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Utah’s New Law Targeting VPNs Goes Into Effect Next Week (www.eff.org)

submitted 23 hours ago by Monkey@piefed.social to c/privacy@programming.dev

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For the last couple of years, we’ve watched the same predictable cycle play out across the globe: a state (or country) passes a clunky age-verification mandate, and, without fail, Virtual Private Network (VPN) usage surges as residents scramble to maintain their privacy and anonymity. We've seen...

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[–] hash@slrpnk.net 6 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

As a Utahn I'd missed this. But reading what applies... how would a company realize I'm in Utah and be forced to age verify me? My guess is this is actually mostly targeted at sports betting. I don't know a lot about how people are using VPNs there but I'd be surprised if they're running them on their phone constantly.

Not saying I'm okay with it, but the headline made me think I was in for issues using my VPN. What seems to really be coming is a liability rats nest for websites that makes no sense.

[–] ConsciousDissonance@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

This effectively pushes risk averse platforms to universally apply age gating to everyone. The technical impossibility is a feature in this case. As it increases the legal risk of selectively age gating. The path of least resistance then becomes universal age gating, as the alternative is increased costs and liability from selective enforcement. Selective compliance may be acceptable depending on the company, if revenue loss is greater than the maintenance cost. But it is a blow for privacy and win for censorship that these questions even need be asked.

[–] RamenJunkie@midwest.social 2 points 10 hours ago

I run a VPN full time on my phone and I am not even that paranoid or trying to by pass any age gates. I just want that additional layer of obfuscation from advertising cancer.

[–] mlfh@lm.mlfh.org 2 points 10 hours ago

I think that's the point, unfortunately - create a legal burden that is technically impossible to comply with, targeting speech that the state has deemed immoral.