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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

#91

Post by OJFord »

TSiege wrote: post #53
ascorbic wrote: post #22

This is one of dozens of amendments proposed by members, so it's more accurate to say "three members of the House of Lords attempting to ban the use of VPNs".

I'm not from the UK but I thought the house of lords is largely a vestigial legislative body and has no serious power. Am I wrong there?

I suppose it depends what you call 'serious power', but yes, stuff gets rejected and sent back down all the time.

It's generally fine-tuning rather than another massive hurdle after getting it through the Commons that the Lords might not pass it at all, though.

You might be thinking of 'royal assent' which is pretty much just a rubber stamp, yes, post-Lords.

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

#92

Post by iamacyborg »

ethanwillis wrote: post #77
cyanydeez wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, let me just arrest you over some text and hold you for a couple of days. Surely no problem! But being serious if anything this is worse than no imprisonment. Why are they arresting so many people they don't have any grounds to jail longer term?

Days?

> The police can hold you for up to 24 hours before they have to charge you with a crime or release you.

> They can apply to hold you for up to 36 or 96 hours if you’re suspected of a serious crime, such as murder.

> You can be held without charge for up to 14 days if you’re arrested under the Terrorism Act.

https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-...

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

#93

Post by pjc50 »

nisten wrote: post #82

As someone fully supportive of the social media ban for Australian kids, I think As someone fully supportive of the social media ban for Australian kids, I think we need to teach UK kids to vibecode their own VPNs with OSS models at this point so they can save what's left of their future civil liberties. We all know where this is going, they're going to ban the one mathematical tool we have that gives us control over…

You support the ban but also circumventing it?

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

#94

Post by piker »

omh wrote: post #76
piker wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While figures show that the total number of arrests for online posts fell to 9,700 last year, down from a record 13,800 in 2023... https://freespeechunion.org/daily-mail-investigation-exposes...

This is based on statistics for the Malicious Communications Act. That includes people sending, for example, threatening messages to an ex partner. Not all of them are online posts, in fact probably a minority

That's what would be reasonably expected, but it's not backed up by the information.

> The total arrest figures are likely to be far higher because eight forces failed to respond to freedom of information requests or provided inadequate data, including Police Scotland, the second largest force in the UK. Some forces also included arrests for “threatening” messages, though these do not fall under the specified sections. [emphasis added]

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr... (https://archive.is/kC5x2#selection-3325.0-3325.335)

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

#96

Post by StanislavPetrov »

iamacyborg wrote: post #57

What is it about these UK politics posts that draws a particular type of commenter? What the heck media are these folks consuming to have such a warped view of this country?

Probably the media that shows the UK locking up old ladies and people in wheelchairs for speaking out publicly against ongoing UK support for genocide (among other "speech offenses").

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

#97

Post by [deleted] »

piker wrote: post #60
iamacyborg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

> While figures show that the total number of arrests for online posts fell to 9,700 last year, down from a record 13,800 in 2023... https://freespeechunion.org/daily-mail-investigation-exposes...

[deleted]

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

#98

Post by iamacyborg »

goalieca wrote: post #87
iamacyborg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

The simple threat of arrest, even if they only happen by the hundreds, is enough to have a chilling effect on free speech.

[flagged]

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

#99

Post by btown »

xoa wrote: post #24

Blacklists are an inherently terrible, rights infringing approach to this sort of issue vs whitelists. It would be a lot better if the internet by default was simply considered 18+ (or 16+ or whatever a country wants). Instead, the tld system could be easily used to have age based domains where anyone who wanted one had to meet some set of requirements for content standards, accountability and content vetting, didn't…

To be frank, while it may have a level of technical beauty, this kind of "opt-in whitelist" approach is an authoritarian's dream.

Once the baseline is established, the playbook becomes simple: Shift that age bracket up to the very moment when someone can vote. Make sure that every new voter spends all their formative years unable to access even basic resources on the struggles that marginalized groups go through, and the history of their existence; set the bars for the "whitelist" so high that one must toe the party line in every bit of messaging, and thus is effectively a list of propagandists whose businesses can be fined astronomically if they deviate. Take away the parent's choice, and make it mandatory to use routers that block the non-whitelisted TLDs for any device that doesn't cryptographically authenticate as being operated by an adult. Find ways to impose this on groups other than children (for instance, by making it illegal for criminals to access the non-whitelisted web, then greatly expanding that definition). All in the name of peace and tranquility.

If you want V for Vendetta, this is how you get V for Vendetta.

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

#100

Post by pjc50 »

azalemeth wrote: post #33

This is a clearly terrible idea. It's clear to us, at least, not to them. As is on the public record, there are three proponents behind this amendment. They and their contact details are: LORD NASH [Tory, contactholmember@parliament.uk] BARONESS CASS [Crossbench / 'independent', rivisn@parliament.uk ("staff")] BARONESS BENJAMIN [Liberal Democrat - which particularly disappoints me – benjaminf@parliament.uk] All three…

Oh. Cass. She was given the peerage for constructing the Cass Review, an extremely one sided anti trans "review" of the science around puberty blockers. I suspect she's against VPNs and in favor of total information control of children because of trans panic.
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