[HN Gopher] UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by a...
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UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16
Author : nvarsj
Score : 163 points
Date : 2025-12-11 20:32 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alecmuffett.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (alecmuffett.com)
| richwater wrote:
| EU countries seem to be obsessed with infringing upon their
| citizens privacy
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| The UK is not an EU country.
| burningChrome wrote:
| But would you agree going into people's houses and arresting
| them for mean tweets would be infringing on their civil
| liberties just a little bit?
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| Of course, I agree. The UK has nothing to do with the EU,
| though.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Mean tweets - yes.
|
| Very obvious incitement to violence - no.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I don't think this is limited to the EU.
| Tor3 wrote:
| EU? Brexit, remember?
|
| When that's said, there are forces in the EU as well which try
| stunts like this, kind of, but in the EU there are at least
| lots of countries and lots of opposing voices. In the UK the
| situation is different.
| g947o wrote:
| Good news, potentially coming to US soon as well:
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/lawmakers-want-ban-vpn...
| stronglikedan wrote:
| As soon as one country gets away with it, most will follow
| suit.
| blitzar wrote:
| The UK left because the EU was not "thinking of the children"
| outside1234 wrote:
| Is there actually a massive problem that they are trying to solve
| with this?
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| Extremism.
| abroszka33 wrote:
| It's usually the children's safety, porn, piracy or protection
| from some foreign enemy. But does it really matter?
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yes, their previous dumb law doesn't work because there are
| easy free VPNs available (e.g. Proton).
| Havoc wrote:
| Yes. The problem is the pseudo anonymous internet makes it
| harder to control the population :/
| lunar_rover wrote:
| Maybe yes but the ulterior motive behind these "solutions" is
| pretty obvious. Rip anonymity from the internet, one step
| forward towards Telescreens.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Yes: somewhat cynically, they want their democratically elected
| affiliate party to remain in government (or they just enjoy
| popular support themselves) and so when the majority of people
| think _protectin the childrun_ is good, you should demonstrate
| your purity spiraling by proposing and going along with
| anything that supports such an aim. You'd want to vote for
| that, right? I mean, the kids, right?!
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Yes, they don't have enough power yet, and all governments
| currently have the same problem so I expect to see much more of
| this nonsense.
| encom wrote:
| People are saying mean things on Twitter, or even disagreeing
| with government-approved opinions! They're making 12000 speech
| arrests per year, but there's still far too many slipping
| through the cracks.
| 31337Logic wrote:
| "Attempt", being the key word here. :-/
| Bender wrote:
| Consider instead setting a slightly more realistic goal, like 6
| or 7.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| I've been waiting for this for some time. It's an obvious
| loophole in the current rules.
|
| So how long will we have to wait before it dawns on them that
| VPNs are also used to circumvent IP address blocks in the UK, and
| other countries of course.
| impure-aqua wrote:
| Requiring me to upload my ID to invoke ssh with the -D flag
| should certainly be a top legislative priority of the United
| Kingdom
| Etheryte wrote:
| Gotta be of age to get some -D.
| RobRivera wrote:
| Hearty kek
| lijok wrote:
| Pretty sure you can install kali and have a hundred flags that
| have been legislated against in most countries, out of the box.
| Not a great argument.
| Beestie wrote:
| 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.
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| 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.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| It's way easier to justify banning social media entirely than
| banning it for under-sixteens. Paradoxically it infringes on
| freedom less, as it bans a type of business model for being
| too harmful rather than restricting people's rights to view
| and share information.
| noduerme wrote:
| Really? There are plenty of things that are considered
| harmful to minors but okay for adults. Should all those be
| banned too?
| bluescrn wrote:
| And who gets to decide which platforms count as 'social
| media'?
|
| This is a problem with Australia's attempt to ban kids from
| it, where there's some surprising exemptions from the
| restrictions.
| to11mtm wrote:
| I think the separation is in how 'algorithmic engagement' in
| social media is at least as dangerous as stuff that even the
| US still has banned in other forms of media [0].
|
| Especially because it's gotten _so bad_. At first it was just
| 'making things popular in your network more visible'. But now
| it's to where when I use something like Facebook there is
| more 'algorithm spam' than anything actually happening with
| my friends. It's become something where the primary purpose
| is 'driving views' rather than communicating. [1]
|
| A VPN is a bit different; it's a _tool_ , and I will note one
| that depending on the specific definition has legitimate (or
| at least morally/ethically legitimate) uses.
|
| [0] - e.x. unless it has been reversed in the last decade or
| two, in the US you still can't cut from a kid's cartoon right
| into a commercial for a toy/game related to said cartoon. I
| mean FFS that was a rule that got put in before 'attention
| hacking' was even a term.
|
| [1] - TBH I'd love if we could get back to Myspace or maybe
| even early Facebook type social media. There's a lot of
| excitement lost when an algorithm feeds you shit versus a
| friend sharing it, and it was a lot less noise...
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| Completely fair.
|
| My point is more so that these are both approaches to push
| more KYC.
|
| And many comments in here understand that this particular
| ban is using "for the kids" as an excuse, so why didn't the
| other thread have more comments recognizing this excuse?
| casey2 wrote:
| To protect children we must install malware on their computers!
| Let's just hope those authorities don't use malware to peep on
| them through webcams ... Again
|
| or look at their personal data
|
| or use behavior analytics to target minority groups as "risks"
| sending law enforcement to harass or kill them.
|
| or store all their personal data on a 3rd party companies
| insecure servers
|
| You have to start surveillance young, get them used to it early
| so they don't realize how bad it is!
| ascorbic wrote:
| 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".
| TSiege wrote:
| 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?
| notahacker wrote:
| They can propose amendments to legislation, and delay some
| legislation from passing if they don't like it or don't get
| their amendments approved.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Brit here. The HoL's role is to review and scrutinise
| legislation as part of the parliamentary process of turning
| bills into acts (laws). Almost all legislation originates in
| the (directly elected) House of Commons. But all
| parliamentary bills pass through the Lords, and they can
| propose ammendments, but those ammendments have to be
| approved by the Commons. Those that aren't are sent back to
| the Lords for reconsideration. In the event of deadlock, the
| Commons has primacy and can overrule the Lords.
| OJFord wrote:
| 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.
| kylecazar wrote:
| Isn't everyone under the age of 16 using a VPN doing so through
| their parent's billing?
| lucb1e wrote:
| Only for VPNs whose payment methods verify that you're -ge 16
|
| Can't seem to link the section but down this page are some
| options that don't require that: https://mullvad.net/en/pricing
| kylecazar wrote:
| Wow, send cash along with the token they generate (to
| associate with your account). That's a new one...
| Interesting!
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| There are many free VPNs.
| xoa wrote:
| 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 allow user contributed
| content at all without review or whatever was needed.
|
| At that point all the technical components exist to make this an
| ultra easy UI for parents. Require ISP WiFi routers at least to
| support VLANs and PPSKs, which ultra cheap gear can do nowadays
| no problem, and have an easy to GUI to "generate child password,
| restrict to [age bracket]", heck to even just put in a birthday
| and by default have it auto-increment access if a parent wants.
| Add some easy options for time-of-day restrictions etc, done. Now
| parents are in charge and no adult needs anything ever.
|
| Now I highly doubt politicians are all being honest about full
| motivations here, clearly there are plenty of forces trying to
| use this issue as a wedge to go after rights in general. But at
| the same time parental concern is real, and non-technical people
| find it overwhelming. It'd be good if industries and community
| could proactively offer a working solution, that'd reduce the
| political salience a great deal. It's unfortunate the entire
| narrative has been allowed to go 100% backwards in approach.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > But at the same time parental concern is real
|
| ... only to the degree it hasn't been manufactured by tabloid
| media and Russian propaganda warfare, that is.
|
| With every little news about local shootings, robberies, rapes,
| beatings, thefts, whatever not just making national, but in the
| worst case _international_ headlines, one might think that
| Western countries are unsafe hellholes of the likes of actually
| legitimately failed states - despite criminality rates often
| being on record lows. Of course parents are going to be afraid
| for their children, and it 's made worse by many Western
| countries financially only allowing for one, maximum two
| children.
|
| On top of that, a lot of the panic is simply moral outrage.
| Porn and "trans grooming" it seems to be these days, I 'member
| growing up with the "Killerspiele" bullshit after some nutjob
| shot up a school in the early '00s. My parents grew up with the
| manufactured fear of reading too much as it was supposed to
| make you myopic. Again, all manufactured fear by organized
| groups aiming to rip our rights to pieces.
|
| Parents should relax and rather teach their children about what
| can expect them on the Internet, how people might want to take
| advantage of them, and most importantly, that their children
| can _always_ come to them when they feel something is going
| bad, _without repercussions_. When children think that they
| cannot show something to their parents, that is where the
| actual do-bad people have an in.
| lijok wrote:
| You've clearly never been on Discord
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Maybe go after Discord then for doing nothing meaningful
| against abusive, should we not?
|
| And if that means that Discord has to shut down... well,
| okay, if that's the price? An organisation that doesn't
| care about the impact on its host society is nothing more
| than a parasite or cancer and should be treated as such.
|
| (Besides: if you're aiming at stuff like groups of kids
| bullying other kids into suicide or self harm - guess what:
| that existed in times where there was no Internet. It just
| wasn't widely reported, other than maybe holding a vigil
| for a classmate who had "passed away")
| lijok wrote:
| I'm not debating whether they should ban VPNs for minors
| with you. I'm providing a counter statement to your ill-
| conceived thought that this is "all manufactured fear by
| organized groups aiming to rip our rights to pieces".
| jasonfarnon wrote:
| "Parents should relax and ... "
|
| "everyone should just adopt my values and then all these
| political problems would just disappear. voila!"
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > all these political problems
|
| The problems I mentioned _aren 't real_, that's the point.
|
| It hasn't just never been proven that Counter Strike et al
| cause amok runs, it's been _disproven_ [1]. Consuming porn
| doesn 't make people rapists (although I do concede: the
| ethical aspects particularly around studio-produced porn do
| require discussions), and consuming LGBT content doesn't
| make children LGBT. People are, to the extent that we
| reasonably know, _born_ LGBT.
|
| The fact that some organizations (particularly religious)
| have framed these issues as "political" doesn't make them
| political either.
|
| [1] https://www.mimikama.org/mythos-killerspiele/
| btown wrote:
| 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.
| tehjoker wrote:
| It's crazy that there is a house of unelected lords in an
| allegedly modern country.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > It's crazy that there is a house of unelected lords in an
| allegedly modern country.
|
| I certainly agree. But its worth noting that only 92 of the 825
| seats in the Lords are reserved for hereditary peers - the
| remainder are nominated by the (elected) leaders of the main
| political parties, or are appointed for non-political
| achievements (science, society, business, arts, etc.) There are
| also 26 Church of England bishops. Legislation to remove the
| hereditary peers is currently going through parliament.
|
| There's plenty wrong with the HoL, but I think there's at least
| an argument to be made that the UK benefits from a
| parliamentary revising chamber that is less party-political
| than the Commons.
| tehjoker wrote:
| That description sounds like the U.S. senate before there was
| a constitutional amendment to implement directly elected
| senators. The indirect election of senators was used to
| ensure that senators were selected to be favorable to elite
| interests. Direct election was intended to make it more
| responsive.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_U.
| ..
|
| However, I have many criticisms of the continuing
| undemocratic nature U.S. Senate (I think it should be
| dissolved entirely), but that reform was a good step.
|
| It's true that the upper house will be less party political,
| but that is because everyone inside is very comfy with each
| other and aligned on policy that favors the wealthy.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > less party-political
|
| Making it life appointments only makes things much worse. It
| is not possible to be depoliticized in a polarized
| environment; look at what happened to the US supreme Court,
| or the Polish one.
| int32_64 wrote:
| It's so organic and grass roots and good for democracy(tm) 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?
| stebalien wrote:
| > democracy
|
| house of lords
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >It's so organic and grass roots
|
| It is though. This is one of the few surveillance issues
| actually driven by grassroots organisations like
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Shout) in particular
| when it comes to adult content who have been at this globally
| for well over a decade.
|
| There's no shadowy cabal trying to age-restrict porn or social
| media, this is more like a modern day Carrie Nation. Puritanism
| always comes from the bottom up
| oncallthrow wrote:
| Sorry, which grass roots group exactly campaigned for this?
| Which party's manifesto was it on?
| varispeed wrote:
| > Role and responsibilities of MI5 in law
|
| > The Security Service Act 1989 sets out our functions and
| gives some examples of the nature and range of threats we work
| to disrupt.
|
| > In summary, our functions are:
|
| > to protect national security against threats from espionage,
| terrorism and > sabotage, from the activities of agents of
| foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow _or
| undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or
| violent means_
|
| Imagine you and I pay likely billions a year and these jokers
| just let asset managers like Larry Fink influence policies
| affecting fundamental rights of British people like it's
| nothing.
|
| The country is corrupt beyond belief and soon we will wake up
| in corporate prison as slaves.
|
| See:
|
| https://thewinepress.substack.com/p/tokenization-blackrocks-...
|
| https://www.cityam.com/reeves-and-starmer-meet-blackrocks-la...
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-digital-id-scheme-to-...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Will probably work as well as their prohibition of knives for
| underaged people
|
| (That is, none at all)
| fidotron wrote:
| Reminds me of my favourite UK totalitarian politician fantasy
| story: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2019/03/14/yes-a-
| poli...
|
| The UK went culturally off the deep end a long time ago.
| parliament32 wrote:
| I'm relatively confident this was the entire end goal of the
| Online Safety Act. Get the (relatively) easy law passed, then "oh
| no platforms are only requiring this for UK-based IPs and there
| are too many VPNs/proxies, I guess we need to de-anonymize
| everyone".
| azalemeth wrote:
| 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 can be contacted by sending an email to
| contactholmember@parliament.uk using the proper form of address
| as detailed in https://members.parliament.uk/member/4270/contact
|
| If you're reading this website and are either living in the UK or
| are a British citizen I strongly urge you to write a personalised
| and above all polite email stating with evidence why they are
| misguided. The "think of the children" brigade is strong - you
| may well be able to persuade these individuals why it is a bad
| idea.
| sph wrote:
| As if that's gonna change their minds. You'd have a better
| chance by stuffing a PS20 note in the envelope.
| fredoralive wrote:
| > Liberal Democrat - which particularly disappoints me
|
| don't you remember 2010?
| pjc50 wrote:
| 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.
| baazaa wrote:
| 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
| their accounts to digital IDs for this verification.
|
| Naturally the only remaining loophole is if a UK citizen manages
| to avoid being flagged as British ever by using a VPN, so I
| expect they will focus on that going forwards. Keep in mind the
| UK already arrests and imprisons vast numbers of people for
| speech offences, there's no slippery-slope argument here because
| the UK is already at the bottom of the slope as an ultra-
| authoratitarian anti-speech nation.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > 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
| gmac wrote:
| I wouldn't dismiss this so easily, the Palestine Action stuff
| is pretty appalling.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| 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.
| pjc50 wrote:
| 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.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > It collapses into "mere support for Palestine is an
| arrestable offense".
|
| It explicitly doesn't do that, folks are still very much
| free to protest in support of Palestine.
| oncallthrow wrote:
| What ointment did the government put on their shoes to
| make you want to lick them so badly?
| piker wrote:
| > 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...
| cyanydeez wrote:
| arrests is not the same as imprisons.
| stickfigure wrote:
| That's not reassuring in the slightest.
| OJFord wrote:
| Not in the slightest?
| junon wrote:
| No.
| ethanwillis wrote:
| 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?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| 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-...
| himinlomax wrote:
| A distinction without a difference.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| The parent comment specifically quoted both, making a
| citation for arrests fairly topical.
|
| >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
|
| Did you miss it or are we moving the goalposts for some
| reason?
| omh wrote:
| 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
| piker wrote:
| 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)
| omh wrote:
| Thanks. That wasn't clear from the Mail article above.
|
| But the Times article also says:
|
| > A spokeswoman for Leicestershire police said crimes
| under Section 127 and Section 1 include "any form of
| communication" such as phone calls, letters, emails and
| hoax calls to emergency services.
|
| So I think the categorisation is a mess, and probably not
| even consistent across forces
| cj wrote:
| I thought Daily Mail was close to tabloid status (or a bit
| above). Aren't they banned from being a citation on
| Wikipedia?
| stooart wrote:
| The Daily Mail is definitely tabloid, although some might
| describe it as a comic. There are reasons why Wikipedia
| doesn't allow it as a source.
| 4bpp wrote:
| It is by no means a _good_ publication, but at the same
| time being accepted as a citation on Wikipedia or not is
| not necessarily a particularly objective measure of
| quality. I recommend reading
| https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-
| wik... for the critical perspective on Wikipedia's
| integrity in this regard.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| then you haven't been paying attention. the UK is in fact
| arresting people for all sorts of speech online. the vast
| majority is not a call for violence at all.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| compared to most countries that's correct
| tekla wrote:
| https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-
| make-30-arr...
|
| > Officers from 37 police forces made 12,183 arrests in 2023,
| the equivalent of about 33 per day. This marks an almost 58
| per cent rise in arrests since before the pandemic. In 2019,
| forces logged 7,734 detentions.
| jabedude wrote:
| How many people would you guess were arrested last year for
| online posts?
| goalieca wrote:
| The simple threat of arrest, even if they only happen by the
| hundreds, is enough to have a chilling effect on free speech.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Citation needed
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| Citation not needed at all. This is not a scientific
| journal; it's a discussion forum. If you disagree feel
| free to share your own opinion.
| SlackingOff123 wrote:
| Do you want a citation for an opinion?
| kubb wrote:
| Parallel realities. Over here it seems like the US is a
| dystopia, with how hostile their leadership is to democratic
| institutions and how greatly it empowers oligarchs.
|
| They think that European countries (or commonly just
| "Europe") are about to arrest all citizens for criticizing
| politicians. "Europe" must be saved from their leftist
| fascist regimes. For now using propaganda. Soon militarily.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > Keep in mind the UK already arrests and imprisons vast
| numbers of people for speech offences.
|
| Vast? No, they really don't.
| elephant81 wrote:
| How would you argue that more than one arrest is fair in a
| modern democracy? Can you even point to an arrest where it
| passes the pub test?
| oncallthrow wrote:
| Is tens of thousands vast enough for you?
| cortic wrote:
| 12,000 arrests per year, jury trials limit the conviction
| rate to 10%. So they are currently trying to get rid of
| juries, which they will do (at least for speech offenses).
| Labour have an overwhelming majority, and a leader that has
| styled himself after Nigel Farage. The UK is actually a scary
| place right now, if you are paying attention..
| varispeed wrote:
| Don't forget that Digital ID really has been pushed by Labour
| after a meeting with Larry Fink and BlackRock. This is how
| democracy gets bypassed by the wealthy and in functioning
| country it should result in the entire government going to
| prison. Unfortunately MI5 that is in charge of that is asleep
| at the wheel - probably corrupt themselves.
| fidotron wrote:
| The way this, and various other proposals/actions in other
| countries, are all popping up at the same time, seemingly
| independently though obviously not, has to be one of the biggest
| warning signs of trouble in my lifetime. Not helped by various
| European states deciding they want national service again all of
| a sudden.
|
| Our governments have turned into the very thing they claimed to
| be opposing for decades. It's disgraceful.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Not helped by various European states deciding they want
| national service again all of a sudden
|
| Their next-door neighbour is threatening war and their longtime
| ally has turned into an unreliable kook. It's not all that
| surprising that countries are looking to bolster their
| defences.
| azalemeth wrote:
| It's also worth stating that the worst part of that proposed
| amendment [1] isn't even necessarily the VPN ban, it's the next
| clause, on page 20:
|
| "The "CSAM requirement" is that any relevant device supplied for
| use in the UK must have installed tamper-proof system software
| which is highly effective at preventing the recording,
| transmitting (by any means, including livestreaming) and viewing
| of CSAM using that device."
|
| "Regulations under subsection (1) must enable the Secretary of
| State, by further regulations, to expand the definition of
| 'relevant devices' to include other categories of device which
| may be used to record, transmit or view CSAM"
|
| Apple, what did you start?
|
| [1]
| https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/63901/documents/746...
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > any relevant device supplied for use in the UK must have
| installed tamper-proof system software
|
| It's happening. Computer freedom, everything the word "hacker"
| ever stood for, will be officially destroyed if this passes.
| We're about to be robbed of control over our computers _by
| force of law_. It 's just the UK now but eventually it will be
| every country.
|
| This is a very dark day. I've been prophesizing its arrival for
| a while now. I was secretly hoping I was wrong about
| everything, that we'd turn this around, that we'd enshrine a
| right to control our computers into law. The opposite is
| happening instead. It's so sad...
| iamacyborg wrote:
| 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?
| lordnacho wrote:
| I've had American colleagues ask me about the London crime
| wave. They seem to have some sort of alternative news source
| that doesn't tell them murders have halved from the high point
| around the millennium.
|
| https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/london-murder-rate-dr...
|
| Then they say it's about knife crime. Where the UK also does
| better than the US.
|
| https://www.euronews.com/2018/05/05/trump-s-knife-crime-clai...
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| 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").
| iamacyborg wrote:
| You might be missing some important context, namely that
| they're doing so under the guise of a proscribed
| organisation.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| You can just read it on Wikipedia
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_Kingd...
|
| ("(Redirected from Freedom of speech in the United Kingdom)"
| kind of funny innit)
| ravenical wrote:
| I, for one, am just /shocked/ that Baroness Cass (of the Cass
| Report) is trying to limit people's personal freedoms.
| dave1010uk wrote:
| I know what you're thinking: these restrictions are easy to work
| around. But don't worry, we can just layer more restrictions on
| top. Eventually the children will be safe! The government just
| needs to...
|
| - require proof of age (ID) to install apps from unofficial
| sources on your phone or PC. Probably best to block this at both
| the OS and also popular VPN downloading sites like github.com and
| debian.org.
|
| - require proof of age (ID) to unblock DNS provider IP addresses
| like 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 at your ISP.
| nisten wrote:
| 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 machines,
| encryption.
| pjc50 wrote:
| You support the ban but also circumventing it?
| bilekas wrote:
| On what possible grounds can they enforce this? Please someone
| tell me when the line is crossed.
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