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Amazing: it turns out that some UK schools mandate the use of VPNs by their students in order to put student traffic through a centralised filter; others ban them entirely
https://www.reddit.com/r/BritishSuccess/s/kzY7P0SPSv And:
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Stop children using VPNs to watch porn, ministers told | BBC News
We need to start making the point that secure, anonymous communication is not the problem. The problem is parenting. Dame Rachel told BBC Newsnight: “Of course, we need age verification on VPNs – it’s absolutely a loophole that needs closing and that’s one of my major recommendations.” She wants ministers to explore requiring VPNs “to
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![Afterthought re: Beeban Kidron’s “…It’s really an important part of childhood to transgress … [Using a VPN] is like a child climbing out the window at night when you’ve grounded them”](https://alecmuffett.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-18-at-13.23.51.png.pad_.1200x628.png)
Afterthought re: Beeban Kidron’s “…It’s really an important part of childhood to transgress … [Using a VPN] is like a child climbing out the window at night when you’ve grounded them”
I’ve written at length re: the above quote, but on a personal note: Kidron’s mental model appears to come unreconstructed and straight out of Boomer authoritarian parenting of the 1970s-2000s. From 2017 to 2023 she says: “a child is a child until they reach maturity, not until the moment they reach for their smartphone” and
age verification beeban kidron censorship online safety online safety act surveillance teenagers VPNFediverse reactions
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Ban-Happy Kid-Ban Baroness Beeban Kidron thanks self & peers, stabs Ofcom, declares BOTH “mission accomplished!” AND “…kids *should* rebel, at least we’ve taught them to use VPNs…”
…as if they didn’t already know how to use VPNs. Fucking something over and then running away whilst blaming the middlemen you appointed is *not* considered success, unless you’re a politician. Compare and contrast the following quotes: “No one a year ago believed that you could redesign the digital world so it didn’t splurge self-harm,
age verification beeban kidron censorship feed ofcom online safety online safety act privacy surveillance VPNFediverse reactions
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Someone asked me to describe the circumstances which brought about the Online Safety Act
About a decade ago a bunch of porn company executives who want to make additional advertising streams of revenue, found common cause with evangelical anti-porn Christians and prescriptive post-second-wave radical feminists, inflated as a group by a cohort of ageing boomers who are scared of technological change and some reflexively anti-capitalist (and possibly anti-semitic) middle
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“With only 4 votes against, the continued opposition to the Online Safety Act is now overwhelmingly a Young Liberals policy”
It’s a start; check out other retweets on that account for commentary.
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Dicing an Onion, the Mathematically Optimal Way
When making 10 cuts into a 10-layer onion, the smallest standard deviation (29.5%) occurs when making radial cuts aimed 96% of the onion’s radius below the cutting surface! https://pudding.cool/2025/08/onions/
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We have a duty of care to speak out against the Online Safety Act | LibDem Voice
Liberal Reform is therefore calling on our party to: -Vocally oppose the rollout of this legislation and campaign for its repeal and call for its suspension whilst a comprehensive review is undertaken. -Work to safeguard the legality of VPNs. -Hold the previous Conservative and current Labour Governments accountable for this gross violation of our civil
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Could some journalist please ask PornHub on the record *why* they block access due to age verification in nearly half of the USA, however they embrace it in the UK?
Quote: “Over the past year, Pornhub had to make the difficult decision to block access to users in the following American states due to Age Verification laws:• Alabama• Arkansas• Florida• Georgia• Idaho• Indiana• Kansas• Kentucky• Mississippi• Montana• Nebraska• North Carolina• North Dakota• Oklahoma• South Carolina• South Dakota• Tennessee• Texas• Utah• Virginia• Wyoming”
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The Online Safety Act risks making everyone less safe | Index on Censorship
To be clear: I empathise with concerns around child safety. We all want an internet that is safer for children. But from every conversation I’ve had, and every piece of research I’ve seen, it won’t make much of a difference to the online experience of our children. There are too many loopholes and the only
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The Online Safety Act censors dissent, while letting paedophiles roam free | Telegraph | …for once someone speaks the quiet part out loud in a right-wing forum
It will fail to protect children because it misdirects attention and focus away from the real problem […the] actual failures to investigate, charge, prosecute and convict those involved in creating, selling, and sharing child sex abuse material where the supposed big, bad guys in the room – the tech companies – have actually alerted the
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