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EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

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Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#141

Post by ozgung »

nirui wrote: post #109

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too. This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to wat…

But you are asking logical questions. You are thinking and talking too much for a World citizen in 2026. "Reasoning" is a reserved word for chatbots now, so we humans are not allowed to do that anymore. We can only obey like a bot and pretend all the lies they tell are the truth.

BTW I live in Turkiye where the government banned ALL the adult websites around 2008. Even as an adult you can't access them. This year they are banning VPNs, introduce age controls and ID verification COORDINATED with the rest of the world. Also banning some games, control social media, and basically make it legal to control and track everyone on the internet. What a coincidence that similar attempts are simultaneous in many independent countries.

And no, children have not been really protected in Turkiye since 2008.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#142

Post by eloisant »

oneshtein wrote: post #9
jraby3 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Isn't your age verified when you renew your drivers license? Purchase something on Amazon? When I was a kid, child programming and commercials were heavily scrutinized. Now any kid can access porn, violence, and scams on the internet. That's a blight. Not age verification.

> Now any kid can access porn, violence, and scams on the internet. Before Internet they used paper.

The ease of access, quantity and diversity of internet porn is in no common measure with magazines that existed in the 20th century.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#143

Post by pembrook »

delusional wrote: post #134
nirui wrote: post #109

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too. This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to wat…

> This is arguably much worse than allowing children to watch porn online, because this will for sure effect people's whole life in a negative way. I would like you to make that argument.

What argument?

You're the one that needs to argue the presence of harm, given you're the one arguing we need to create a surveillance dragnet to shield certain age groups of humans from witnessing how their species procreates.

The default state is that humans procreate via sexual reproduction. You need to argue why we need to take action to hide this, especially given we let children witness other far more brutal activities from the human species like violence.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#144

Post by rvnx »

ozgung wrote: post #141
nirui wrote: post #109

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too. This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to wat…

But you are asking logical questions. You are thinking and talking too much for a World citizen in 2026. "Reasoning" is a reserved word for chatbots now, so we humans are not allowed to do that anymore. We can only obey like a bot and pretend all the lies they tell are the truth. BTW I live in Turkiye where the government banned ALL the adult websites around 2008. Even as an adult you can't access them. This year the…

Not only that, sprinkle a bit of hate speech laws on top and then you got rid a lot of political competition that could disagree with you

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#145

Post by u8080 »

nirui wrote: post #109

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too. This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to wat…

Just a recap how it happened in Russia:

1. First, year ~2015 legal framework was created under disguise of banning pirated media(specifically torrents.ru)(legislative push). State-wide DNS ban introduced. Very easy to circumvent via quering 8.8.8.8

2. Then, having legal basis, govt included extra stuff in banned list(casinos, terrorist orgs, etc)(executive push). IP bans introduced, applied very carefully.

3. Legal expanded allowing govt to ban specific media on very vague criterias(legislative push). IP blocks tried on some large websites. DPI hardware mandated to be installed by ISPs to filter by HTTPS SNI(executive push).

4. At ~2019 Roskomnadzor(RKN) created, special govt entity which enforces bans without court orders(legislative push).

5. ~2021 sites become banned if they are not filtering content by Russian laws by request of RKN(executive push). VPN services were obligated to also DPI-filter traffic(legislative push).

6. ~2023 Crackdown on VPN started(executive push). Popular commercial services were IP-banned, OpenVPN and IPSec connections selectively degraded by DPI.

7. ~2025 Heavy VPN filtering(vless, wireguard, etc) introduced(executive push). Performance of certain sites were degraded(youtube, twitter, etc).

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#146

Post by rvnx »

Roark66 wrote: post #131
oytis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These dimwits (and I don't just mean those in EU) seriously want to stop adolescents from watching porn, and are ready to mess with internet infrastructure for that. That's a depressing manifestation of aging society

Believe me, in some EU countries (like my country Poland) people are very sensitive for this kind of bullshit. Last two times they tried to push other censorship/tracking laws (claiming as always "we have to, EU is making us") there were mass protests in every city and town. In my own town of 5k people there were several hundred (500 people at least, probably more). And the previous govt backed down. This topic seems…

It's because it's not about the opinion of voters, but about existing political powers that want to retain their power.

No matter what you (as population) say it will get implemented. If you don't, then they will put sanctions on Poland, withdraw financial partnerships, etc. Like with migrants, they are going to be sent there, even if Polish people vote against.

No matter if you are in favor or against, raising the topic will just make you socially be isolated or even legally punished in some places.

Sad for democracy and free speech.

EDIT: clarified about migrant policy and the decision of countries to choose or not

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#147

Post by rvnx »

pembrook wrote: post #132
Hikikomori wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These already exist in several eu countries. Imagine that there are governments that is not America and that actually work.

Just this year, France government ID system hacked: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202604/french-govt-confirms-...

"hacked", such a shame what happened in the background; it was a teenager who saw some url like "view_my_id_documents?id=1234" and just incremented the number, and could download the documents of other people (did on dozens of millions).

.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#148

Post by lostmsu »

ArnoVW wrote: post #101
eowln wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically all the ills we suffer currently are depressing manifestations of an aging society. That, and the lack of real issues to solve.

Without thinking too hard I can name a few? The rise of authoritarianism? Inequality? Revival of geopolitical "realism"? Decrease in empathy and holistic thinking? Increasing willingness of the general population to engage in political adventurism? Accelerating resource consumption (and decelerating resource stocks). And if you consider none of those "real" problems, I know some people seem to have forgotten about it…

There's also a worrying trend of education getting less effective across the first world.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#149

Post by swiftcoder »

delusional wrote: post #134
nirui wrote: post #109

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too. This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to wat…

> This is arguably much worse than allowing children to watch porn online, because this will for sure effect people's whole life in a negative way. I would like you to make that argument.

Nobody thought to protect western millennials from accidentally wandering across porn on the internet, and we mostly grew up ok

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#150

Post by yorwba »

nirui wrote: post #109

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too. This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to wat…

> In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too.

Indeed I do not remember this, nor can I find corroborating evidence that there was much of an effort to justify the requirement to the public at all. As far as I can tell, the government simply decided that they needed more control over the internet, so they made a law to give themselves more control over the internet. https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2000/content_60531.htm It has no special provisions limited to children that only later got extended to adults. (Meanwhile, restrictions on how long children may play games continue to only apply to children, AFAIK.)

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