No working-class citizen is advocating for this.
Also, has the UK prosecuted Prince Andrew for raping those kids?
It’d be a good idea to read the article before complaining about this being another instance of Labour authoritarianism (of which there are admittedly already too many). This was a Lords revolt against the Labour position of not banning VPNs for under-18s.
It now goes to the Commons, where Labour has a large majority, and where it will almost certainly be decisively defeated.
What the fuck even is the lords!?
A second parliamentary chamber whose members are not elected but instead get their seats by being nominated for life for one by a sitting government or inheriting it.
And the hereditary contingent is gradually shrinking, and with luck, should disappear entirely after another round of reforms. Fingers crossed.
Old politicians that overstay their welcome get shunted to the lords. They are like the senate, but not powerful.
It’s the upper house of parliament.
The UK citizen’s cuck part of the government.
Unfortunately the UK citizens are the cucks now it appears. Magna carta was just cancelled.
I love the juxtaposition of the ads and the content of the article (on work laptop which manages the browser & controls extensions before anyone chimes in about adblockers)
Someone tell them 1984 wasn’t a manual.
Does this mean that I’ll need to use a VPN to obscure the fact that I’m using a VPN?
its to control dissent against conservative govt, nothing to do with protecting children or dealing with porn.
precious little done under the cry of “but wont someone think of the children?!” has ever, actually, been done with the children in mind.
Politicians decades ago just found out its easy to demonize opposition, if you masquerade your bullshit power seizing in some child protection lie.
Banning VPNs for under 18s. Wonder how they’ll get around kid’s using their parents VPN.
At this point I have to assume they want the illusion of control rather than actual control. That or maybe they’re as stupid as they appear.
Oh they are stupid.
The name of the game of 90% of politics in the UK is "Pleasing the Dailies (Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, right wing papers here). Young people on social media and young people accessing porn are big moral panic issues so kneejerk reactions are what are expected and demanded.
Do I believe there is an element of “silencing opposition”? Of course there is! Be it silencing opposition to the government or stopping “woke”, there is an element of that, but a good number of MPs and Lords don’t know shit about fuck about technology and are just going with what Mumsnet are telling them. During the debate on the OSA in the Lords Baroness Fox of Buckley said, and this is a direct quote from Hansard:
My Lords, I would like to say something very quickly on VPN. I had a discussion with some teenagers recently, who were all prepared for this Bill—I was quite surprised that they knew a lot about it. They said, “Don’t worry, we’ve worked out how to get around it. Have you heard of VPN?” It reminded me of a visit to China, where I asked a group of students how they dealt with censorship and not being able to google. They said, “Don’t worry about it”, and showed me VPN.
This is the kind of people we’re up against. The “something must be done” type who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, get most of their information from people who either actively want to censor the internet or don’t know what they’re talking about themselves and believe “something must be done” regardless of if that thing actually works or the type of person who ends the dumbest rant you’ve ever heard with “it’s just common sense” like that somehow makes them right.
You have no idea how dumb but also insidious UK politicians are and how resistant they are to actual reason.
Baroness Fox is a well-known nutcase, having at various times been a Trotskyite, a libertarian, a supporter of UKIP, and a so-called independent who supported Boris Johnson. She belongs to no party, and has essentially zero influence.
Man reading this makes me realise this is exactly how an out of touch aristocracy works. It’s just so bizarre how it’s ticking away affecting millions of people, despite how divorced from reality it’s reasoning is.
this is exactly how an out of touch aristocracy works
Most members of the House of Lords are not aristocrats, and are appointed to the position.
Yeah, I think I was going for they are more like aristocracy than actual public service. It bamboozles because you’d think they would be able to understand basic things.
I mean I don’t personally expect it, but it would be nice
Are labour doing a speedrun to give reform the next government?
They already have. Now they’re rolling out the red carpet for them by setting up totalitarian controls for them to abuse.
Isn’t this part of the same amendment that will make government spyware mandatory on all devices? So does that mean that part passed as well? VPNs are not the most concerning part here yet that’s the only bit that seems to be getting reported
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
So that means mandatory spyware and effectively makes alternative OS’s/unlocked bootloaders illegal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing
As always, Stallman was right.
Since they broke off from the EU it seems they floated all the way to China.
I lived in the UK as an EU immigrant before Brexit and I can tell you that they were already well on their way before that.
Just go have a look at the Stasi-like civil society done in the UK as shown by the Snowden Revelations: it was actually worse than the US and, unlike in the US, none of it was rolled-back in the UK and instead new laws were passed to make the whole thing retroactivelly legal.
This is far from the only way in which Britain hasn’t really been a proper Democratic nation for quite a while (for example, did you know they have a Press Censorship system called “D-Notices” or that there is not right to legal counsel when interrogated at a border crossing?).
Brexit was not the cause of Britain’s increased authoritarianism, it was a consequence of it (though indirectly, due to things like Press ownership concentration, the BBC to quite an extend a Propaganda outlet for the party in government and the pain of the Austerity that was chosen in the aftermath of of the 2008 Crash as a way to pay for the costs of saving the wealth of the rich and the bonuses of bankers).
It’s just that unlike in places like the US or Hungary, the culture of the elites gives a huge importance to “keeping appearences” (hence the “English gentleman” stereotype, which at least nowadays is all about how one presents oneself and not at all about morals, ethics or honor) so you get a posh kind of Fascist rather than the raging strongman populist style of fascist you get in other countries. Also Britain is far more likely to hide the use of force for oppression with “It’s the Law” and “Proper procedure” than the others - again a form of managing appearances.
Why do they want this so badly.
Surveillance. Control of all messaging. Consolidation of the british internet into government friendly hands.
The age verification law caused the collapse not only of smaller websites unable to afford to perform the necessary checks, but also of LGBTQ resources, support communities for bullied and abused children. Force ID verification, make it easier to track people across the internet. VPNs make it possible for british people to circumvent those ID checks, so now they have to go.
They can’t stop Tor, which is run by volunteers is free to use and cannot steal or log your data – which VPNs can
Tor has its own problems and is not infallible.
What I still can’t believe is that there are positions in UK that is House of Lords and House of Commons.
Like you plebs can meet over there, and us lords will do whatever here, don’t mind us.
Anyway, UK has been always super dystopian, so nothing new here I guess.
