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Age Verification: Teaching the world how to evade censorship
The number of Missouri residents searching for VPNs has quadrupled since the introduction of state-wide age verification laws on November 30, 2025. Trends data from the past 30 days indicates a four times increase in traffic for the search term ‘VPN‘ from within the Show-me State. https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/missouris-search-for-vpns-lifts-off-as-the-first-day-of-age-verification-arrives via:
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Australia, and teenage Olympians and other upcoming sports stars are shuttering their Instagrams, likely impacting funding; or handing them over to “parents” to avoid bans
Hopefully handing the accounts over to the parents will not get the parents banned.
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EFF: “After Years of Controversy, the EU’s Chat Control Nears Its Final Hurdle: What to Know”
Good primer on the remaining badness: After a years-long battle, the European Commission’s “Chat Control” plan, which would mandate mass scanning and other encryption-breaking measures, at last codifies agreement on a position within the Council of the EU, representing EU States. The good news is that the most controversial part, the forced requirement to scan encrypted messages, is
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Breaking: OnlineSafetyAct-inspired Federal GRANITE Act “for consideration” to protect US 1st Amendment rights against Ofcom
Sarah Rogers — US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy; in the UK she’d be a DCMS junior minister* — says the GRANITE Act is now “before the House” for consideration: I’ll start with: I hate that I’m having to retweet GBNews for this, but it’s important… …because if the GRANITE Act passes then
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[Indian] Government removes mandatory pre-installation of [spyware] Sanchar Saathi App
What a surprise. Possibly related to the fact that Apple rejected the proposal. Details: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2198110®=3&lang=2
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eSafety Australia has been issuing informal takedown notices to platforms without due process; it turns out Australian courts don’t appreciate that behaviour
Justice: “So they thought it was appropriate regulatory practice […] to issue an informal notice to X and then claim it is a non-reviewable decision?” eSafety: “I’m not going to embrace that characterisation your honour…” Justice: “Yes I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, but that’s nevertheless factually the case isn’t it?” The full
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Australia eSafety: “Parents may lose their Google accounts [and anything linked to them] if they let their kids use them to view stuff”
Maybe it’s time for some Australian parents to set up actual passwords for all of those “Login with Google” accounts they use?
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Lawmakers to consider 19 bills for childproofing the internet
Can you judge the heat of a moral panic by the number of bills purporting to solve it? […] lawmakers have moved on from sex trafficking to social media—from Craigslist and Backpage to Instagram, TikTok, and Roblox. So here we are, with a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on 19 different kids-and-tech bills scheduled
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(unverified image) The compulsory Indian spyware app indicates why governments hate secure encrypted messenger applications
Messaging like WhatsApp/Signal is outside of the scope of Android (etc) permissions, so access cannot be granted to spy on such content; messages at rest MAY be protected from surveillance by use of split keys provided by the service (e.g. Messenger) It also explains why RCS is so popular with Government because it is a
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