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UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

alecmuffett.com

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Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#141
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean folks choosing to protest under the guise of a proscribed organisation? Protesting in favour of Palestine remains legal, doing so under the name of a proscribed organisation is not. Admittedly, the reason for them being proscribed is rather idiotic.

That's exactly it. The proscription is ridiculous and delegitimises the whole concept of proscribed organization. It collapses into "mere support for Palestine is an arrestable offense". This didn't work against Sinn Fein and it will not work now.

> The proscription is ridiculous

They broke into a military base. If that was sanctioned by the organisation, they should be shut down.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't give up. When it gets to the level of mandatory government rootkits there are bound to be underground organisations circumventing this and/or trading old hardware. I'd even go as far to say that if things become this authoritarian, certain "direct" acts would be justified in preventing or fighting it.

Don't worry, they'll make it a crime to open devices that don't have the rootkit.

I meant underground as in the Samizdat, not attempting to operate under the law.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#144

EU countries seem to be obsessed with infringing upon their citizens privacy

Very true, just see what happened to the Graphene project recently. They were approached by the French government for a backdoor, threatened when they refused, and left the country in fear.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#145
post #18

So lemme guess - in order to prove one's age, one needs to obtain a digital ID and use said ID to gain access to the internet thereby creating a perfect system to monitor one's internet activity. Gotta hand it to them - "protecting the children" is a pretty good pretext.

Interesting to see these kinds of comments more in this thread compared to the one from yesterday. The one from yesterday was discussing how australia is banning social media for anyone under 16. Most comments were supportive because they hate social media. A few comments were discussing how it is just a way to propagate more KYC.

There is a difference between a concept (banning social media for kids) and the actual implementation (requiring ID to visit sites or whatever they are going to do).

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Do you want a citation for an opinion?

if it's being offered as a well thought out opinion based on facts, yes absolutely, it's fine to ask for the sauce.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#147
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind the UK already arrests and imprisons vast numbers of people for speech offences. Vast? No, they really don't.

[flagged]

> The UK is actually a scary place right now, if you are paying attention..

It has been the most authoritarian country in the West for decades already, this is nothing new.

British people are the most apathetic people in the world, so it's really easy to abuse them.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#148

It's so organic and grass roots and good for democracy™ that every single Western country suddenly decided that eliminating privacy online in lockstep was the top priority despite none of the ruling parties running on it as a platform or with any meaningful referendums from the voting public. But to what end?

[deleted]

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#149
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly it. The proscription is ridiculous and delegitimises the whole concept of proscribed organization. It collapses into "mere support for Palestine is an arrestable offense". This didn't work against Sinn Fein and it will not work now.

> The proscription is ridiculous They broke into a military base. If that was sanctioned by the organisation, they should be shut down.

Exposing the military for being an inept paper tiger is a truly heinous crime.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#150
post #36

On a related note, they built their digital ID so that third parties could verify attributes (it's NOT just a single-service login across government + a linking ID across government services, which is how it was sold by the BBC). They're pretty close to completely de-anonymising the internet for UK citizens. Say they introduce an Australian-style social media ban for under 16s, then requires all social media to link…

> Keep in mind the UK already arrests and imprisons vast numbers of people for speech offences I think you’ve been spending too much time on Twitter

Here is House of Lords if Twitter is unreliable

https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2025-07-17/debates/F807C...

Online Communication Offence Arrests Volume 847: debated on Thursday 17 July 2025

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