156
Denmark wants to ban VPNs to unlock foreign, illegal streams – and experts are worried
(www.techradar.com)
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
156 points (100.0% liked)
Europe
8104 readers
789 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Pretty sure that other coutries will follow soon...
They will try anything except copyright reform. Anything except looking at the cause of piracy...
Denmark. Full honesty. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR GOVERNMENT?!
Looks like all governments are moving in this direction, sadly.
It's pretty clear that oligarchs are all banding together to cement their hold on humanity.
It's too open and free to have morons like this minister running around spewing bs
What the fuck is wrong with denmark? Chat control, and then this bullshit
Usa must be paying good money for it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dunhammer
I doubt that has anything to do with it. The Danes are very upset about Americas plans to flat out annex Greenland and are taking Trumps repeated threats very seriously.
I really hope so.
They already withdrew the VPN ban part of the bill.
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/seneste/regeringen-dropper-dele-af-lovforslag-om-vpn-forbindelser
Cool, not having VPNs won't be a security problem for businesses and government agencies. /S
Or any private citizen with a want or need for OPSEC.
Sure and then I want them to explain to the public why home office is forbidden now. And tell people that its very unfortunate but they aren't allowed to get there information from sources outside of the country. Great the people will love this.
I don‘t see how home office got anything to do with it. It looks like they want to precisely ban certain end consumer VPNs. So unless your office forces you to use NordVPN to connect to their servers they shouldn‘t be affected.
That being said I also don‘t see how they want to enforce it without essentially building a firewall around their tiny country. It sounds like a ridiculous idea.
Home office is affected because customer private data can't be sent over unsecured public networks and it's rather difficult to work many jobs without that, so a VPN link between home office and HQ is needed and most businesses buy that in.
Again, it‘s not about those. Even the title should make that clear.
Care to explain how some of those wouldn't have been hit? Some businesses do indeed use NordVPN. We may have thoughts on that but they do.
@mjr by “home office” you mean “working from home”? Because that has a distictly different meaning in many, if not most, English speaking countries.
Yes. Working from home, or home offices. Not the Home Office, which is what British often uses instead of Interior Ministry, but usually with "the" and capitals.
It's useless to enforce age verification without banning VPNs. This was inevitable and must have been planned.
What's the plan? I think they need tools to prevent unrest when the US, the Americas and Europe get tightly coupled to counter-balance China.
Oh sure, let's all upload our personal IDs to some shady companies for age verification... - what could posssibly go wrong?
The US and the EU can counter balance China comfortably on their own if they really deem it necessary. I doubt that‘s the reason Denmark is going full surveillance state.
What else could it be?
Btw, they still would need population control even if EU and US try to do it on their own. However Venezuela and other countries show that the US won't let South America be part of the multipolar world.
can counter balance China comfortably on their own
How? China has all the production capabilities and is just moments away from having the missing high precision tools.
What else could it be?
It could simply be the same basic authoritarian instinct shared by governments everywhere. We don't like this thing that's happening, therefore we pass a law saying it can't happen. Technical details of why that won't work are not important, and are probably invented by obstinate malcontents. Just do it.
That requires some form of incompetence. The sneakiness of introducing voluntary chat control that stops being voluntary in the fine print but isn't discussed by the media suggests that some people are putting in serious effort. An incompetent person would know about VPNs only years after age verification became active law.
In this area, where there is so much evidence of conspiracy, I tend towards conspiracy theory: The incompetent and the ignorant whose names we know are being guided and manipulated by lobbyists and psychopaths with secret motivations who know exactly what they're doing.
The EU and the US are both economically stronger and more stable than China. Not to speak of the political and cultural power they have over most parts of the world. The US and the EU are individually bigger players on the global stage than China in most aspects. They wouldn‘t need to join forced to counter balance China. At least not going by numbers.
From memory, the EU and China are 18% of global GDP, GB is 3%. The US is the biggest but by PPP China is already bigger.
China had a $1 trillion trade surplus. The US are forcing the EU to buy their gas. China is growing, the EU is shrinking.
To me that means it is a matter of years until China is clearly number one.
Won't the current power of EU and US become a liability when China can offer the former colonies to finally break free from their masters?
China will never be number one just like Japan didn‘t when they ran with a similar export model. They have much more massive looming economic challenges than we do. If anything, India will take their spot as the global factory.
Japan was stopped with the power of the dollar. China doesn't even have the dept to try that on China.
Which challenges does China have and why should India be able to take their spot?
I’m sorry, what? China has a mountain of debt and the housing bubble is swallowing up any savings an average household could accumulate. Turns out pouring more concrete in a decade than the USA poured in a century comes at a cost after all. This might be news to some but it shouldn‘t come as a surprise.
What definitely shouldn‘t be news to anyone at this point is China‘s inevitable demographic time bomb that‘s about to go off. China‘s population is aging much more rapidly than any other demographic in the world and soon a huge chunk of their workforce will retire with way too few workers to replace them.
These things will put a strain on China’s economy that makes Japan‘s bubble burst look like a cakewalk.
The aging population threatens the economy but it cannot be used to contain China.
None of this analysis should be taken to imply that specific Chinese borrowers are not overleveraged with respect to external debt. Where risk does exist, it lies primarily with Chinese companies and NBFIs who are net borrowers, as opposed to banks which are net lenders. Taken as a whole, the Chinese economy is not particularly reliant on foreign borrowing, especially when compared to other emerging markets. The Chinese economy is overleveraged in many respects, but the country’s credit boom has been domestic in nature.
https://www.seafarerfunds.com/prevailing-winds/2019/01/tracking-chinas-external-debt/
A bit outdated but good analysis. After this year's $1 trillion trade surplus, it can only have improved for China.
The dangerous dept part comes from doing business and is balanced by their currency reserves. Both are in dollar.
The US government would have to default on their obligations while their creditors need the leverage to enforce their dept on China. Is that possible at all?
Usa must be paying good money for it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dunhammer
The US, China, and Russia are terrorist states.
Politicians' ignorance about technology is dangerous. Trying to ban VPNs is the dumbest thing I've asked for in a long time.