Politicians in the UK are in serious discussions about the possibility of banning VPNs altogether for the sake of enforcing awful age verification laws.
It can always get dumber.
One of the biggest points of contention about the effectiveness of age verification is the existence of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). Anyone with half a sense of how technology works could have pointed this out. In fact, for a number of privacy advocates, using VPNs to circumvent age verification is actually recommended if you value ensuring that your personal information (such as government ID) isn’t going to fall into the wrong hands. This is because age verification systems are notoriously insecure when it comes to handling personal information.
Of course, when these bills are going through the legislative process, age verification supporters have a response to all of this: a wall of lies and weapons grade denial. Yup, that sure is an effective solution to the problems of reality. In fact, things got so stupid here in Canada, that age verification advocates rolled out the response to the existence of VPNs by saying that people are too stupid to understand VPNs, therefore, that problem has been solved. Yes, age verification supporters really are that stupid.
Now, not only are people’s reaction to age verification predictable, but so is the governments response to all of this. As I’ve written previously, the logical line of events that I’m aware of is that advocates are going to point out that age verification systems are easily circumvented. Then, age verification supporters are going to go in full blown denial. When age verification laws are implemented, people are going to flock to things like VPNs to better protect their online movements. In response, age verification supporters are going to be shocked that this is happening, then work on legislation such as banning VPNs. Businesses are going to discover that they are about to be collateral damage and ask government not to do this. Government is going to ignore this as well and ban VPNs (or some other method of curtailing their use). Then, it’s going to be a never ending game of whack-a-mole similar to file-sharing in which the government is going to inevitably lose. This while causing insane amounts of collateral damage along the way.
While some might have reacted to my prediction by saying that it’s a little presumptive, the events that followed follow perfectly down the list of events. After the UK’s Online Safety Act passed, users began flocking to solutions that would circumvent age verification altogether. This includes using VPNs. Age verification supporters reacted to the news with shock. I know, it’s almost as if people who talk about these things for years actually know what we are talking about. Shocking, I know. Obviously, this is just history repeating itself because whenever any jurisdiction pushes stupid censorship laws like age verification, people have long flocked to things like VPNs to thwart the governments efforts. So, this development isn’t even new.
In response, the morons in government are discussing a response to people using VPNs. At one point, discussions involved the possibility of demanding age verification being placed on VPNs. An absolutely stupid idea to be sure given that they are asking people to reveal their identities up front before using anonymous tools. Just try to make sense of any of that, let alone the technological impossibility of such an ask.
Recently, though, lawmakers are going full idiocy and also looking at the possibility of banning VPNs altogether. From the Express:
VPNs could be banned as part of a crackdown on internet freedoms following the Online Safety Act’s online age gates. Intended to block children from accessing adult content, the OSA has already seen services such as games console Xbox and chat service Discord require users to prove their age to continue using their accounts, while image hosting service Imgur has blocked access to UK users following the legislation.
Baroness Liz Lloyd warned there was “limited evidence on children’s use of VPNs” which can help internet users bypass UK internet rules and filters.
She saw off a Lords motion to regret Ofcom’s Protection of Children Codes of Practice, written as part of the under-fire Online Safety Act 2023.
Lord Clement-Jones warned there were “immediate concerns around implementation” of the Online Safety Act.
The Liberal Democrat technology spokesman in the Lords, who tabled and later withdrew the motion, warned that the use of VPNs by children was “widespread”.
This “risks rendering age-assurance measures ineffective”, Lord Clement-Jones added.
There are “no current plans” to ban VPNs, but “nothing is off the table when it comes to keeping children safe”, a tech minister has said.
The fact this is even being discussed as a possibility shows just how idiotic lawmakers can be on this subject. I mean, age verification laws should never have been passed in the first damned place, but this being discussed at all shows just how far down the stupid hole politicians are willing to go.
It goes without saying just how damaging such a proposal would be. Not only will businesses suffer greatly in a number of ways, but such a measure isn’t even close to being effective. VPN services are going to be willing to work around such ban laws because they know that they have a whole bunch of customers willing to throw money at them for the possibility of having a little bit of privacy while browsing the open web.
The thing is, it’s not out of the question that there is going to be those who believe that they are in a war on VPN technology and that it’s up to the entire planet to work together to ban such things. It’s similar to the stupidity of link tax laws that sunk so many journalism businesses. Indeed, many link tax supporters were of the belief that if every country enacted such laws, then social media platforms would have no choice but to fork over free money to them. Predictably, that backfired spectacularly when platforms started blocking news links altogether on their platforms because their businesses don’t actually revolve around the availability of news links. I wouldn’t put it passed age verification supporters looking at this epic fail and convincing themselves that this time will be different (it won’t).
Hopefully, the discussions about banning VPNs will remain just discussions. Age verification laws have already done enough damage as it is. These laws don’t need to turbo-charge the damage by banning VPNs in the process.
Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.
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