this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 240 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Stop ministers using VPNs to watch child porn.

Told!

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[–] Lembot_0004@discuss.online 98 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Stop ministers making laws to... why the fuck they even do this bullshit? They are a government, they know everything about everyone even without such primitive control methods.

[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 84 points 5 days ago

The people pulling the strings have obviously decided that internet freedom is a threat to them and they're taking (global) action to ensure their supremacy.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 91 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Dame Rachel de Souza told BBC Newsnight it was "absolutely a loophole that needs closing" and called for age verification on VPNs.

Saw that coming. Can’t have the populace living their lives without constant, repressive government scrutiny.

[–] SoloCritical@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago

But it’s for the kids what kind of psychopath could be against that!!!!???

[–] Greyghoster@aussie.zone 73 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It’s a bit like “my kids will only eat chocolate” and the therapist’s response “where are they getting the chocolate from?”. If the kids are using VPNs then where are they getting the money for the VPN from? Is this parental consent?

[–] crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 40 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Most likely they're using "free" VPNs.

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[–] Gerudo@lemmy.zip 72 points 5 days ago (2 children)

You ban something, and people will always find a way around it. Always.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 51 points 5 days ago (8 children)

Yup, and that's how the US got the Mafia. We banned alcohol, but people wanted to drink, so the Mafia made that happen.

All a ban does is hurt law abiding citizens and businesses.

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[–] FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 59 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Dame Rachel told BBC Newsnight: "Of course, we need age verification on VPNs - it's absolutely a loophole that needs closing and that's one of my major recommendations."

If this fucker had any idea what VPN even stood for they'd realize how fuckin stupid this statement is...

[–] MyDogLovesMe@lemmy.world 55 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Ya! Let them watch all that violence on Netflix instead!

[–] Quazatron@lemmy.world 21 points 5 days ago

I've always been fascinated by the lengths puritans will go to prevent kids from seeing mammary glands, while simultaneously being ok with them watching blood and violence.

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 18 points 5 days ago

Seriously though. We'll legislate anything to keep them from seeing stuff they might reasonably expect to see and do one day and glorify things nobody should ever see or experience in person.

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[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 52 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Why are the kids technologically illiterate and undersexed until it comes to matters of government control? I'm not usually into tin foil hats, but this doesn't feel like the kids are the primary concern here.

[–] Pure_Psykosis@lemmy.ca 29 points 5 days ago

They aren't.

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[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 52 points 5 days ago (2 children)

If they were really after kids watching porn (or even porn in general) it would be technically somewhat simple to force ISPs to provide filters on their end as a subscription service. I'm pretty sure I've even heard that kind of services in the past. Make it even opt-out if you really want to.

That way ISPs would just ban everything from pornhub and others unless you spesifically want it allowed or even provide a portal where you could block reddit, twitter, tumblr or whatever you wish on your account. That kind of technology already exists and it's used on many corporate setups.

There's obviously ways around that, but there's no technical way to block every possible way to move bits between computers. Even if they would shut down the whole internet there's still ways to build mesh-networks or even buy USB-drives from a shady alley.

But as we all know, it's not about porn and not about children.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 27 points 5 days ago (6 children)

You can't block porn completely without blocking VPNs. If you connect to a VPN that's all they can see. They can not see what you use the VPN for.

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 22 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

VPN, Tor (and similar, like I2P), every imaginable P2P network, proxies, all non-http protocols (smtp, ftp, nntp, xmpp and other instant messengers and so on) can all transfer any kind of data, porn included. And a ton of other things. Heck, I'm quite sure there's a minecraft mod where you can assemble JPG-images out of the blocks and view them that way. And then you can use stuff like uuencode where you can use anything that can move plain text to transfer binary data.

There's no way to block all of that unless you shut the whole internet down. And even then you can still trade good old playboy-magazines with your friends. VPN in itself has very little to do with the actual problem, beyond that someone apparently noticed that their current "save-the-children" iteration had pretty large holes in it.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago

Ban paper.

Kids could draw boobies on it.

[–] jim3692@discuss.online 21 points 4 days ago (4 children)

You can't block VPNs without blocking the entire internet. You can block known VPN services, but you can't prevent people from hosting their own.

Some known VPN protocols could be blocked, using introspection tools. However, this would just render corporate VPNs useless. VPN traffic is just bytes, and so is WebSockets. Good luck figuring out whether my HTTPS traffic is legitimate internet traffic, or masked VPN traffic.

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[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 50 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Clearly it's a parental problem to determine if the VPN they are buying for their kids is being used to wank off, but apparently this party of 'liberty' has an unhealthy obsession with monitoring our children's genitalia these days.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 49 points 4 days ago (1 children)

How about parent your children?

What about the crappy late night TV channels with the women waving a cordless house phone like it's 1996?

I'm perfectly able to watch porn because I'm 45, but I refuse to interact with any of this prove your age bollocks because I know full well that "we won't store your details" and "we will share your details with 1284 trusted data partners" are the same picture.

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 16 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Also "Data breach of 500K users IDs discovered on dark web"

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[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 5 days ago (1 children)

How much you wanna bet the ministers use VPN to watch porn as well?

[–] zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com 15 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Who needs to watch it when you can live it

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[–] wabafee@lemmy.world 42 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think the best way to solve this is to not have kids in the first place.

[–] Rooty@lemmy.world 20 points 4 days ago

And deprive capital of all that cheap labor? Have you no heart sir/madam?

Yeah, it's just all these children with their bank accounts paying for their VPN subscriptions doing it all... Do they think we're that stupid? Don't answer that. 😔

[–] DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 38 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

FYI, with Mullvad VPN set to UK, sites that require age verification:

  • pornhub.com
  • youporn.com
  • redtube.com
  • porn.com
  • bellesa.co
  • tube8.com
  • thisvid.com
  • quorno.com

Sites tha do NOT require age verification:

  • hqporner.com
  • xhamster.com
  • youjizz.com
  • alohatube.com
  • qqqporn.com
  • xnxx.com
  • xcafe.com
  • helloporn.co
  • go.porn
  • cartoonporn.pro

And xvideos.com is a bit special since it shows you the thumbnails of porn videos but won't let you play them.

But we need to stop VPNs! Think of the whole two children that have VPNs! What if instead of just going to the half of the sites that don't verify age, they figure out how to use a VPN?! Oh the humanity!

Yeah, UK wants to de-anonymize VPN users as the next step in their attack on free speech. It is laughable to think this is about anything else.

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[–] greatwhitepapertiger@lemmy.zip 37 points 4 days ago (3 children)

This has nothing to do with porn or protecting children. It's a backdoor way to attach names and faces to VPN usage so movie and music studios can sue specific people for torrenting. They failed in bringing lawsuits previously because they couldn't pin point the piracy to specific individuals. I would bet money that the ministers leading this charge have ties to groups in the movie and music industry. The UK will be the testbed before the full rollout in the EU and then worldwide.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 20 points 4 days ago

This is a lot bigger than the entertainment industry now. Creeping fascism and the trillion dollar surveillance capitalism industry are hellish bed buddies.

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[–] twinnie@feddit.uk 35 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (7 children)

Everyone’s scared of Reform getting in and yet Reform are the only ones promising to reverse all this. All this is done based off the back of a 2016 survey where parents said they were worried about kids watching porn on the internet, but the survey gave no indication of what a solution would look like and gave no mention to online age verification and banning VPNs.

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[–] vane@lemmy.world 33 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Stop fucking but make children.

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[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 26 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Streisand effect: the BBC is telling every last kid that VPN is exactly the way to circumvent the prohibition.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 16 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Because the goal is to outlaw VPNs. To do that they need enough children to use VPNs to make it credible enough.

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[–] queueBenSis@sh.itjust.works 25 points 4 days ago (2 children)

if the strategy is to tell children to stop circumventing the rules with a workaround, couldn’t the original messaging just have been “talk to your children about not watching porn”

it’s so obvious the identification laws have nothing to do with protecting children from porn and everything to do with Big Brother surveillance

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[–] isekaihero@ani.social 24 points 4 days ago

This is fascists using "think of the children" to violate everyone's online privacy and spy on everyone worldwide.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 23 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Let's say they do. So people start using non UK VPNs. So you need age verification for any Internet access? For any computer or phone that could connect to the Internet?

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 40 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That's what they're aiming for, yes.

They want to know where everyone is and what every person is doing at every possible moment of every day, be that in public or on the Internet. They are paranoid and know that their entire system is in danger of collapse with the common man gaining control over the rich and powerful.

Thus they resort to extreme control of the commoners to ensure that won't happen.

Child protection and anti-pornography stances are perfect excuses because they're very difficult to argue against.

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[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 28 points 5 days ago (1 children)

and here we have the heart of the issue, and their end goal. identification required for Internet access. total control.

100% and as always they boil it down to "well even if all that other stuff is true, it's for the safety of children."

Yet we have fucking confirmation that exposing networks of wealthy and powerful pedophiles is not on the agenda. Those people are untouchable. Those people are also the ones that we are handing complete control over to.

So who tf are we really protecting children from by doing this?

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[–] laz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 5 days ago

Moronic bit is atlast asking parents to be responsible

[–] Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 20 points 4 days ago

I remember when my step-son was a teenager. I didn't care that he watched porn. I cared that he infected the family PC with viruses and malware trying to watch porn.

[–] NGC2346@sh.itjust.works 17 points 5 days ago (3 children)

When they effectively make the internet a dangerous place, Usenet will rise from the darkness. P2P will also always exist and these politicians dont understand computer math, so a lot of what they're trying to accomplish is bound to fail.

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[–] UltraBlack@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Ok one question: Why do we have to protect children from porn if they've already gotten exposed to it?

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

To add to it: Why do we need to protect children that arent ours from things their parents are supposed to protect them from?

Weird way to shift job tasks around.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It's preying on the tech illiteracy of idiots. There are several pieces of software that can be used to locally censor the internet for minors, and they're very affordable, and I bet free versions (open source?) probably also exist.

When I was a wee lad, there were "internet safety guides" being shown to kids and parents including :

  • Don't post personal information online
  • Do not use your real name on the internet
  • Do not give images of your ID to anyone online

But then, facebook asked for people's fucking IDs and real names, and people just fucking forked it over. GOOD JOB DICKHEADS.

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[–] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 16 points 3 days ago

Children aren't using VPNs. Also I am going to say this: it doesn't matter that fucking much. I watched porn before I was 18. It didn't really do much to me. It did not give me unrealistic expectations of women. What did affect me were entirely unrelated stuff. Which is why I do need therapy and sexual therapy, but it wasnt the porn. It was people like that fucker.

[–] xc2215x@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago

Banning Pornhub makes them use the VPNs in the first place.

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