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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"

#251

Post by cess11 »

palata wrote: post #158
cess11 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Need is a very strong word. I'd call it a desire. Currently you can often identify people, sure, but there's hassle involved. What they want to do is to plug in a private corporation separate from whatever service that is likely to be more loyal with the state apparatus than the service, or else it is easily switched out for another. And corporations are having issues discerning bots from people without making access…

> Currently you can often identify people, sure, but there's hassle involved You vastly underestimate the current state of surveillance capitalism. > You could also look at who is heavily lobbying for this, you'll find it is fascist tech oligarchs from the US. Go in the street, and ask a bunch of random people: "If there was a way to prevent kids from accessing stuff that is bad for them, and it had no downsides. Wou…

OK, so make an argument.

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

#252

Post by 2duct »

JCattheATM wrote: post #228
ckjellqv wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is arguably much worse Surely someone claiming it's arguable should be willing to make that argument. For me it's not that it's reproduction. Film that shows sex is not an issue as I see it and I don't know anyone that has developed serious addictions to sex in Hollywood film. However I know several people, family members included, that have absolutely obliterated their childhoods and early adult years by beco…

Sounds like the people you describe were outliers with some preexisting conditions, and probably shouldn't be used as any sort of baseline or point of comparison.

Just to add my perspective, I am one of those outliers who is still going to therapy for porn/sex addiction that started in adolescence. Age verification wouldn't have helped me because addiction wasn't my main or only issue - I also had significant sources of stress owing to my upbringing. I could have just as easily been addicted to drugs or alcohol because of those stressors, or used a VPN. Either way I needed some form of stress relief beyond what any teen ought to need, and those were the options I saw.

Combination of abuse and unfettered access to drinks/drugs/Internet is way worse than either one alone. At the same time I think the issue of bad parenting is a) not one people talk about out loud because of stigma (we can attack tech CEOs all day for pushing addictive products but anyone can become a parent and none of them will stand to be called the "bad" one) and b) not amenable to much change save for a global in-house surveillance panopticon. Yes we can choose to place trust in parents to protect children from Instagram and PornHub, but consider that some parents just... won't. Neither can we force them to. What then?

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

#253

Post by Aerroon »

messe wrote: post #242
Aerroon wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your personal info becomes public because it's attached to the business information. This can include phone numbers, emails, full names, home addresses etc. All accessible online by anyone, including spammers, scammers, swatters etc.

Yes... if you want to do business with people, then those people want to know who they do business with. What a fucking tragedy. I'm sorry you have to live in such a socialist hellscape.

Well, the problem is all the bad actors. Why don't you post your full name, home address, email address, and phone number right here? You "do business" too, right?

Should everyone in the world then be able to have access to the information I mentioned just because you work for someone?

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

#254

Post by port11 »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #237
ozgung wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

Oops, someone forgot languages evolve! Otherwise you must use Turkye, one of the Middle English spellings.

The United Nations agreed to their request, it’s a minor thing to let people spell it the way that was requested. You don’t have to, but others can. Languages evolve.

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

#255

Post by danaris »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #241
danaris wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Porn addiction has been shown not to be a real thing. People who believe they are addicted to porn view porn at approximately the same rate as other people: they just feel more guilty about it, due to being raised to believe that it is shameful. One source on the topic: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/202207/...

That's absolutely ridiculous. Porn addiction is 100% a real thing. You can't hand wave it away by saying "porn is actually ok, the problem is just that they believe it is bad so they feel shame".

And if it were just me handwaving it away with that as a random hypothetical, that would be a reasonable response.

It's not.

It's supported by, AIUI, multiple peer-reviewed studies now.

Just because you don't like the idea doesn't make the science any less valid.

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

#256

Post by bigbadfeline »

drysine wrote: post #196
christophilus wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents can protect their children. Source: I’m a parent. My kids haven’t seen porn and can’t access the internet. This doesn’t affect the free exchange of ideas that my fellow countrymen enjoy. Governments getting involved absolutely, unequivocally will be used to clamp down on the free exchange of ideas.

>My kids haven’t seen porn and can’t access the internet. You sure about that? )))

Yes

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

#258

Post by petre »

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…

Poland has a fresh memory on communism and censorship. Sadly the alternative to your current PM is PiS, who banned abortion, so basically christian conservatives with some fascist ideas, not very different than the ones currently running the US.

To the EU regulators: we don't need another Stasi, we already have Google and Meta to worry about, thank you.

Also, to regulate in my native language is just a nice way to say the f word, if this conversation is about porn.

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

#259

Post by bigbadfeline »

delusional wrote: post #238
carlosjobim wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age verification will be implemented as identity identification. And that means anything you read or write or watch or say will be tied to your identity, registered by the government and other organizations, and used against you as an individual. Do you understand now? Or will you only understand when you get fired from your job and they won't tell you the reason?

> Age verification will be implemented as identity identification. Thank you for bringing an argument. I want to start by tackling your argument head on. What if it's not though. What if it's implemented by attestation and signatures rooted at your local national government? Nobody will be able to tie whatever you watch or write to your identity, because they won't have it. To my understanding, that's what's proposed…

> signatures rooted at your local national government? > Google is already, at this second, tracking my every move online

Apparently you haven't figured out yet that these two are partners. The government restrictions are needed in order to allow other players to perform correlation tracking and deducing your identity.

> Nobody will be able to tie whatever you watch or write to your identity, because they won't have it.

This is untrue in the light of what I said above. The proposed scheme lacks any proof of immunity against tracking and deducing identity. I haven't seen anything like a proof being discussed, while an honestly implemented scheme would require a long and well publicized discussion of the means of protection - to make sure it cannot be abused for political reasons.

The lack of such a discussion is actually a proof that the purpose of the proposed scheme is precisely abuse.

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

#260

Post by petre »

rounce wrote: post #95
shevy-java wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you single out just one paper. If you include all paper and discussions the picture is super-clear, and the title is not misleading at all. This has to be said. > Of course I'm not saying the EU won't regulate VPNs The word choice is quite revealing. You write "regulate VPNs". To me this is not "regulation" at all - it is restriction or factually forbidding it. It is newspeak language here if we dampen it via nic…

> why the sudden attack by EU lobbyists against VPNs? Live sports, they’re already assaulting internet infrastructure in various EU member states (eg. La Liga forcing Spanish ISPs to block cloudflare IPs during matches). With this in mind it seems less a case of surveillance state and more a case of corporate state capture.

If someone wants a guaranteed riot in a Latin country, they just need to somehow mess around with football.
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