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The coming war against local LLMs will be wrapped, as ever, in a choice between Child Protection and Anti-Terrorism
“The Internet is for Porn” – not exactly, but free & easy exchange of Porn was a driving force behind the growth of: FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, web hosting, load balancers, application switches, streaming video, bulk file transfer sites, BitTorrent, CDNs, life blogging, micropayments… and so it will go with local LLMs. No wonder so many
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Mullvad: “The [EU] lost the Chat Control 2.0 battle […in] 2026, they will be back with their next attempt: Going Dark. This time some EU member states want to include VPN services”
https://x.com/mullvadnet/status/2001690546163593308?s=20 Quote; it’s essentially an adverb but it’s still informative: The European Commission lost the Chat Control 2.0 battle over access to end-to-end encrypted data. By the summer 2026, they will be back with their next attempt: Going Dark. This time some EU member states want to include VPN services. The Going Dark initiative, or
Fediverse reactions
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Whistleblowers raise ‘extreme’ concern about security of government’s Digital ID | ITV News
My understanding from friends is One Login is a glorified bastion host that reliant services & parties are obligated to blindly trust, making it a giant SPOF; that alone would be terrifying at national scale, but then: this: “Whistleblowers have told ITV News that One Login is failing to meet the mandatory, minimum government cybersecurity
Fediverse reactions
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In a move that will surprise nobody except British “safety” activists who are unused to the concept of “positive rights”, Age Verification has been declared unconstitutional in Louisiana
For various reasons today has been a pretty shit day, but this offers a spark of hope: “…the law, which conditioned Louisianans’ ability to access protected speech online on their willingness to hand over sensitive government ID, violates the First Amendment” Obligatory Babylon 5: The avalanche has already started, it’s too late for the pebbles
Fediverse reactions
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Moral Panic, Regulation, and the Challenge of Undoing Regulation: the Tonka Bean | Watch this if you want to understand the importance of fighting or fixing the Online Safety Act
One of the biggest problems with regulation is that a lot of little people lose out and then eventually you grow a generation who don’t know what they’re missing, so it never gets undone:
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Danish government proposes to ban streaming over VPNs due to risk of circumvention of content controls
Presumably this will soon be in the House of Lords: The Danish government has introduced a controversial bill that would make it illegal to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to bypass geo-blocking on streaming services like Netflix. The proposal, which is currently under review during the holiday season, aims to criminalize VPN usage when
Fediverse reactions
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EU Revives Plan for Year-Long Online Data Retention | Reclaim the Net
A Council paper now circulating (via Netzpolitik) among member states outlines a plan that would apply not only to telecom operators but to nearly every major digital service, including cloud platforms, domain hosts, payment processors, and even end-to-end encrypted messengers such as WhatsApp and Signal. Officials insist they do not intend to compromise encryption or
Fediverse reactions
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The American Counter-Offensive Against Foreign Censorship Should Be Bipartisan | Preston Byrne
On the center-left: Reddit, Wikipedia. On the center-right: X, Rumble, Truth Social. On the right: Gab. Somewhere off in the fourth dimension, nowhere to be seen on the map: Kiwi and 4chan. Everyone’s fighting back, across the political spectrum, because we all know that every American is threatened by foreign censorship. https://prestonbyrne.com/2025/12/12/the-u-s-counter-offensive-against-foreign-censorship-should-be-bipartisan/
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Banning children from online games, and spying on every device: Why we must oppose Baroness Benjamin’s attack on liberty | LibDem Voice
Finally the Liberal Democrats are hearing the other side of the “safety” issue: [If] one Liberal Democrat peer has her way, no one under the age of 16 would be able to play an online game that allows them to talk or interact with another player. Baroness Benjamin is backing a series of illiberal amendments