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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

#851

Post by sempron64 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #815
lemoncookiechip wrote: post #752

I've posted this before: We shouldn't need Age Verification checks for adults in the first place. Create a better, standardized, open-source parental control tool that is installed by default on all types of device that can connect to the web. The internet aspect of the parental control should be a "Per Whitelist" system rather than Blacklisting. The parents should be the ones to decide which domains are Whitelisted…

> Also, I'm for teenagers (not little children) having access to pornography. I'm against: pornography, as found in search results, is generally quite bad. Sexism, racial stereotyping, misrepresentations of queer issues: and that's just the titles . Page 3 has nothing on porn sites. Maybe I'm judging a book by its SEO spammers here, but I've not read anything that'd disabuse me of this notion: indeed, people raise co…

Your post reads like a parody of itself. If you're being genuine, I encourage you to step out of your attachment to your own views and meditate on what you said here, and what it looks like to an outside observer who does not share your views.

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

#852

Post by kristianc »

b112 wrote: post #805
palmfacehn wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree with the "Christian Nationalist" characterization. https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2025/07/29/nigel-farage-taki... >"Nigel Farage ‘on the side of predators’ with Online Safety Act criticism, says Labour" Is the UK's Labour Party now Christian Nationalist? The end goal here is digital ID and censorship. Compare this to the perennial efforts for encryption backdoors. If there is a characterization th…

The elephant in the room, is 'foreign actor'. All of our platforms are inundated by an overwhelming amount of well crafted, targeted (specific per person) campaigns of disinformation by foreign actors. China, Russia, Iran, and others cannot even remotely hope to stand against the West. Yet if you cannot stand against your adversary, you must weaken them. You promote infighting. You take minor issues which can be coop…

> Of course, this is all rife for abuse. Of course, there are immense downsides. Yet the downsides of leaving an endless stream of propaganda, disinformation spewed at everyone including our youth, unchecked, is far far greater.

Or we could, you know, trust people to exercise their critical faculties without the intervention of overbearing Civil Servants, Cabinet Office officials or the guiding hand of the BBC. Radical idea, I know.

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

#853

Post by exasperaited »

captainbland wrote: post #850
palmfacehn wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree with the "Christian Nationalist" characterization. https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2025/07/29/nigel-farage-taki... >"Nigel Farage ‘on the side of predators’ with Online Safety Act criticism, says Labour" Is the UK's Labour Party now Christian Nationalist? The end goal here is digital ID and censorship. Compare this to the perennial efforts for encryption backdoors. If there is a characterization th…

Strictly speaking the law was passed under the conservatives, albeit in collaboration with Labour (it's bi-partisan). But I would agree that the drive is more authoritarian and it just uses moralistic arguments to shame people into siding with it. The law could mandate that retail device OSs ship with a turnkey child safe mode complete with app and extensive site whitelists and run an educational campaign on the subj…

It has broad public support.

The law was passed in 2023 by the tories, and Ofcom has concluded what the tories asked them to do -- write the statutory instruments that implement the law.

The Labour government would have to repeal the law (really unlikely; governments don't usually rip down their predecessors' laws because if they did no progress would occur) or set the statutory instruments aside.

I think the "true motives" are what the law says. I don't think they will ban VPNs (which would support an alternative reading of motive).

I also, again, encourage US readers to understand that your own supreme court has rubber-stamped a law that requires US porn firms to do all this and more for the benefit of Texas, and there are 24 more state laws that have similar impacts.

Pretending this is just something crazy we Brits are doing out there on our own is disingenuous at best and often hypocritical and whiny at worst.

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

#854

Post by captainbland »

pc86 wrote: post #820
isaacremuant wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screw anonymous attestation. We don't need to be controlled at every frigging second by people who are time and time again proven to be corrupt and working for their own interests. *Oh, I just received this thousands in gifts but it doesn't affect my decisions". The only thing to do is denounce every bit of bullshit and not try and "find a way to make it work". Just stand for freedom for once instead of bending the k…

The UK is an increasingly authoritarian nightmare. The US should start a refugee program for UK citizens who understand what freedom actually means and want to live in a free country again.

The frying pan is uncomfortable and everything but the fire is failing to tempt me.

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

#855

Post by TZubiri »

Here's a consequence few consider:

Malicious actors are now harder to distinguish than legitimate actors, since they both will use VPNs. This is because in essence what VPNs are used for is always to evade the law, regardless of whether it is a law with high approval, like CASM, malware, spamming, drug trade; or laws with high approval for breaking them, like pornography age verification laws, or Intellectual Property laws on movies and music.

This is regardless of who is to blame for this issue, some will argue that it's the fault of those that break the laws with VPNs, some will argue that it's the fault of lawmakers for making stupid laws that deserve to be broken, muddying the waters. Undoubtedly, the third party, strong criminals, will make or amplify propaganda to legitimize breaking small laws, so that they can have legitimate alibies for breaking the law.

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

#856

Post by TimorousBestie »

benrutter wrote: post #845
JohnFen wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Potentially I'm missing something? The problem is the surveillance and tracking, not the age verification itself.

Yes, I think you're right. Some of these other comments seem to imply that age-verification would involve taking a photo of your face, giving your full name and having that stored permanently in a database. I have no idea if that's true, but if it was, I'd be massively concerned about that (compared to non-phased about the general idea of age-verification)

Here’s one reporter’s account of age verification/age estimation as mandated by the UK’s OSA:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/uk-online-safety-act-age-verifica...

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

#857

Post by salawat »

bilekas wrote: post #836

I'll say it again, if I can sign my consumer rights away with a checkbox and agree to terms and conditions with only a checkbox.. Then I can verify my age with a checkbox.

You shouldn't be able to do those things with a checkbox though, and we should all be ripping apart the fact that practice was normalized almost entirely and unilaterally by the tech industry.

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

#858

Post by tim333 »

EasyMark wrote: post #705

To any Brit citizens, do you feel like the general populace won't fight back about their freedom being taken, or do you think that this will continue until a semi-autocracy result? Is it a topic of conversation in the general population, or is it just a shrug of acceptance?

Shrug mostly.

Tech savvy like me think maybe I'll have to click the vpn button on the browser one day - not that big a deal.

Non tech savvy probably haven't heard of it.

Semi-autocracy result? It's a democracy. The policy was fairly popular. The next election, quite likely Reform will win and scrap it.

The conversation seems to go something like: UKgovt: "kids are being hurt by porn and self harm stuff on mostly US and overseas sites - we'll stop it and fine them £18m if they do" US folk: - freak out - "how can they harm our precious websites? The UK is over. It's going 1984!" UK people - whateves.

Bear in mind we wrote 1984 and are familiar with that stuff and this bill isn't it. That agent Krasnov guy is more of a worry.

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

#859

Post by altruios »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #818
JohnFen wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the commenter said "in the US".

I guess I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that Americans who want age verification laws have some entirely different motivation than people in other countries who want age verification laws.

Oh, no. Same impulses and motivations, Different dress.
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