What the hell is happening in Denmark at the moment??
First forcing the chat control topic upon Europe, now this?
I looked up their government, would have expected far right or so, but it is liberal social democrat...
So what happens here?
this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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Denmark wants to ban VPNs to unlock foreign, illegal streams – and experts are worried
(www.techradar.com)
My bet is on a lot of bigtech ~~bribes~~ lobbying
Big Tech has no interest in chat control, though.
They vehemently opposed it from the start.
How the Danish are acting just doesn't make sense...
It's more complicated than that as control acts as a barrier to entry preventing competitive start ups entering the market and disrupting it so established players probably don't care as they can bare the cost of compliance if they have to.
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Something is rotten in Denmark.
It isn't just Denmark. You see it here in Sweden, too. I'd be surprised if you didn't see it across Europe.
I'm not really happy with any of the big political parties here in Sweden. The Greens hate nuclear power so much they'd prefer to open up fossil fuelled power plants than keep nuclear ones up and running. The Left party work really hard to get out of the EU. These are both parties I align the best with.
The Social Democrats are just these milquetoast soft-core conservatives, pretending to care about issues but turning their coats the second they get the chance. Unfortunately they always end up leading any of the left-winged government coalitions, typically with the help from the Centre who then gets to dictate all the policies, so it just ends up being a centre-right government that sells out our welfare to private interests.
It's been like this for well over a decade at this point. Useless bunch, the lot of them.
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The social democrats copied a lot of anti immigration talking points from the right because this seems to be just popular in Denmark. I guess they are just weird.
But these laws are not anti immigration, they are anti freedom in general.
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The soc.dem. are not a left party anymore. The current government consists of three different center-right parties. And they have some weird priorities sometimes.
I wonder how much it has to do with the success and subsequent loss of this operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trojan_Shield
Because it seems like a lot of countries in the west are pushing this kind of thing rover the last several years and there’s a heavy push right now. https://www.privacyguides.org/videos/2025/12/16/taylor-lorenz-on-kosa-the-screen-act-and-repealing-section-230/
How do you "ban VPNs"? That's not how software works, and VPNs are... you know, a key part of a bunch of online infrastructure. I get that they mean "ban them to bypass restrictions", but the entire point of a VPN is you can't tell from the outside what it's being used for. You may as well ban thinking about butterflies. You can write it down, but you can't enforce it.
I actually want one country to ban VPNs just so every other country can see the fallout or complete lack of enforcement
VPNs are banned in some countries. At least in practice. China comes to mind and please nobody tell me „I have a friend in China and they use one!“ That friend is either breaking the law, or a state agent or foreigner where that law doesn‘t apply. Hotels have that as part of their service for tourists because why the hell would anyone travel to a country with basically no internet? Of course they are exempt.
But Chinese citizens are absolutely not allowed to use VPNs to break through the great firewall. The overwhelming majority wouldn‘t even know how. But of course most of them know at least one person who can.
So in theory the law is useless but in practice it‘s very effective to control information. Whatever the case it‘s nothing a democracy should pursuit. Ever.
This is such an important message. We should not lull ourselves into complacency. Banning vpns will be yet another step towards a closed, non-anonymous internet where governments (and by extension companies) will force you to give up access and control over your digital life
Let me tell how how much people actually follow laws in China.
I was born while the One Child Policy was in effect. My mother already gave birth to my older brother. Basically, my existence is illegal.
As you can see, clearly I'm not dead. They didn't manage to kill me, just demanded my parents paid a massive fine and denied legal papers until they did so.
Honestly if you just browse and don't post anything too serious, are they really gonna go after everyone who use a VPN. I mean, say even if just 1% uses a VPN. That's 1,400,000 people. Are they gonna lock up a million people? Really? Surely they have bigger fishes to catch. (Edit: 1% of 1.4 billion is actually 14 million, good luck locking that many people lolz)
As for control of information, internarional phone calls aren't blocked, you can send letters. My mom regularly call my aunts (aka: her sisters) in China. I heard the Covid QR codes being mentioned, afaik, the didn't lose their teaching jobs nor ever got arrested.
The overwhelming majority wouldn‘t even know how.
It's like adblocking. Do you know anyone irl that use adblockers? Seriously, I don't know anyone that does except like maybe 1 perdon.
But here we are, on a platform where practically everyone uses adblockers.
Or in another analogy. Mainstream social media is like inside the GFW and Lemmy is like using VPN to bypass it.
TLDR: Okay sorry if my point isn't concise, I guess my point is: NPCs will just follow the wind, those who have the will to dig deeper will probably be able to bypass the censorship (provided that it's not completely cut off from the outside internet)
Thanks for posting this and I believe a lot of people think that when you're online in China you're CONSTANTLY monitored by someone assigned SPECIFICALLY to you or something.
There used to be like I guess a modern day old wives tale where if you're playing an online game with someone from China and typed into in-game chat "Tianamen Square Massacre 1989" it would knock the person from China offline. I remember doing that a few years ago and the other guy, from China, took awhile to respond and when he did he simply said "that's our history".
It's like you said, the vast majority will follow the rules and won't use a VPN but others will just be like "ok, what are you going to do?" and do so. It's like pirating stuff in the US. I've heard stories of people getting sued out the wazoo by movie studios for pirating and sharing but those stories are few and far between and generally the people doing it aren't smart about it. I've been pirating content for decades and have never gotten a notice or email or letter about anything.
To add to your point, Xiaohongshu has plenty of people on it who aren't Chinese as well. Loads. It's not like they're in cultural blackout.
When companies offshore dev or IT to China, do those employees get full VPN access with access to the “western” internet?
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They'll do what Russia does with their online services. Have a registration scheme with noncompliant VPNs being outright banned.
Simple when you know which dictator to copy.
I guess that works for VPN services offering servers outside the country. That's not what VPNs are, though, and you still can't ban the concept of VPNs having a connection outside the country. VPN software is available open source and all it takes for it to connect abroad is my phone with a VPN connection to my home computer being abroad.
I mean, Russia (and even China) still have people using VPNs all over the place. This (and a lot of the push for age verification and comms backdoors) reeks of barely understanding the desired result and entirely misunderstanding how the tech works.
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VPN bans amount to only allowing private companies to operate vpns for the purpose of infrastructure and commerce. It wouldn't ban vpns entirely, but no average person would have the means within his country to be able to purchase or use one... legally.
While it would be sorta bad, it's like taking the top layer off of the cake while leaving the rest.
There's ways out, still, and there always will be. They can't ban buying a vps from next door, and putting wireguard on it.
I am a relatively cheerful if a bit offputting person, I do not mean to say this is good news by my tone. This fucking sucks lol. Sorry.
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i guess we all should have fought back on internet censorship, rather than fallen back on "well i can still vpn".
We really should have and we have had a good track record in doing so.
SOPA, PIPA targeting online piracy have not passed in the US because of the fighting efforts.
We shouldn't be content just because we use a VPN. Companies are getting smarter about handling VPNs by putting pressure on the companies themselves.
Denmark seems to want to fuck everything up lately, what's their problem?
They can't understand each other. Because of their language.
There's a good chance this guy is just a moron.
Gotta give Denmark credit, they're really going for the Shittiest Western European Country Award. Granted, I'm from the USA and we're obviously an unmitigated disaster, but like, what the fuck are you guys doing? Competing for attention?
The UK has entered the conversation, we will not be unseated in Europe. But yeah as hard as we try we pail in comparison to you guys, hopefully your inevitable implosion will serve as a warning to the rest of us aspiring authoritarianists.. Probably not.
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Some US states are in the process of banning VPNs too, though. I’m afraid the USA remains the uncontested champion of being a shitty western country and it‘s not even close.
The powers that be really don’t like the idea of unmonitored secure networks do they?
Denmark is attempting Schrodinger’s VPN ban. Seems like every week it’s defeated and re-emerges. What a waste of administrative time.
Once again, I would like to thank stupid politicians and greedy media conglomerates for their contributions to media piracy. If not for all their hard work, we would still be playing Russian Roulette with shitty DIVX rips on Limewire.
Denmark is trying to implement a lot of straight up fascist laws lately...
maybe lemmy at large should see the commonalities between all govts of the world making these moves instead of picking on the most obvious example and taunting citizens to "do something". It's as if there's a coordinated effort to lock the lower classes down before some kind of technology creates civil unrest worldwide.
But then again, I'm just a stoopid murican who should have fixed this by now. Not aimed at you, just a relevant jumping off point for the crap that floods these threads.
I notice this mainly from western countries. Asians and South Americans seem to recognize they arent immune from corruption and bullshit policy. Yet for some reason their western counterparts like to point the finger at other countries (namely the US) and diminish their VERY real problems. "You Americans elected a facist, what are you doing?!" Yet far right parties have been surging for the past decade in Europe and Australia.
Facism was literally birthed in the west yet they never think it will come back
Pls, technology?
Climate change and a war against china are the two triggers.
They already pulled back the part about banning VPNs last night, before this post was even made.
Until someone tells them how corporate IT works.
If the corporate VPNs keep logs and allow government access, they will be allowed. That's how it works in some (authoritarian) countries.
The whole country wants to ban VPNs?
Or just a small subset of politicians in the pocket of big corporations who see their profits melt because of their own greed?
What's the difference?
What a terrible terrible idea
Denmark: everything is hygge unless you are Inuit or a Refugee. Now add free Internet to the exception list.
I mean, logically, it would make sense to push VPNs into illegality or create a lot of gray area there if you're also planning to introduce the Aussie social media ban. Logically. I personally think both are no good.
I've read some headlines about illegal streaming being targeted and shut down in Europe. If there was lobby money invested, I suspect it is the likes of sports rights holders who would like you to pay them extortionate amounts of money and not sail the high seas for the price of a VPN.
Modstå, kære dansker.
If omnipotent deity of your choice forbid this ever lands at the ECJ I'm not sure they will side with the privacy/freedom of speech side of the argument.
utskitet av kalk och vatten...
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