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.
VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
431–440 of 1001 posts
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
Westerners point fingers at China for its Great Firewall, citing a lack of freedom. Being a free society comes with both good and bad. This type of law, whether it's good or bad, is akin to China's Great Firewall
To me, the most disturbing part isn’t just the laws themselves, it’s the complete shift in the cultural zeitgeist. When I was younger, people distrusted the government by default. We stood for freedom of speech, anonymity, the right to speak without being censored. Now, even among software developers, people in tech who should know better, I see them practically begging Big Brother for more censorship, more control.…
Is the dogmatism what blinded or unblinded? Considering the source I assume he meant that Italians desired fascism. I’m not familiar with the rise of Mussolini, was he genuinely popular or more of a Hitleresque thug that used violence to suppress his opponents and control measured public opinion?
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#433There 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
Government responded
"I would like to thank all those who signed the petition."
Who "I" ?
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#434The "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.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe I only have to look as far as my own wallet to see the effects. I'm being taxed to the eyeballs while there is a glass ceiling preventing me taking any more pay home without a major jump which just isn't coming due to stupid tax rules keeping the working class from bumping into the middle class. I se…
> earn a penny more That is not how marginal tax rates work. Each income band is taxed at the rate for that band . It’s why it’s called “marginal” - because the rate change happens at the margin between brackets. You are taxed 0% on your first £12571. You are taxed 20% on your next £37669, or, £7359.80 on £50270 of income. If you then earned one more pound, or £50271, you would owe £0.40 (40%) on that one additional…
Don't quote me but I don't think this is quite true if you take tax credits and other "benefits" into account - especially when it comes to child support.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#436I 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.
My Reddit selfie was a bit rubbish looking. I think they'll have to abolish the law if that gets out.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#437Basically 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…
From tourist point of view UK felt to me like a police state, and I'm leaning more towards the former view. Cameras everywhere, non-stop reminders that you're being watched, being tracked everywhere(including which train car you're in now), constant reminders about possible dangerous bags being left alone etc.
Tracking would feel helpful and useful, if not for constant oppressive reminders that "Bad Thing could happen any second, be vigilant!".
While at the same time, it was vastly more unsafe than Eastern Europe.. and cities themselves were vastly dirtier.
Whole trip felt more like what i would imagine visit to mainland China would be like rather than a trip to a free western country.
To be honest and to give some context - they have been under threat of terrorism(due to The Troubles first - the name itself seems to reinforce this view, seems innocent..) roughly since end of WW2. well WW2 was a factor too.
To add a bit more context: this wasn't my first nor last trip to UK, and each time i visit it the worse it feels in every aspect: Cleanliness of cities, safety, and oppressiveness.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#438Since 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)
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.
A personal cloud VM is very bad VPN for some purposes.
The static IP address, recorded by every site you visit, is directly linked back to you personally, and only you.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Remember, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas already have similar laws in place in the US Interesting, since when? I'm curious about how it's turned out in practise. For web services I mean. An for anyone hosting a message board or comment section.
The US states are just targeting the big porn sites like Pornhub to add ID checks AFAIK, I haven't heard of them going after random forums like in the UK. But obviously that sort of power always expands, just like how the UK went from arresting a couple people for offensive tweets back in 2010 to doing 12k arrests/yr in 2025
The UK law was designed to be all encompassing. Why block just the 'porn sites' when you can see porn on forums?
The UK law is actually a good implementation if you put child 'safety' as your number one priority, with any other considerations as, in practise, moot.
Unfortunately I think free civil discourse between adults, privacy, etc. are just as important as child safety which makes the current law a bit crap.
This is similar to the video game and MasterCard/VISA issue - you can buy games that promote sexual violence and incest. Nothing stops children downloading them for free, or using their under-18s debit card from purchasing the non-free versions. In this instance it was private companies leveraging their freedom of association rather than an all encompassing law from a sovereign state, but the intent is the same.
As a collective society we do really need to come to grips with what it is that we want. Allowing kids to freely access gang torture/execution videos and playing pro-rape entertainment should probably be tackled. I'm not sure I agree with the implementations though.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#440Classic Streisand effect - attempts to restrict content access inevitably lead to widespread adoption of circumvention technologies.
This is how it worked out in Russia. First, around 10 years ago, they adopted very limited laws that required ISPs to block websites. Things like drugs and suicide, with the classic rationale "won't someone please think of the children". Then piracy websites were added to that. Fast forward to now, ISPs were mandated to install black-box "ТСПУ" devices on their networks, "to protect against threats", so now Roskomnad…
I think the UK govt is a bit more chilled about it all than Putin.