UK Official Promises Statements 'Around VPNs' and Further Teen Restrictions on Chatbots and Social Media (pcgamer.com) 21
PC Gamer reports:
The UK government is considering an Australia-style ban on social media for under-16s, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying that the ban could take effect as soon as spring next year. As for the much nearer future, Science and Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told BBC Breakfast earlier this week, "We will make further statements in July about VPNs and further restrictions."
To be clear, no specific restrictions have yet been announced and Kendall sounded somewhat cautious about an outright ban during a parliament debate that took place the same day. "I have commissioned further research about their usage. There are really important issues to balance here," she says. "Many people want to use VPNs for privacy — that is important — but we know that some children use them to get around restrictions. I will come back to that in July in our response to the consultation." So, we'll have to wait until next month for anything definite, but it's hard not to feel like a full ban on VPNs is already on the table. If that does come to pass, more than the contents of my Bluesky inbox will be at stake.
Utah in the US has already tried to implement a full VPN ban (though this was postponed until September after Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub, challenged the law in court)... [T]he UK could just be the next domino after Utah, potentially setting off a chain reaction that affects users around the world.
The article also argues that age checks can also be a privacy nightmare "with the security breach that exposed the personal info of 70,000 Discord users last year being one case in point."
Here's the complete statement from UK Technology Secretary Kendall. "I'll come back in July with a further statement around VPNs but also additional measures that we want to look at, further restrictions on AI chatbots that parents have found very worrying, more about overnight curfews or breaks in doomscrolling for 16- and 17-year-olds."
To be clear, no specific restrictions have yet been announced and Kendall sounded somewhat cautious about an outright ban during a parliament debate that took place the same day. "I have commissioned further research about their usage. There are really important issues to balance here," she says. "Many people want to use VPNs for privacy — that is important — but we know that some children use them to get around restrictions. I will come back to that in July in our response to the consultation." So, we'll have to wait until next month for anything definite, but it's hard not to feel like a full ban on VPNs is already on the table. If that does come to pass, more than the contents of my Bluesky inbox will be at stake.
Utah in the US has already tried to implement a full VPN ban (though this was postponed until September after Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub, challenged the law in court)... [T]he UK could just be the next domino after Utah, potentially setting off a chain reaction that affects users around the world.
The article also argues that age checks can also be a privacy nightmare "with the security breach that exposed the personal info of 70,000 Discord users last year being one case in point."
Here's the complete statement from UK Technology Secretary Kendall. "I'll come back in July with a further statement around VPNs but also additional measures that we want to look at, further restrictions on AI chatbots that parents have found very worrying, more about overnight curfews or breaks in doomscrolling for 16- and 17-year-olds."
bold of Starmer ... (Score:2)
assuming he's going to PM next week, much less next spring
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, exactly. Let's see what survives into a Burnham-led administration
Re: (Score:1)
Re:A mirror into the future of the West. (Score:4, Insightful)
And this is somehow better "In the East"?
No, it's just that we naively didn't expect it from "the West".
Propaganda Backfired (Score:3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Best to cut teens off from social media altogether lest they explore ideas there anyway, I suppose.
Re: (Score:1)
The Who?
Best deport all the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Romans, Normans and Vikings.
Are you going to make Welsh the national language?
Re:For those who don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
That might be necessary if the UK decides to ban vowels next.
Re: (Score:1)
Are you going to make Welsh the national language?
No!!! Even the Celts were interlopers.
And probably not the first.
Full ban? (Score:2)
Or just a ban for VPNs that don't store customer data? For age verification only, of course ...
Re: (Score:2)
or just ban the surveillance governments
Distribute USB sticks with the tor browser (Score:3)
Freedom of speech (Score:3)
Makes you wonder (Score:4)
How gov ministers will WFH
Are we about to get a (Score:4, Interesting)
balkanized Internet. One where the ISP's won't route to known VPN's.
Will ISP's require a security handshake locked to a person's biometrics for each computer in a household to determine whether it is permitted to visit certain web sites? Won't this just ID everyone using that computer? I guess that would mean the end of anonymous speech, and the beginning of a total control by the government.
Utah's law is meaningless (Score:2)
I don't know why you would bother to reference it. Utah's law is useless and means nothing. Utah can't enforce it nor do they have the power to actually punish any entities.
Re: (Score:2)
Because it shows intent - this is what the powers that be want for all of us. It was fun to joke about the UK, believing this was some kooky thing the UK government came up with all by itself. But the truth is the UK was a trial run for this increased surveillance; now they are happy with how it has gone they will roll this out in more Western countries. Utah and I hear Texas will be next; France has done something similar, Red states will start it off in the US but it will spread country wide before l