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

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

#71
post #48

This might be a dumb question, but is it possible for the UK government to ban VPN usage within the UK?

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.

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.

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

#72

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…

Its because the popular press has, for a very long time, been pushing a narrative of a country under siege. It sells papers, but to keep selling papers, it has to keep steadily upping the narrative over time.

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

#73

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…

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.

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

#74

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.

The EU too. 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".

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

#75

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…

The Bourgeois love to divide the working class, typical divide and conquer. Indigenous worker vs imported worker, men vs women, queer vs straight, old vs young, car user vs bicycle rider. This is important because it weakens existing solidarities and prevent the emergence of class consciousness. It's part of their modus operandi and has been for centuries, only now they master it thanks to algorithms and machine lear…

This view (“the Bourgeois’, etc.) seems to imply there’s a group of very clever manipulators somewhere, overtly planning and executing this (presumably in a dark room with armchairs and cigars). But I just can’t imagine this, in the UK’s example.

What I see instead is the other side of Hanlon’s razor —incompetence— coupled with a political class riven with pockets of self-interest, and very few seemingly with an intellectual hypothesis to explain the UK’s current predicament, or to chart a path out of it.

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

#76
post #12

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/onli...

> Sarah Champion is Labour MP for Rotherham.

Seriously? You can't make this up: she represents the town that did nothing about a massive (and completely offline) child grooming and molestation network for years and she has the gall to say, "think of the children on the Internet"?

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

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jinping is probably a better comparison.

Xi is fairly popular in China tho, unlike this "labour" govt.

How would you know? In countries without free speech where anti-government speech is illegal, the only legal speech is pro-government or neutral.

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

#78
post #62

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…

The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're se…

> Every time someone with the finances, vision and ability leaves I think the situation gets a little bit worse, it increases the proportion of people remaining willing to put up with all of it.

This is the issue.

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

#79
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bourgeois love to divide the working class, typical divide and conquer. Indigenous worker vs imported worker, men vs women, queer vs straight, old vs young, car user vs bicycle rider. This is important because it weakens existing solidarities and prevent the emergence of class consciousness. It's part of their modus operandi and has been for centuries, only now they master it thanks to algorithms and machine lear…

This view (“the Bourgeois’, etc.) seems to imply there’s a group of very clever manipulators somewhere, overtly planning and executing this (presumably in a dark room with armchairs and cigars). But I just can’t imagine this, in the UK’s example. What I see instead is the other side of Hanlon’s razor —incompetence— coupled with a political class riven with pockets of self-interest, and very few seemingly with an inte…

Elements of the UK media fulfil this role, continually advancing a corrosive narrative that the country is broken. E.g. frequently using the words ‘lawless’ or ‘tinderbox’ in any headline or op-ed title that also contains the word ‘Britain’

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

#80

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…

Its because the popular press has, for a very long time, been pushing a narrative of a country under siege. It sells papers, but to keep selling papers, it has to keep steadily upping the narrative over time.

I agree, but isn't that the case in lots of other countries? I think it's a contributing factor, but there's more to it.
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