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UK government targets VPNs in new online safety consultation as Lords vote for ban
(www.techradar.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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At this point I have to assume they want the illusion of control rather than actual control. That or maybe they're as stupid as they appear.
Oh they are stupid.
The name of the game of 90% of politics in the UK is "Pleasing the Dailies (Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, right wing papers here). Young people on social media and young people accessing porn are big moral panic issues so kneejerk reactions are what are expected and demanded.
Do I believe there is an element of "silencing opposition"? Of course there is! Be it silencing opposition to the government or stopping "woke", there is an element of that, but a good number of MPs and Lords don't know shit about fuck about technology and are just going with what Mumsnet are telling them. During the debate on the OSA in the Lords Baroness Fox of Buckley said, and this is a direct quote from Hansard:
This is the kind of people we're up against. The "something must be done" type who don't know what the fuck they're talking about, get most of their information from people who either actively want to censor the internet or don't know what they're talking about themselves and believe "something must be done" regardless of if that thing actually works or the type of person who ends the dumbest rant you've ever heard with "it's just common sense" like that somehow makes them right.
You have no idea how dumb but also insidious UK politicians are and how resistant they are to actual reason.
Man reading this makes me realise this is exactly how an out of touch aristocracy works. It's just so bizarre how it's ticking away affecting millions of people, despite how divorced from reality it's reasoning is.
Do you want to know what's worse?
Most MPs aren't from the aristocracy. Most are just middle class or upper middle class.
They're just that disconnected.