe I'll have to click the vpn button on the browser one day - not that big a deal. Non tech savvy probably haven't heard of it. Semi-autocracy result? It's a democracy. The policy was fairly popular. The next election, quite likely Reform will win and scrap it. The conversation seems to go something like: UKgovt: "kids are being hurt by porn and self harm stuff on mostly US and overseas sites - we'll stop it and fine them £18m if they do" US folk: - freak out - "how can they harm our precious websites? The UK is over. It's going 1984!" UK people - whateves. Bear in mind we wrote 1984 and are familiar with that stuff and this bill isn't it. That agent Krasnov guy is more of a worry.
• lemoncookiechip 1y ago
  I've posted this before: We shouldn't need Age Verification checks for adults in the first place. Create a better, standardized, open-source parental control tool that is installed by default on all types of device that can connect to the web. The internet aspect of the parental control should be a "Per Whitelist" system rather than Blacklisting. The parents should be the ones to decide which domains are Whitelisted for their kids, and government bodies could contribute with curated lists to help establish a base. Yes, there would be some gray area sites like search engine image search, or social media sites like Twitter that can allow you to stumble into pornography, and that is why these devices that have the software turned ON, should send a token through the browser saying "Parental Control". It would be easier for websites to implement a blanket block of certain aspects of their site than expect them to implement whole ID checks systems and security to make sure that no leaks occur (look at the TEA app) like the UK is expecting everyone to do. Also, I'm for teenagers (not little children) having access to pornography. I was once a teenager, every adult was, and we know that it's a natural thing to masturbate which includes the consumption of pornography for most in some way. Repressing their desires, their sexuality, and making this private aspect of their life difficult isn't the way. Yes, yes, there is nuance to it, (very hardcore/addiction/etc) but it should be up to the parents to decide with given tools if they trust their kid to consume such a thing. As for the tool itself. Of course we have parental tools, but they can be pretty garbage, their all different, they're out of the way, and I understand that many people simply don't know how to operate them. That's why I believe that creating a standardized open-source project that multiple governments can directly contribute to and advertise for parents is the way, because at the end of the day, it should be up to the parents to decide these things, and for the government to facility that choice. Obviously, besides the internet aspect, the tool should have all the bells and whistles that you'd expect from one, but that's not the topic. And yes, some children would find a way, just like they're doing now for the currently implemented ID checks. It's not lost of me that VPNs with free plans suddenly exploded in 4 digits % worth of downloads. A lot of those are tiny people who are smart enough. Or using an app like a game to trick Facial Recognition software. Also, I'd be remiss to not point out a very obvious fact. This, and I'm not just referring to the UK, isn't about children, it's not about terrorism, it's not about public safety. It's about control, it's about tracking, it's about documenting, it's about power over the masses. I know some people will hand wave this away, but we have been seeing a very obvious, very fast, rise of authoritarianism since COVID and later the war in Ukraine. It's not a new trend, but it is one that got accelerated at those stages and has been progressively getting worse world wide.
• Roark66 1y ago
  The article is behind a paywall
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • cyberglue 1y ago
    the irony
  • parasense 1y ago
    It was not behind a paywall. It worked for me.
    • antx 1y ago
      Wired has a paywall that allows users to read four articles per month for free before requiring a subscription.
  • Doozy7685 1y ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20250729113546/https://www.wired.com/story/vpn-use-spike-age-verification-laws-uk/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250729113546/https://www.wired...
  • dspillett 1y ago
    Doesn't seem to be paywalled here. It is behind a consent box with multiple “legitimate interest” lies (or “we see your preferences not to be commercially stalked, but fuck you and you poxy preference we want to anyway”), which archive.today works around nicely: https://archive.is/4QlDl https://archive.is/4QlDl
• nemomarx 1y ago
  Not so much "threaten" as kill, right? Can't have an open Internet if access to it is gated and blocked. Maybe a semi open Internet or some new category.
• reedf1 1y ago
  Phishing for material for sextortion has never been more trivial. The implementation of this is going to lead to mass fraud. Walk into parliament, ask who is willing to go to jail in defense of the act if and when the first lot of randy pensioners are bankrupted, or kid commits suicide out of shame - and if no one raises their hand, repeal it.
  • reliabilityguy 1y ago
    It seems that your argument is more about the way the verification is implemented and not about the idea of verification by itself.
    • reedf1 1y ago
      To be clear - I disagree with both the implementation and the idea of verification. I believe one is criminal and the other is misguided.
    • pc86 1y ago
      The idea that you should verify your legal identity to load a website is reprehensible and not something that should be treated seriously. It should be ridiculed like the authoritarian nonsense it is.
      • exasperaited 1y ago
        [dead]
      • reliabilityguy 1y ago
        Maybe, maybe not. It should be debated, and all the pros and cons should be considered. But age verification as a concept is a completely separate issue from the implementation of the verification system itself.
      • foldr 1y ago
        On a factual point, you don't have to verify your legal identity. You can also do age verification by uploading a selfie. (I'm sure that won't change how you feel about this legislation, but let's not spread inaccurate information about it.)
• digitalsushi 1y ago
  Our ability to filter and modify the content of the web constantly improves, and itchy trigger fingers might hover over many nation's "Great Walls", ready at the next galvanizing event to overnight change our relationship with this interchange we exist upon. My current guess is that if things really went to hell with censorship and disjointedness, that we'd re-establish an ancient pattern - magazines. I recall as a child, my uncle would leave his "Big Blue Disks" around for perusing, and it was a magazine in the form of floppy disks, of various media - essays, games, primitive computer music. The curation of these always struck me as a great favor. Perhaps not compatible with the current attention span, such a provision, in the absence of access, would, I believe, quickly become a surrogate for what we lost. Of course, these magazines are editorialized, and so we're at the mercy of the editor's perspectives to discern the truth. I appreciate our current access to information, even in its weakening form. But I suppose I'd prefer if we could not tinker more with censorship. I think I may be looking for a digital magazine in the next decade, or whatever else we can invent to replace our losses.
  • FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    It is inevitable that the "World" in World-Wide-Web will disappear and each major economy will have its own local "government approved" version of the internet with interconnects between the other local internets of the world to access only curated content from abroad. This genie is not going back in the bottle unless future generations will get fed up with all the safetyism propaganda at the core of internet censorship and unanimously vote against this. I'm glad I was young enough to see and experience the uncensored and unrestricted version of the internet. God speed for the future generation being subject to this nonsense.
  • RiverCrochet 1y ago
    I'm under the assumption that the global, unfilitered Internet is on an irreversible course to lockdown and won't exist at all in its current form in 10 years or less. It's sad, and defeatist, but the forces on the lockdown side are too strong and will get what they want eventually, so I can either hit my head against a brick wall or do something productive for myself. I've decided to deal with it by reevaluating the role of tech and Internet in my life. I certainly don't care about improvements to my residental Internet speed any more, or what the next wireless tech after 5G will be, or what protocols the IETF is working on, or net neutrality, because none of it matters to me any more. It's exciting what's going on with AI but it's all going to behemoths who will be able to tell the rest of us what we can and can't do with it. So... I don't care anymore. I can see myself honestly just not having a wired home Internet connection anymore in a few years and I would get rid of my cell phone if it wasn't necessary for day-to-day life. I don't need symmetric 1gbps fiber to stream the occasional show, text, and do normal-life things on apps. But when you brought up magazines - it reminded me of that brief period of time of the late 80's/early 90's during the "multimedia" and "interactive" crazes; when BBSes were a thing--there were a lot of interesting CD-ROMs on diverse subjects. I'm glad optical media hasn't completely died yet. Most new PCs don't come with one installed, but USB ones cheap and easy to find. PCs have come a long way since the early 90's. Fun fact, if your Android phone supports USB OTG I do believe a USB optical drive will totally work with it.
• Veliladon 1y ago
  This is one of the times where law is outrunning technology. Apple and Google are both working on anonymous attestation but they're pulling the trigger before it's ready. But that's not what laws like these are about. In the US at least these laws are driven by Christian Nationalists are setting up a situation where PII of porn users is able to be leaked. That's what they're counting on. They also want to have political control of platforms by continually holding a Sword of Damocles above any publisher's head.
  • FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    >This is one of the times where law is outrunning technology. Not really. China's great firewall has been doing that a long time before these laws. It was only a matter of time till our leaders ask Big Tech "do for us what you did for China, except add a coat of paint over it so it doesn't look evil".
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • isaacremuant 1y ago
    Screw anonymous attestation. We don't need to be controlled at every frigging second by people who are time and time again proven to be corrupt and working for their own interests. *Oh, I just received this thousands in gifts but it doesn't affect my decisions". The only thing to do is denounce every bit of bullshit and not try and "find a way to make it work". Just stand for freedom for once instead of bending the knee or pushing for authoritarianism like most people do with every invasion for oil, during covid, when there's an accusation of some -ism or whatever the next label is.
    • soulofmischief 1y ago
      Agreed. This is our Prohibition Era for free speech and expression and privacy. We must act as bootleggers, creating and maintaining private spaces which strengthen communities, preserve autonomy and discovery while still protecting its users from harm or predation. I owe everything in my life to websites I wasn't allowed on as a kid.
• 5350-uiop-1130 1y ago
  "if you want to watch this depraved porno let us just see your face and your ID card first" (¬‿¬)
• Fraaaank 1y ago
  What's stopping lawmakers to require VPN providers to verify the age of their users?
  • mtnGoat 1y ago
    Enforcement, one countries laws don’t apply in another. Which is kind of why the age verification thing won’t work… There will always be some jurisdiction that’ll ignore things for profit.
    • reliabilityguy 1y ago
      Well, what’s preventing the UK to ban the websites/VPN services that don’t comply at the ISP level? This is what Russia is (semi-successfully) doing.
      • qualeed 1y ago
        That's a forever lasting game of whack-a-mole. You either need to firewall the nation (which I imagine would be pretty unpopular) or it's just a waste of resources.
        • SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
          Many areas of law enforcement are whack-a-mole. There's no online gambling regulation so strict that it will stop unlicensed sites from existing entirely; that doesn't mean the rules are pointless or resources dedicated to enforcing them are wasted.
          • qualeed 1y ago
            Sure. However, the effort spent vs. what is gained has to be considered. Not all games of whack-a-mole are created equal. VPNs are incredibly easy to spin up, gambling groups are not. Within a week I could probably spin up a dozen or more semi-legitimate VPN companies. Multiply that by however many hundreds of people are willing to do the same. Add a few thousand more people willing to spin up completely shady 'free' VPNs. The scale quickly exceeds what you can possibly block, unless you firewall the nation.
• thinkingtoilet 1y ago
  We require people to verify their age in person to access pornography, it doesn't seem like that far a stretch to require it online. You can't even by a ticket to an R-rated movie without age verification. That seems reasonable to me. I see I'm in the minority here. I understand the slippery slope argument but if we succumb to that then nothing could be done anywhere ever. I understand this could be abused, but it's up to us to make sure it isn't. I think that's why people don't like it, it requires diligence and effort to keep things sane. Much easier to just allow children to view content they absolutely shouldn't then be politically active and make sure our laws are sensible and our representatives are held accountable.
  • Goronmon 1y ago
    I understand this could be abused, but it's up to us to make sure it isn't Exactly, by protesting and fighting laws like this. What exactly do you want people to "make sure of" with the law in place? If someone is concerned about this law, what specific action should they be taking in the name of "diligence"?
    • thinkingtoilet 1y ago
      Having a law saying children shouldn't view pornography isn't abuse. It's common sense. Just like saying a 12 year old can't legally buy weed. Is that a slippery slope? Should 12 year olds be able to buy weed? If not, why is that not a slippery slope and this is? What needs to be kept in check is the scope. Let's say they try to age restrict sites that are subversive, but not obscene. That's what I'm talking about.
      • Goronmon 1y ago
        Having a law saying children shouldn't view pornography isn't abuse. "Children shouldn't view pornography" is fine as an overall goal. A law that suggest the content providers track the faces and passport details of all users is a ridiculous way to fail to prevent that however. It is however a great way to have an readily accessible log of exactly which citizens are viewing content the government finds questionable.
• izzydata 1y ago
  It sounds like it is time to create a new internet and not invite these people. I wonder how difficult it would be to create an entirely new internet infrastructure that doesn't rely on anything that currently exists and doesn't or can't connect to the existing network.
  • positus 1y ago
    If you want to make a new internet and take all the trash that is on the current one with you to the new one, please do! It will make the current one much more tolerable for the rest of us.
  • ethagnawl 1y ago
    It'd seem that local mesh nets with some sort of satellite relay/backbone would facilitate this. That's just moving the goalposts to a certain extent, though. If a system like this came to be and they weren't happy about it, you'd have to figure out a covert way to get satellites up and keep them there.
    • wongarsu 1y ago
      If wifi meshnets were actually popular and not just some enthusiast thing that's mostly used for better free wifi you could reasonable route around network-side blocks. Most of the content might move through some kind of high-capacity backbone, but anything blocked on the backbone could still find its way through the mesh. At least in places with high enough population density that linking across cities and villages with just wifi or other low-cost methods is viable (Germany and surroundings come to mind as the obvious example)
  • AndroTux 1y ago
    Yeah, how hard can it be connecting every damn home on this planet with each other, again? Piece of cake! The internet was created in two days, so I’m sure we’ll be able to do it again. Especially without clear financial incentives. Maybe pivoting to things like Tor makes more sense.
  • TZubiri 1y ago
• kypro 1y ago
  I was thinking last night how many in some ways these age verification laws might actually have some upside for those of us who were fond of the early internet... Ultimately what these laws will end up doing is pushing internet traffic towards the "normie web", create a separation between sites which refuse to implement these measures and those who will. Ultimately for this filters to work authoritarian countries like the UK will need to ban sites like 4chan which do not comply with their age verification demands despite hosting adult content. As it stands until the UK do this the age filtering may as well not exist because kids (and adults) will just go to other sites. Additionally search and content aggregators will likely come under increased pressure to blacklist these "rogue" sites so slowly both the ability to access non-compliant sites and the ability to find non-compliant sites will diminish. Like in the old days when cool sites and blogs spread more by word of mouth than social media and search aggregators, we're likely heading back to a world where those who are savvy enough to work around the filtering of authoritarian states will have access to a new kind of "semi-dark web" or a "rogue web". I almost like that idea. If the internet bifurcates it might actually become a more authentic place for those of us in know. I suppose the only question then is whether authoritarian countries like the UK will ultimately come after private VPN users as well, but I feel like that would be impractically costly to enforce.
  • xnorswap 1y ago
    > the UK will need to ban sites like 4chan which do not comply with their age verification demands They will not hesitate to do so, the UK has the power to quickly and easily blacklist sites.
    • kypro 1y ago
      Oh for sure. I personally think this was the whole point of the bill. We've seen from online bans in recent years that it doesn't really matter if someone is still technically able to access a the banned content, at some point if you make the content hard enough to find its influence becomes increasingly irrelevant. This new legislation basically gives the UK government an excuse to ban large sections of the internet from UK ISPs since they can say they weren't complying with UK law and shift the blame/responsibility in the eyes of the public – "it's not censorship, they're breaking the law!" In doing this it will likely be enough to reduce UK traffic to those sites by 90%+. While it might technically be possible to buy and install a VPN to access them realistically most people won't bother.
• fedeb95 1y ago
  Until you really restrict the net, it's just a matter of building new software that can't be the target of those laws by design. If you restrict the net, there's no inter-net.
  • cedws 1y ago
    The idea of a "New Internet" from the comedy series Silicon Valley seems like a more attractive and interesting idea every day. I daydream about some kind of overlay network, without censorship and surveillance, where only people 'in the know' participate.
    • JohnFen 1y ago
      > I daydream about some kind of overlay network, without censorship and surveillance, where only people 'in the know' participate. These have been getting build for years now, and the rate is increasing. The open, public web is on its last legs and is being replaced by a multitude of private networks.
    • TZubiri 1y ago
      I liked the series, but that part seemed like they jumped on some kind of blockchain bandwagon and jumped the shark. It's a shame, the previous seasons were kind of timeless, but it feels like they jumped onto a buzzword that backfired before it was well understood. Although I may have dropped it early and it would have backfired on them after their cryptochain is used by criminals or whatever, but IIRC it was very early Bitcoin era and the themes were something like a 51% attack by china, it was way too early to make a comment on Blockchain, they were able to do good satire on the dot com era precisely because it was already dead.
    • rhubarbtree 1y ago
      > I daydream about some kind of overlay network, without censorship and surveillance, where only people 'in the know' participate. Mesh network powered by walking nerd nodes and shoe leather? Everything TOR-ed and encrypted and super-asynchronous? Radio?
  • wongarsu 1y ago
• roegerle 1y ago
  just use Tor
• benreesman 1y ago
  This seems like a hard fight to win against determined network engineers without OFAC-level co-encorcement around spending money abroad. I rent servers in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Tokyo, and many other places, and route tunnels among them all, and this is just mundane aboveboard stuff, many of the providers happily accept PayPal and crypto as well as CC and wire. I haven't even tried to design a system for evading this sort of thing, I can only imagine the ceiling is pretty high: QUIC and shit are increasingly the default. I oppose this on principle, very much oppose it. I'm merely noting that until they're willing to start licensing the right to spend money abroad, they're going to have a tough time outlawing VPNs with any effect. Maybe this pushes everyone to switch to Tor all at once: fucking with people's porno is a pretty quick way to move things around in the App Store ranking. It would serve em right if this backfired massively by getting everyone to go cypherpunk by default.
  • swinglock 1y ago
    They will block your tunnel. If you attempt to hide it you will be jailed once found out. Working encryption will be illegal.
    • benreesman 1y ago
      I understand that arbitrary oppression is possible even with computers, there are regimes that come close today. My point is that it will cost them a lot of money in lost economic activity to make it happen: we should seek to make that cost as high as possible and make sure that powerful people understand how high it is.
• bilekas 1y ago
  I'll say it again, if I can sign my consumer rights away with a checkbox and agree to terms and conditions with only a checkbox.. Then I can verify my age with a checkbox.
  • salawat 1y ago
    You shouldn't be able to do those things with a checkbox though, and we should all be ripping apart the fact that practice was normalized almost entirely and unilaterally by the tech industry.
• Surac 1y ago
  Paywall
• TZubiri 1y ago
  Here's a consequence few consider: Malicious actors are now harder to distinguish than legitimate actors, since they both will use VPNs. This is because in essence what VPNs are used for is always to evade the law, regardless of whether it is a law with high approval, like CASM, malware, spamming, drug trade; or laws with high approval for breaking them, like pornography age verification laws, or Intellectual Property laws on movies and music. This is regardless of who is to blame for this issue, some will argue that it's the fault of those that break the laws with VPNs, some will argue that it's the fault of lawmakers for making stupid laws that deserve to be broken, muddying the waters. Undoubtedly, the third party, strong criminals, will make or amplify propaganda to legitimize breaking small laws, so that they can have legitimate alibies for breaking the law.
  • donmcronald 1y ago
    The next law will make it illegal to accept traffic from VPNs. They’re letting VPNs exist for now so people think they have a simple bypass. They’ll close that off as soon as the onerous laws pass. It’s already done a bit voluntarily. Try to use a VPN and pay for something with a prepaid credit card. Try to make a Steam account. Etc. Get ready for a verified ID that’s required to access anything online because that’s the end goal.
    • TZubiri 1y ago
      It'd make sense, VPNs are fraudulent in that they lie about the origin of a connection. There's precedent in financial regulation, is it legal to send and receive wires to and from a swiss bank to conceal their russian or chinese or congolese or iraki origin? Similarly in intl. trade it is illegal to hide the origin of imports, it is even illegal to reroute imports for the purpose of evading tariffs or compliance. If y'all want to keep VPNs legal, I suggest you find better excuses than downloading porn and evading netflix restrictions, because the other side argues about infinitely higher stakes.
• thisisit 1y ago
  The 2nd order effect is that nearly every creator will be sponsored by NordVPN - as the market expands. As well as not being able to identify legitimate vs illegitimate uses. So, I guess mission achieved!?
  • ta1243 1y ago
    Governments already want encryption back doors, this just adds more ammo.
    • a5c11 1y ago
      Thankfully, encryption is math, and math doesn't have backdoors, so it's only about using proper tools.
• bikeshed 1y ago
  Wild that Labour just let this go into effect without any changes.
• nativeit 1y ago
  I guess we’ll do anything to protect children…except teach them to think critically.
  • kulahan 1y ago
    Critical thinking is quite literally the most difficult thing for children to do. It's one of the very last skills we develop. So yes, the idea is to teach them, but while they're still young and dumb and physically incapable of the critical thinking required here, we need guardrails for them.
  • beefnugs 1y ago
    Speaking of teaching: time to teach everyone in the uk how to purchase cloud computing time and how to create ssh tunnels. Good luck on that economy after you ban all https and cloud computing
• faxmeyourcode 1y ago
  Every day preteen boys around the world are destroying their premature brains by watching stuff that should be 18+ by simply clicking a single button that says "I am over 18". They form lifelong addictions that stunt their emotional and developmental growth at the click of one button. Many of these kids are never the same after their innocence is stripped. You can blame the parents for allowing them unfettered access to the internet, but their classmates will show them something while they're hanging out after school or waiting for the bus. This doesn't even include the softer stuff that gets _recommended_ to them every day on tiktok and instagram reels - actively pushing them towards more explicit content. I don't necessarily agree with the politicians here and I do believe there are ulterior motives at play such as information gathering for blackmail on adults, etc. What is the solution here? I don't think there is one that satisfies everybody.
  • kulahan 1y ago
    I feel much the same way. This is a real headache of a problem for me because I'm pretty privacy-oriented, but this is a serious, serious problem that needs real intervention. Way too many kids are rotting their brains away either becoming gooners or clout-chasers. I thank God every day I was born too early to have access to this stuff as a kid. I can't imagine what this "you must always be online and also sexy" culture is doing to our youngest generations.
    • NoGravitas 1y ago
      Interestingly, the youngs in the US seem to be much less into sex and drugs than previous generations. The stuff we got up to as GenX youth are legitimately shocking to our children.
      • kulahan 1y ago
        I've seen nothing to state that sexual activity is down. Unplanned pregnancies maybe, but that's not the same thing. Do you have a source for this? I could be convinced pretty easily, it just sounds wrong to me.
• donmcronald 1y ago
  I wonder what the (supposed) anti-censorship people that supported things like eSNI and DoH think about this. They took away our ability to filter our own networks, so now we can't even argue that filtering and monitoring is something that should be done on the client side (per network). Sometimes I feel like both sides are actually just one side playing the long game. IMO the goal is to get verified digital IDs in use everywhere they can so they can lock down the internet to have absolute control. We'll end up paying inflated subscriptions for everything and watching all the ads. These are the kinds of regulations that are deigned for incumbents because it becomes impossible for new market entrants to satisfy the requirements. I wouldn't be surprised if big tech companies are silently lobbying for this kind of stuff behind closed doors.
  • uyzstvqs 1y ago
    The solution is to have filtering on the actual client devices. There need to be specialized minor-friendly devices with parental controls at the OS level, and apps need a standardized framework to integrate with those parental controls. Then create regulation that devices used by minors must have such a system, with the standard that every new action (app install, first time visiting a website, new contact, joining a group chat, etc) first needs to be whitelisted by a parent, and that parents can see a timeline of all actions. With this solution, kids are far safer than under recent UK/EU age verification laws, while adults and their free, open & private internet remain unaffected.
    • donmcronald 1y ago
      This is 100% correct IMO. Even just the timeline of actions would be enough for most people I know.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• Slava_Propanei 1y ago
  [dead]