Next up: "Why VPNs are ruining our lives/children and how this next law will ban them. Don't worry, only bad people have something to hide!"
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
340 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
4544 readers
207 users here now
Which posts fit here?
Anything that is at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies and tech policy.
Post guidelines
[Opinion] prefix
Opinion (op-ed) articles must use [Opinion] prefix before the title.
Rules
1. English only
Title and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original link
Post URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communication
All communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. Inclusivity
Everyone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacks
Any kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangents
Stay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may apply
If something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.
Companion communities
!globalnews@lemmy.zip
!interestingshare@lemmy.zip
Icon attribution | Banner attribution
If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @brikox@lemmy.zip.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I wonder if that isn't exactly the goal behind all this shit.
Yes. Anything to extract more data from us and sell it
As can be seen in Michigan.
All such laws fail to appreciate one key point - if little Timmy wants titties, little Timmy is going to move heaven and earth to get them.
Credit card for id? Sorry mum, the call of the boobies was too great.
Scanned photo id? Sorry dad, just borrowing your license - you understand.
Facial age estimation? Time to buy a grandpa facerig and voice morph with my pocket money!
On the upside, the next generation is going to be very very very tech literate, for necessity is the mother of invention. Sadly, they're also likely to be into some dark shit as only non-conforming sites are easily accessible.
This is a really terrible idea and you touched on why, mainstream websites that aren't compliance with the law do things like make sure there's no children on their website and other such things but on regulated sites who the fuck knows what's going on and I don't even want to find out. It also can't restrict someone who's younger finding an adult will verify it and have a place, which could lead them to some dark places if they're looking for an adult who would Age verify for them on a porn website, or even just any social space online now
The UK isn't doing so well, when did it become so ultra authoritarian as to overtake Russia? Even number of arrests for social media comments online?
There are more cctv cameras per sq mile in the UK than China
It's absolutely a surveillance state
Doesn’t china have massive deserts that no one lives in? Doesn’t seem like a great comparison
So you can do things and go places more often in china without being tracked
We are allowed to notice dystopian tendencies in western governments as well
China has twice as many cameras per person than the UK
load more comments
(1 replies)
Capitalists are doing a way of democracy and implementing outright fascism because nothing short of that will be able to maintain the extreme levels of wealth inequality that we have now and continue to accelerate
load more comments
(21 replies)
I mean, isn't that first part exactly what the legislation was about? They want to ban porn and make people angry and desperate for a revolution. They're removing the circuses to go along with the removing the bread thanks to SNAP and other funds being frozen. They absolutely must want a violent revolution.
You're talking about America, which has nothing to do with the UK doing this.
load more comments
(21 replies)
Going off the headline alone... wouldn't that imply that people aren't using VPNs to watch porn? If they were, the porn sites wouldn't be seeing a decline. Anyway, just a random nitpick.... carry on...
EDIT: Ok, I'm just realizing that the site may only be seeing the same VPN IP address for like 50 people at a time. Sorry, forgot my CCNA.
Please read the article. It answers all your questions.
They're probably also showing up as non-uk addresses because UK address and points would be just as horrible as coming out in Iran or somewhere like that
Also good points!
I'm confused, if VPN use soured for that very reason, wouldn't traffic remain roughly the same?
The article mentions this. They only mention a 77% drop in visits from the UK, but VPNs have seen increased use. So most likely people in the UK are using VPNs to view porn (however, they don't mention other countries numbers being up or down).
Additionally, they call out that most likely people are also going to sites not following the law. This has always been a big issue with these laws, in that they push people to more extreme/unregulated sites rather than actually curbing the behavior (which is a problematic goal in the first place).
I've been worried about that since all these fools started talking about "banning porn."
The sites that already broke the law (by hosting illegal content) were never going to comply with age-verification laws. If the more ethical porn options are law-abiding, then these laws create a feedback loop - sites that comply suffer from reduced traffic, while sites that ignore the laws become more popular.
I have zero doubt that, right now, there are people wandering onto truly harmful and disturbing material that they never would have discovered if they hadn't been pushed to explore the fringes of the internet in search of porn.
Additionally, dumb legislators that are angry that their law is useless will probably turn to banning VPNs
Among the younger folks, I expect most just turned to Discord or Telegram to get their porn fix. Those that don't want to bother with messaging groups probably just went to page 3+ of their search result. I wonder whether duckduckgo's "safesearch:off" is working for brits
Search engines aren't affected by the law so yeah safe search being off still works
Yeah, I think that's a safe assumption. While discord and telegram aren't inherently bad, I think they carry more risks than just going to some site like pornhub.
Some people use VPNs. Most won't bother. You wouldn't need many new VPN users to have a big percentage increase.
Read the article to find the answer to your question.
view more: next ›