this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against VPNs previously, saying: “My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112.

"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.” And the Labour Party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended.

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[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 21 points 4 days ago (3 children)

just do what the chinese do to get around thier great wall. use proxies and anti-detect browsers, its the next step after VPN.. you might want to look around how to set these up.

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[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

for those in the UK and/or Other places in Europe just know it's so painfully easy to either set up your own VPN or just use something like Mullvad.

I set up my own VPN this morning for the first time on my server and it took less than 10minutes. plenty of guides online on how to do it.

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 55 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I’d email my MP to ask why this Labour Government is using the BBC to promote Reform talking points and implementing brain dead Reform policies, but I don’t expect anything other than the blandest party line response.

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[–] doctortofu@piefed.social 61 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Come on UK, just skip all the boring parts and make unremovable collars for everyone fitted with GPS, cameras and miniature bombs that can be remotely detonated. After all, that's the only way to make sure nobody is doing bad, very bad illegal stuff and to PROTECT THE CHILDREN, isn't it? Fucking hell, these fucks really are trying to create a bloody dystopia...

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[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 23 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Someone should start a bussiness near the border of Republic of Ireland and get two antennas pointed at each other across the border, with the RoI side having connected to the free internet, then the UK Northern Ireland side connected to the Intra-net. You pay a "Club Membership Fee" to get access to the proxy network.

Its not a VPN, its a Nerd Techie Club, just with a free proxy service as part of the club membership 😉

[–] ThePrivacyPolicy@lemmy.ca 16 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Gonna end up with a country-wide rogue WiFi mesh network setup that's fed from neighboring countries haha

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 26 points 5 days ago (1 children)

"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.”

When I was a kid, Reddit and general public Internet access weren't things, but I sure managed to get my hands on pornography. I'm pretty confident that even entirely killing Internet access isn't going to stop kids who want to get ahold of porn from getting ahold of it.

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[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 44 points 5 days ago
[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

after reports in Guido Fawkes suggested it was possible.

That's the only source? A far-right conspiracy website?

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 13 points 4 days ago

Reddit already tried to block VPN users.

Expect the corpos to bend the knee.

[–] MissingGhost@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What if we all started using I2P for most stuff? The governments couldn't do anything about it.

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[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 43 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

apparently having a functioning brain isn't a requirement of being an mp

but of course we knew that when she did this in 2019:

On 16 July 2019, Champion stated: "If my party comes out as a remain party rather than trying to find a deal or >rather than trying to exit, I can't support that, it goes against democracy". She said she would rather support a "no-deal Brexit" than remain in the EU, as she believed Labour had to deliver the result of the 2016 referendum.

[–] ReiRose@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago (2 children)
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[–] possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 4 days ago

I'm looking forward to the next UK election where the headline will be: Labour has lost the election in a landslide that left them with dozens of votes total

Every single person who didn't think this would affect them who watches porn in any capacity is very likely highly pissed off and will continue to be for as long as this draconian bullshit is enabled.

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 50 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Isn't this currently what Russia is trying to do with their internet?

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[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 5 days ago (1 children)

And there's the other shoe dropping with VPNs now. Didn't even take them an extra fucking year

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[–] JK_Flip_Flop@lemmy.world 44 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If this comes to anything I'm moving to somewhere in the EU and pursuing citizenship there. This is clearly not about protecting the children anymore (not that it ever was).

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 42 points 5 days ago (7 children)

EU is about to do the exact same thing. Norway is the place to be. That's where I went - at least according to my ip address.

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[–] Zoldyck@lemmy.world 46 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Why not just ban all human rights while you're at it?

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 34 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Labour are not governing for the people, and they are not the Labour party anymore.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Enterprises will love that. A perfect excuse to end wfh. However, this will cripple business travelers. I'm sure there'll be some exception for corporations where they can exercise maximum control over their employees while still being allowed to generate capital.

Hey UK: suck it.

[–] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 20 points 5 days ago (6 children)

They couldn't switch off VPNs for businesses. I work in a hospital and we use VPNs to create secure tunnels to other third party health care companies as well as NHS adjacent health services amongst other things. This is to protect patient sensitive data amongst other things. This would cripple our service and go against NHS england and government requirements for the secure transfer and sharing of data.

This would have to be public VPNs only. Despite the fact that it would be complete bullshit either way.

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[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 24 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

(NOTE: Any links to politician tweets in this comment are from Nitter mirrors, not direct links to Elon Musk's nazi bar.)

The Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, pretty much called Nigel Farage a paedophile in a news network interview earlier today because he opposed the Online Safety Act, by saying he's on the side of sex offenders like Jimmy Savile.

He then went to Twitter and doubled-down on this stance:

If you want to overturn the Online Safety Act you are on the side of predators. It is as simple as that.

This of course generated a lot of fury among the site's users.

For context, the Online Safety Act has been used to censor and age-gate anything and everything deemed "illegal content" under Ofcom guidelines. Any social media platforms must comply, else risk getting fined up to 10% of your annual global revenue. This is so broadly worded that it includes anything related to illegal immigration and people-smuggling (literally quoted in the GOV.UK page I linked.)

Twitter had genuinely been forced to censor all coverage around anti-asylum seeker protests behind age verification requirements, which has riled up a lot of right-wing politicians here. The reason for these protests is that the previous (Conservative) government had been paying exorbitant amounts of money to house asylum seekers in hotels, effectively lining the pockets of hotel chain executives - all while we deal with a massive housing and cost of living crisis.

This was meant to be a measure to give asylum seekers temporary accommodation which was put in place at the start of COVID, but has been government policy since 2020 with no end in sight.

Labour have also done jack-shit to resolve our skyrocketed (legal) immigration levels since they got into power, except for scrapping the Rwanda Deal which would have deported any illegal migrants to a third country for processing (which as the name obviously suggests, is the East African state of Rwanda.)

Zia Yusuf (head of Reform's DOGE division, yes they're ripping off Trump and Elon Musk) had this to say about the OSA on Twitter:

Britain is now a country which you can enter illegally without ID, but need photo ID to watch a protest against people entering without ID.

Let that sink in.

Labour have fucked up so catastrophically hard with how they've handled this legislation, that they've straight-up generated bipartisan sympathy for the leaders of a right-wing populist party - who are the only political force that have vowed to repeal the legislation because it is being used for mass surveillance and censorship.

Also, if you're thinking of voting Reform UK in 2029 (and it has honestly crossed my mind because age verification checks are a major sticking point for me), then you should take the pledges from Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf with a grain of salt. Richard Tice (the party's deputy leader) openly tweeted support for pushing through mandatory ID checks on social media four years ago.

If Labour don't get rid of Keir Starmer, do a full cabinet reshuffle and reverse course, we are going to see a Reform landslide in the next election...

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 37 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Not even China can ban VPN entirely, because businesses use it as a security measure.

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[–] kemsat@lemmy.world 33 points 5 days ago (2 children)

The UK is the testing grounds. After they figure it out, they’ll be rolling it out everywhere else.

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[–] thenose@lemmy.world 37 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Show me a ban that didn’t came with 10x problems. People have their needs even the filthy ones. Especially the filthy ones. Hence will find a way to fulfill it. If there’s no legal way to do so the demand will create an alternative market for it to match the demand…more trouble on the way if that’s the lane the UK choose

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