this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 107 points 2 months ago (3 children)

A proposed bill in Michigan has a broad reach that covers everything from adult AI content to manga and even depictions of transgender people. It includes a VPN ban to avoid workarounds.

On Sept. 11, Michigan Republican representatives proposed far-reaching legislation banning adult internet content.

The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.

The Anticorruption of Public Morals Act has not passed the Michigan House of Representatives committee nor been voted on by the Michigan Senate, and it's not clear how much support the bill currently has beyond the six Republican representatives who have proposed it.

TL;DR: 6 Republicans in Michigan proposed a bill that won't pass, as the Senate and Governor are Democrats.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 79 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Any law that contains the word "morals" or "morality" in the title terrifies me. They 100% of the time are a net negative for society.

[–] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 months ago

Especially when morals vary and are just someone's opinion. Morals should only be involved when it's based on the most popular opinion. Moral laws should 100% be voted on by the people not just some old people that are out of touch with society.

[–] balrog@programming.dev 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Even if the entire state government were Republican, it wouldn't pass. This bill is basically the definition of governmental virtue signaling

Businesses require VPNs to function. Banning them would decimate Michigan's economy. The only thing these people truly value is money

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 13 points 2 months ago

Whether or not its realistic or functional has no real impact on a bill passing.

[–] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 3 points 2 months ago

This is about power. It could easily pass with this regime

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[–] Hector@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Not a chance this would pass. This is virtue signaling, or what is the opposite of virtue in government oppression.

Faschignalling. But a lot of other shitholy States have passed these kind of laws, like Montana and Texas.

[–] Unquote0270@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago

This is how Trump works, and it is a technique used by many others (see Brexit) though. Suggest something completely ridiculous without intention of it passing but the idea sticks and you end up with a compromise being considered that wouldn't have previously stood a chance.

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[–] nosuchanon@lemmy.world 60 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Porn for me but not for thee.

Ironic that the party of fucking pedophiles wants to block pornography because it’s indecent. But raping little children is OK by them so long as you’re sufficiently rich and well-connected enough to avoid any consequences.

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[–] lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 51 points 2 months ago (4 children)

How do they plan to ban VPNs? Not on the legal side - they’ll just say they’re banned.

But in the real world, I can disguise my packets to not look like VPN packets, and I can also use many different types of obfuscation to ensure my activity stays private.

So my question is: where are the epstein files?

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 months ago

They don't, because every business uses one.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 months ago

Michigan's bill would charge internet service providers with detecting and blocking VPN use, as well as banning the sale of VPNs in the state.

Sounds like they are basically planning to tell ISPs to just figure it out, and suing VPN companies that don't block people from their state.

[–] Colloidal@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago

Had me in the first half, NGL.

[–] RipLemmDotEE@lemmy.today 31 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That's one hell of a misleading headline. It should read ”Michigan Republicans Introduced a Bill...”

[–] lukaro@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If it's something shitty that the government is doing you can be assured, it's a republican.

[–] Scoopta@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago

Except in the UK where the government is on the left. This seems to be one situation where both the right and the left are universally looking to screw over their citizens and there has to be some way we can stop it.

[–] Epzillon@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Literal China surveillance state bill. How the fuck do I keep reading shit like this every day. What even is the US?

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wait until they find out that HTTPS traffic is encrypted

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Don't be naive and think they can't block this stuff because of encryption. They just go after the business entities. Eventually you'll only be left with super sketchy options that they'll try to block by IP.

They probably won't totally succeed, but they can make things far shitter than they are.

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[–] towerful@programming.dev 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Huh.
So the UK has previously failed to block encryption. And somehow the Online Safety Act got pushed through to PrOtEcT ThE ChiLDrEn - requiring age verification for all adult content.
Resulting in a study by ministers on how VPNs stop OfCom from enforcing the OSA.
Which is a thing VPNs do. So it's very likely VPNs get de-anonymised, regulated or outlawed.

Seems like there is a war on the actual internet, owning device and services.

Why don't they licence IP addresses? Require a change to IPv6 and just assign everyone a IPv6/48 block at birth. That means there are 281 billion birth assignments available, with everyone getting septillions of personal addresses - actually more than you could provision in a vibe coded k8s manifest.

If there are 200 million births per year (it's apparently 135 million atm), thats well over 1000 years before we run out of IPv6/48 blocks (1400 years, to be slightly more accurate. At a constant 135m births per year, thats 2000 years. But conservatively, 1000 years before we reuse IPv6/48 blocks... If we don't reduce the block size to represent year born or something)

Fuck.
The good internet is gone. The convenient internet is fading fast.

[–] Sylos@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

you'll own nothing and be Happy

[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Heh, I allocated a ipv6 cidr to a dev to use for ha testing. He created 1 /48 subnet then came back and asked for another 3. Sigh.

[–] DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

sadly for them i2p and tor exist so not sure who this bill will be keeping safe

[–] TaviRider@reddthat.com 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

[The bill] includes language that could ban not only VPNs but any method of bypassing internet filters or restrictions.

It sounds to me like I2P and tor would also be illegal.

[–] DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

not illegal if you dont get caught vpns are very easy to detect

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[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 8 points 2 months ago

It’s some sort of weirdo purity thing not a safety thing.

[–] jedibob5@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

So... how do they plan to sell this idea to companies that require their employees to sign into their corporate VPNs when they're on the job?

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 5 points 2 months ago

Forced to work in their ~~private equity~~ buildings, like they’ve been doing forever?

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[–] stoly@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This won't survive lobbying by corporations who need VPN to work.

[–] bagsy@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

You can say that about alot of stupid trump laws, they just keep getting passed.

[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I sure as hell hope you're right.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Business is the number one user of vpn and the reason it was created.

[–] cyborganism@piefed.ca 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Isn't this similar to what the Brits are implementing?

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[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 months ago

BREAKING NEWS: It's time to jump ship

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Friendship with VPN has ended.

New best friend is Proxy Server.

[–] arcayne@lemmy.today 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Can't catch me, FBI-man. I'm behind 7 proxies.

[–] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I learned this on Law and Order circa 2007.

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But don't you dare tell an American to rise up against this. They are so busy campaigning the next election, they don't have the time and finance to insurrect.

So enjoy your Syrian internet.

[–] feddylemmy@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (11 children)

This is for Michigan and it will not pass. No wonder I have you tagged as a knee jerk flame fueler.

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[–] LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

I'd love to see how the banning of VPNs interferes with businesses lmao. I work for an MSP and like all of our clients have VPNs for business critical stuff.

[–] Runaway@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So how to evade a VPN ban?

[–] towerful@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

TOR, I2P, tunnel via SSH, or any number of techs that tunnel VPN via HTTPS.
Wireguard recently released an update to enable VPNs via QUIC. QUIC is the transport layer of HTTP/3. So VPNs would be indistinguishable from HTTPS traffic, unless the filters had the root certificates to decode/intercept the traffic.

It's the root certificates that are the weakest spot, IMO.
When governments start attacking the globally trusted root certificates, we will be back to the 20th century of word-of-mouth (IE, sharing) root CAs that can actually be trusted, and will need to keep an eye on canary posts or whatever to know when those root CAs have been compromised.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago

I did not see that coming.

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