This is the problem. Adults thinking children are useless. Don't you remember being a kid?
Whenever there's a blocker (one case from my childhood was how to use net send to broadcast profanity across the network), someone will figure it out, and by the end of the day EVERYONE knows.
It's not like they need to `sudo apt install openvpn` and tweak the config file manually and tinker with routes and firewall rules afterwards.
Basically every youtube video for the past decade has been sponsored by a VPN service offering first-joiner discounts. My cousin uses a VPN and has no idea what it is and how it works, just that "he should protect himself while browsing". Those VPNs have invested massively in UX and ease of use so out of that 77% of users, I'd guess more than 80% of it switched to VPNs.
Maybe not all, but kids pickup things fast. When I was young the school tried to block a popular flash games website, one lunch hour later and somehow we all learned how to use a VPN. I'd say I owe a lot of my technical ability to learning how to circumvent restrictions on school computers and whatever my parents tried to setup on the home computer.
I agree. My point is we shouldn't simply open the doors for this degenerate content and make it easily accessible for children. Children who are already addicted to porn will be more inclined to find a workaround. But new children who haven't been exposed yet will be less inclined.
This all or nothing mentality is so disconnected from the real world. Of course some people started using VPNs, of course some children even started doing it. No law can prevent all occurrences of what it tries to prevent. But it can make it more difficult, and heighten the barrier of entry for children that are introduced to the internet.
> At the next election some portion of Labour voters will remember missteps like this and will vote for someone else because of it.
Personally, I think their prosecution of peaceful protestors (Palestine supporters) whilst giving a free pass to right wing violent protestors will alienate their traditional left-wing base.
I don't think the traditional left wing base is too enthused about their intifada brothers to be honest. And a specific subset of those probably would want to ban porn too.
As far as I can tell, the purpose of the law is to push children to use either free VPNs and proxies (which will likely make them less safe using the internet) or to visit less famous porn sites that are too niche to be targetted. So, we're pushing children towards the most dodgy porn sites possible and encouraging people to upload identifying information to the less dodgy porn sites.
This law is not fit for the declared purpose at all.
They exist because they are either proxying networks that resell residential IPs (aka your internet connection) ...or because they are harvesting credentials.
The former will now make less sense as a business model, since UK isn't a good location to proxy traffic through anymore.
2. Yeah, I am regularly irritated by old chestnut of “kids are tech geniuses unlike the helpless adults”. With few exceptions, they think WiFi/the Web/The Internet are the same thing and have no clue how any of it works deeper than the UI (just like most adults). In the UK at least, our “progressive” government shifted the focus in the late 90s from teaching basic CS concepts to using Microsoft Office applications. I hope it is slightly better now.
Come on. Get out of your bubble and go touch grass. There are more restrictive countries than UK/EU/US will become in visible future. And customer-level censorship circumvention technologies have gone so far that most services are just one-button apps. And the children who can't press one button usually just don't have a phone.
