On mobile a VPN isn't always effective in avoid geoblocks. Some apps are able to determine I'm in the UK and still ask for ID - reddit is one for example, if you stumble on to an adult subreddit. Using the web interface avoids this.
The UK has also moved to force ISPs to block certain bittorrent search engines.
The UK is not shy when it comes to invading your privacy or censoring the Internet.
I've never had this issue (using Private Internet Access on iOS).
They're not a high quality source of news - they've more than decimated their journalism staff and replaced them with 'content' staff who are performance monitored on the number of clicks their articles generate.
Content is syndicated in different accents across their range of papers from the national papers, The Mirror and The Daily Express down into a large number of notionally 'local' outlets.
So, take it with a pinch of salt.
2. Children start using VPNs to bypass the ban
3. Age-gate VPNs
4. Repeat steps 2-3
Truly a masterful plan.
It's exciting to think I'll become a dissident like my parents, just because I don't want a slimy, rightwing, greasy friends of Epstein and other known abusers to ID and surveil me.
I definitely see both sides of this argument but to pretend the answers here are obvious just means people aren’t being serious. Serious harm is being caused to children and just because that’s a known cliche doesn’t make it not a real concern people have.
remove all "reasonable step" shield to hide behind. for example, a shopkeeper can't say they took "reasonable steps" if they sell alcohol to a child so why should a website be any different? if we are going to the absurdity of age-gating VPNs, at least lets make it so that there is an incentive for children to self-report
If the government isn't going to provide that service you end up with private companies verifying identity and the data security issues that entails.
If you want to shift the responsibility of protecting children away from parents, then you end up in a situation where third parties need to be able to differentiate between a child and an adult. I haven't yet seen a proposal that doesn't entail someone - government or private enterprise - getting access to identifiable information.
Of course, you could have something like a signed certificate, so the identity verifier doesn't see who you are patronizing, and the identity seeking business only gets to see your age, but it still has privacy issues.
You've needed to do that for at least ten years. Mobile internet either requires a contract, or an ID check before you get a sim (pay and go)
Anyone providing internets is liable for what the users are doing. The way you got out of that is responding to legal requests. (originally mostly copyright)
This is the frustrating thing, we have effective and relatively uncontroversial age gated network (mobile data) already. and it worked.
but now they've done and fucked it up with OSA.
All of these proposals probably sound good to people who think the Venn diagram of sites they use and sites covered by these laws are two separate circles.
They probably sound a lot less good when you realize the law covers site like YouTube. The Australian law (which they said they’re modeling this after) also includes social news sites like Reddit.
If they passed a law like this extending to VPN services then you’d have to hand over your ID to use a VPN.
Usually people realize how bad these proposals are once they realize it might impact their internet use, too.
The social media companies could have done the socially responsible thing a decade ago and avoided all this.
HIPAA has been super effective this way. As we all know, American companies don’t give two shits about user privacy or even security. But wave the HIPAA flag and everyone starts caring real hard and taking extremely cumbersome steps to comply with patient privacy.
Very simple: Each HIPAA violation comes with a financial penalty for the business and personal penalty for every person involved in the leak. Very effective.
From my understanding, HIPAA mostly just says that you need to have policies in place for various things, such as rotating passwords or encrypting data, but it doesn't go into explicit detail about what all must be IN those policies, or how you enforce them.
It's not possible to prevent a person (of any age) from reaching a specific website if they are determined enough. Full stop.
right, and that reveals the absurdity of this "age gate", doesn't it? because I am sure giving every UK national their very own unicorn would also poll very well but that doesn't mean that's what a functional democracy should be prioritizing just because a majority of the public supports because doing so is not possible
lets give everyone an incentive to report companies that allow or encourage children to use these websites. the children, the parents, bystanders, the employees and contractors of these websites, everyone should get paid from the fines these social media companies would need to pay out for every infraction. I think GBP 10k per incidence is actually pretty cheap considering the alternative is life in prison for the CEO and the board starting with cash incentives all the way to prison terms for the CEO and the board
The even more concerning thing is that we've got a far right party that have been leading in the polls for most of the last year.
This is a very dangerous situation.
This is a privacy nightmare on all fronts and a horrible limit on freedom of speech. These kids will be learning how to drive a car, yet unable to contact their extended family over Messenger or follow news on Twitter. For everyone else, it means no anonymity or secrecy which has a chilling effect on free speech at a time when fascism is growing within democratic countries and dissidents are being imprisoned or murdered.
Yes, there are some really big problems with social media, but keeping children away from it doesn't fix the problems - it just leaves them for the rest of us to deal with. Let's fix the root of the problem, starting with the recommendation algorithms that inherently polarize people by building echo chambers around them and pushing divisive content all in the name of "engagement".
https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/blair-and-th...
https://institute.global/insights/politics-and-governance/di...
Ah, yes, the existing research doesn't agree with our biases, so let's fund new "research" that does.
> Ms Kendall told Nick Ferrari: “I told MPs yesterday I'm going to come back to the House with a statement on the issue of VPNs in July. There are very strong views on both sides of this. For some people, it is about privacy, and it is the ability to use that is really held strongly by people. And for others, they say they should be banned because kids are using them to get around. And so I— the main thing that we've done is we've commissioned additional research on this because I've not been happy with the evidence."
Sounds like they realize there are two sides and no "clear winning argument" in either direction, that's why the additional research is needed. Sounds a bit more nuanced than what I expected based on your snippet.
The trade-offs and how many people care and about what specifically.
E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? I'm all on board with just banning this kind of analytics, but there's a lot of people who are more angry with the EU for forcing companies to at least ask for permission before they sell your data to all those analytics firms.
Probably how they can best attach a license to VPN use like they're doing with TV.
Quite often, people in power don’t want to hear the truth, they want to hear their own words/views parroted back to them.
It's pathetic how they use sobbing families to push it through, similar tactic like before Iraq invasion.
same players behind the scenes.
This is happening worldwide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_age_verification_laws_b...
For decades the tech industry (mostly Facebook and Discord) has been saying you just have to let us groom children, there's no way to have this tech and not groom children. Now the predictable consequences of that are arriving: the tech industry is being turned off, because it grooms children.