On Sept. 11, Michigan representatives proposed an internet content ban bill unlike any of the others we’ve seen: This particularly far-reaching legislation would ban not only many types of online content, but also the ability to legally use any VPN.
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.
Main issue I have with this article, and a lot of articles on this topic, is it doesn’t address the issue of youth access to porn. I think any semi-intelligent person knows this is a parenting issue, but unfortunately that cat’s out of the bag, thanks to the right. “Proliferation of porn” is the '90s crime scare (that never really died) all over again. If a politician or industry expert is speaking against bills like this, their talking points have to include:
- Privacy-respecting alternatives that promise parents that their precious babies won’t be able to access that horrible dangerous porn! (I don’t argue that porn can’t be dangerous, but this is yet another disingenuous right-wing culture (holy) war)
- Addressing that vagueness in the bill sets up the government as morality police (it’s right there in the title of the bill, FFS), and NOBODY in a “free” country should ever want that.
- Stop saying it can be bypassed with technology. The VPN ban in this bill is a reaction to talking points like that.
- Recognize and call out that this has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with a religious minority imposing its will on the rest of the country (plenty of recent examples to pull from here).
Unfortunately this is becoming enough of “A Thing” that the left is going to have to, once again, be seen doing “something” about it. So they have to thread a needle of “protecting kids,” while respecting the privacy of their parents who want their kids protected and want to look at porn, and protecting businesses that require secure communications.
NO VPN!
And the corporate world comes to a screeching halt.
These fuckwads don’t even understand anything about what they’re trying to legislate.
When shit starts being monitored, I want to see the legislators’ traffic public first.
And the corporate world comes to a screeching halt.
In theory, businesses would be required to register their VPNs and… idk, this would limit access to them somehow?
Much like with the Assault Weapons Ban and the assorted online porn bans and strip club bans and dry counties and SEC rules on insider trading, etc, etc, etc a lot of this boils down to “how hard do you want to work in order to enforce this?”
And the short answer is “we only want an excuse to arrest people arbitrarily”. So a VPN can quickly because a “everyone with an Internet connection is a criminal suspect”. And then you just harass the people you want to harass under cover of “we thought you had kiddie porn” as an excuse
I once worked for a banking transaction company (or something like that, I did their network and telecom support, none of the actual business) and they had offices in Russia. I was told that since VPNs are more restricted there, but required for the business, they had to have a special application with the government to be allowed to have the site to site VPN work.
I imagine they’d try to do the same, as well as grant them another way to be in the pocket of or have some control over businesses. If the government has to approve your necessary security software, you’ll want to stay on their good side.
It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.
That doesn’t sound like they plan on any exceptions. That sounds like the end of all business in that state.
When shit starts being monitored, I want to see the legislators’ traffic public first.
Oh my sweet summer child. Of course these laws won’t apply to them.
And if they do, they will make up shit to use the dirt you dug up against them against you.
Kind of like how when a cop shoots a black guy they look for whatever parking ticket they got 10 years prior as proof he is a cracking smoking cap busting gangsta who was itching for a bullet. Never being slightly concerned for the cop’s violent history or misconduct in various police forces.
Now now I didn’t say they were going to allow that.
I just masturbated to these representatives. Legally that makes them pornography, and they are also required to be banned under this bill’s provisions.
Taking one for the team.
It was a challenging fap.
but your proudest
“Banning VPNs” has some real " I declare bankruptcy!" vibes.
Why not also ban cash? That can be used to evade detection as well and is notoriously used by criminals.
they kinda did in australia. If you want to withdraw more than $10K you need proof of what you’re going to pay with it.
In Canada it is the same. And in Quebec carrying more than $3K Canadian is considered proof that you are up to no good and will get you arrested.
Corporate media’s job is to manufacture consent. Please do not accept their spin uncritically.
This has nothing to do with kids or porn, those are always easy bells for censors to ring. It’s about control and tracking. They want to be able to tie anonymous online activity to your real identity.
Politically, we really need to stop accepting their framing that they’re trying to protect kids. These bills are only about collecting data.
“Corruption of public morals” is such a shameless name to put on a bill that simply tries to enforce your own morals.
“If you removed all the porn from the internet you would be left with one website, titled “Bring Back the Porn””
Scrubs was way ahead of its time.
Banning VPNs would be an unmitigated disaster and anyone who suggests that it’s a good idea has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about and should never be allowed to make tech policy again because they are a massive idiot.
Businesses, institutions, and even the government itself all require the use of VPNs to remain secure. VPNs are vital to functioning IT infrastructure everywhere.
Additionally, such a move wouldn’t even stop people from accessing porn (which isn’t even what VPNs are for), all it would really do is break IT security everywhere.
Yeah but people are really stupid and the economy is going to implode any day now anyways. It has nothing to do with porn and everything to do with criminalizing privacy and making mass surveillance more easy. They do not care how it affects people, they are rich and completely detached from reality. They will go live on Epstein Island or move to Ireland or something when America explodes. They rather be rich and connected then do anything that would actually help anyone, and Americans for the past 30 years have voted consistently for mass surveillance, destroying the constitution and fiat economics. This is what your average American wants by their voting habbits. People are just too stupid and brainwashed by this point.
I remember walking into work one day and some agitated co-worker wanted to know what I knew about Colorado’s libraries, because he knows I regularly use them. He was listening to hate radio on the way into work and became convinced that it was a huge problem that libraries were not tracking their Internet usage back to individuals. The idea of people doing things untracked (also, on “his” dime, LOL) was driving him crazy.
I had to laugh and try to calm him down by pointing out things like Tor (and i2p) and the fact that at that time anyway, you could wardrive and probably find a few dozen open Wifi connections within a few blocks, and use one of those if you were really up to something “nefarious” (whatever that might be). Not to mention go to some coffee shop.
He was much more annoyed that people might be watching porn at the libraries, though, as if all taxpayers have to endorse every single use of all things [1]…though I’m sure control freaks like this would be positively delighted at having the right people (read: Republicans) able to see all activity of all Internet users…
One guess what religion he is and what party he votes for…
[1] See for another example - how a certain type of person thinks they should get to decide what food stamps are spent on.
I usually tell people that, if you think you are such a good person then you are probably not a good person. I also tell them that people are living things, and they deserve dignity and autonomy and privacy and that every culture in history that has been operated by people with their worldview has disintegrated into ashes, because nobody is wise enough to see everything and understand everything, and not be tempted by their own power to do wrong unto others.
I tell them that nature has likely figured out the most optimal path, and that nature is probably far older than even the earth is. Life has discovered that the best path is freedom, no rules, autonomy, and love and wonder for each other.
The only good king is a king of peace, a king of dissolving power, a king of balance. The only good democracy is a democracy of respect for others, a democracy of responsibility, a democracy of ensuring everyone else’s freedom at the cost of your own.
One guess what religion he is and what party he votes for…
MAGA and republican…
Because people this obsessed with controlling others sure as heck ain’t Christian by any logical definition.
criminalizing privacy and making mass surveillance more easy
Bingo. They want to know your shopping habits, your political affiliations and how valuable you are to the economy (how disposable you are) so they can better predict what you’re going to do. It’s good for business and political ambitions alike, and ensures that you won’t do any inconvenient protests or strikes. (There’s a drone for that!)
They also want to control your mind and hack your mind. The sort of secret religion of silicon valley is to hack people’s minds. There are all kinds of weird cults that are all about trying to manipulate people. It seems they are having some success on that front but lack the wisdom to know what to do with it, and hence, our society is dying, because there simply is no better path than to not play stupid games, respect people’s autonomy and privacy, and let things work themselves out. Chaos isn’t just a side effect, it is a necessary aspect of life.
A society which finds a way to stop chaos, to stop revolutions, to stop free speech, to stop progress, those societies die. Human beings like all living beings, cannot thrive unless they are free.
That’s what revolutions are for when the government fails its social contract
That’s what they’re trying to get ahead of with this kind of mass-surveillance plan. Identify and mark everyone who may possibly want to create political disruptions. Just posting on a site like this will get you on a list and you will suddenly start getting pulled over and searched for no reason at best, you will disappear entirely at worst.
It’s not just the government. It’s almost the entire human race.
Thats what revolutions are for just make sure you dont let the power dynamics of an economy dictate your future again or it is never going to change because you will just become the rich people inhibiting our species.
It’s hard to have a revolution without the global powers interfering and trying to steer you down the path of international corporate pseudocapitalism, or authoritarianism. The history of communist revolutions is very interesting in this regard. The good communists always got crushed by the bad and authoritarian and well funded communists.
I want to see one state pass this (not mine ofc) just to see the carnage of an entire state full of companies that suddenly cease operations.
The problem is that influencers have shilled stupid VPN services so much that even legislatures think they know what they are and think the primary use for the technology is circumvention and privacy.
They have no idea about all the IPsec tunnels providing site-to-site VPNs for all their businesses. Or how VPN protocols like GRE, which while providing no security on their own, are still very useful for tunneling protocols through different network stacks.
Businesses, institutions, and even the government itself all **require** the use of VPNs to remain secure. VPNs are vital to functioning IT infrastructure everywhere.
This is the first thing I thought about. Bills like these always allow for vulnerabilities that would affect the entire nation, themselves included. It’s extremely short sided.
I mean. They’d only enforce the ban on VPN providers that don’t provide logs to the government. I get what you mean from a technology standpoint. But, in actual implementation of the law it would do exactly what they want. They’re not gonna ban your work VPN. They just want to track what everyone is doing online.
That in itself introduces numerous security problems, still incredibly stupid and all this surveillance data makes for a hacker goldmine. Not like governments have a great IT security track record.
It’s not government. It’s about passing tech infrastructure entirely into the hands of the tech Oligarchs. Forcing VPN companies to sell or integrate Palantir/CIA/FBI backends in order to keep operating in the US.
You’re thinking too much about how the legislation is worded. It doesn’t matter when the actual implementation will just be to increase the ability for tech oligarchs to spy on all citizens. That’s the material goal. Your security doesn’t matter. The oligarchs will implement it to protect their own security and monopoly on data. That’s it. That’s all that this is meant to do. The old fucks in the legislative branch don’t have to actually understand it or write that down. They will just pass it off to tech companies to implement how they see fit. And enforce it on providers when they are told to by the Oligarchs. It’s not smart. It doesn’t have to be. It’s malicious handoff to tech oligarchs to handle and enforce as they see fit.
This is exactly the color of the issue. Everyone should read this.
The wording of legislation is how legislation works?
Might want to look up the Chevron deference. Something that was actually of topic in a recent 2024 supreme court ruling. Can rant about how and why the change to it occurred but that’s a little off topic.
The TLDR is that federal agencies have the power to interpret and defer technical parts of legislation to experts within that agency to enact the “purpose” of the legislation.
In reality this is a good thing in a well operated federal government. The FDA doesn’t have to defer to a judge for every specific implementation. But we are not in a well functioning federal government. We are passing off power tech Oligarchs to control things how they see fit.
WHEN, HOW, and WHO the law is enforced to is significantly more important that how legislation is worded when it passes. I’m trying to explain what the material result of the law will be to my best ability. The law will be enforced in favor of tech monopolies. It’ll be another tool for them to use state power to their benefit.
Most VPNs do not use a separate VPN provided. What about places that host their own? My employer would never open their logs to the us government (hosted outside the us). I would never willingly open my own logs to the government - they have to not only physically invade my house but have to decrypt my drives, and hope they did it quickly enough that any incriminating logs haven’t been purged
It’s not about stopping random people hosting their own VPN. It’s about collecting data on the majority of the population. You’re thinking too hard about it.
How do you even define a VPN? Is SSH tunnelling allowed then?
For that matter, how do you define porn?
10 hour video of a woman encouraging you to be a better person.
Banning VPNs would be an unmitigated disaster and anyone who suggests that it’s a good idea has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about and should never be allowed to make tech policy again because they are a massive idiot.
You’re right. Sadly, this have no bearing on the people actually deciding federal laws in the US, if I am to trust the news cycle from the last 10 or so months.
The damage that would stem from such things is guaranteed to span far and large :(
I suspect what will actually happen is this bill will go nowhere. If it starts to go somewhere, business interests will step in and squash it because of the many, many, many problems it would cause.
Take a look at the UK’s current attempts to do similar.
Old bigots completely divorced from reality making the rules everyone (else) has to follow.
yeah a vpn ban would fuck up networks
Just like world-wide tariffs will disrupt supply chains.
They don’t care, they are dumber than rocks and twice as corrupt.
What the hell are rocks up to? Whats next, youre gonna tell me stones are up to no good.
For rock and stone!
So what you are saying is this is a fantastic RTO strategy. /s
But yeah, I work for an international company, setting up the IT infrastructure so that each of those individual offices have a standard security policy and connection whitelists, and then requiring an on-site IT person to manage each of those sounds horrible.
VPNs is not just for remote workers. It’s used by corporations who don’t want to pay for a direct connect to federate with their work sites.
The only way a VPN ban is going to work is if they make a carve-out for corporations.
Which, let’s face it, it’s Republicans so there’s a one-to-one chance that language will be there.
Couldn’t a VPN service make a corporation and attain exemption?
VPNs are needed for way more than people working from home. It’s hard to understate how spectacularly stupid banning VPNs would be in terms of business alone, never mind all the other problems it would cause.
Bro can we not?
I thought I got lucky to be born into a family that was able to leave China, and I could browse the internet freely in the US. What the fuck y’all? Just let me have my unlimited access to entertainment in peace mmkay?
So… fucking… cooked…
Blatent First Amendment violation.
I mean what even is gonna be the difference between fucking CCP and this BS.
(Canadaaa plssss lemmme innn? 🥺👉👈❓️
Australia? 👀)You seem to be picking the absolute worst countries if you’re looking for freedom, especially online. Australia is already worse than the US in many ways, and Canada not too far behind. How about Europe?
I mean what even is gonna be the difference between fucking CCP and this BS.
Most notably, I’d say the fact that the CCP is a competent government leading the country into its golden age, while the Republican US government is driving its country into collapse. We can all have differing opinions about the CCP, but at least we have to give them credit where it’s due.
This is all your fault for sending those dmails :/
Considering how many people need to use VPNs to telecommute, this seems like it would be a non-starter. But you can’t discount the sheer stupidity and hubris of Republicans these days.
Many countries are trying to figure out how to ban VPNs. I expect it will end up with big corporations and rich people being able to
pay a bribebuy a licence to use encryption and VPNs, while ordinary people will not be able to afford it. Or they will just require ISPs to block suspected VPN traffic from home connections. If people find workarounds it’s still a pretext to arrest anyone inconvenient to the government and ban them from using the internet to organize.I expect it will end up with big corporations and rich people being able to
pay a bribebuy a licence to use encryption and VPNs, while ordinary people will not be able to afford it.That’s a good thing Wireguard and OpenVPN are open source and available for free to everyone.
Or they will just require ISPs to block suspected VPN traffic from home connections. If people find workarounds it’s still a pretext to arrest anyone inconvenient to the government
I mean, China and Russia have been on this mission for quite some time now and have failed over and over. Doubt the US will be any different.
It’s not about buying the technology though: it’s about buying the right to use it without being punished by the law.
Companies like L3Harris have to use VPNs just to access their emails because the securities required on government contracts. Whoever suggested this bill is just an idiot.
This is the right answer
All vpns including ones for work? Not a snowballs chance in hell
What, you got something to hide bro?!
Sure, lots of spreadsheets with sales data.
With a name like that I would have figured some sort of mind map or Gantt chart
Huge tracts of sales data!
They’ll start with banning all the personnal VPN providers to make it harder for people to acquire the service.
Nah, they’ll start by banning everything, then realize why that doesn’t work, then stumble over themselves trying to fix the mess they created.
They will ban legitimate businesses in capitalism? Hmm… sounds like a lawsuit.
Can we get a list of the names of the representatives supporting this?
Any other identifiable information would be great as well.
Fuck this social contract.
how about their browsing histories?
What, and violate their privacy? Know your place peasant. /s
is it doesn’t address the issue of youth access to porn. I think any semi-intelligent person knows this is a parenting issue
There sure are a lot of stupid fucking people then, huh?
Unfortunately this is becoming enough of “A Thing” that the left is going to have to, once again, be seen doing “something”
Personally I think the left should hammer in on “The right are too lazy and incompetent to raise their kids. They want the government to do it for them. No one who’s too unwilling or unable to spend time with their kids should be in government” or something like that. Just rub their noses in how stupid, lazy, and incompetent, the right is. Because they are. They are the worst people.
Amen to your point about rubbing their faces in it.
The absolutely stunning level of hypocrisy from the Republicans who claim to be the party of small government has become such a laughing stock. Or at least I would be laughing if they didn’t have control of everything right now. Fuck.
There sure are a lot of stupid fucking people then, huh?
I mean… yeah? Seen any election results in the past few years?
The fact that Republicans get any votes past the year 2012 is enough to convince me that about 1/3 of Americans are dumber than a box of rocks.
we built our national public education system around breeding compliant factory workers, then cut all the factory jobs.
So are the third that don’t bother voting.
Take the average person and remeber half the people are dumber then that.
Then there is an entire political group, dumber than THOSE people, at their best.
It seems quite obvious to me that this will, in fact, not work. I’d even argue that nobody wants it to work. Only to introduce a law that a lot of people will break at some point, to have an excuse to target them later in the future if the need arises.
No project like this will produce any significant results in any western country. It’s simply impossible to implement without full supervision and control over the entire Internet. China was able to block all online porn due to having such infrastructure. And that was possible due to a vastly different culture. We don’t.
In general, the issue of widespread pornography is very analogous to climate change. We’ve been warned about this for decades, and yet, have done nothing to prevent it. All we can, and in my opinion should be doing, is limiting its presence in our societies, especially in the context of children. This would no doubt involve online ID verification at some stage, though that can be done with respect towards privacy.
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.
Also, what’s up with targetting ASMR? It has no inherent relation to adult content. The transgender people part isn’t surprising and we know where that’s coming from.
This would no doubt involve online ID verification at some stage, though that can be done with respect towards privacy.
No it can’t. Data can be de-anonymized.
Of course. Any and all data, stored anywhere, either physically or digitally, can and will be accessed by third parties and bad actors. This is the harsh reality.
However, it doesn’t stop us from collecting various information about our nations, including personal data. It also doesn’t stop us from creating more and more digital national services. Are they perfectly secure? No, not even close. But the need for them and their benefits [usually] greatly outweigh the risks. Perhaps an online ID verification system is one such case.
It is possible to make it so that only the government has access to the ID itself, which it already does, obviously. If no other parties can access it, there seems to be minimal risk.
But the need for them and their benefits [usually] greatly outweigh the risks.
Losing the ability to anonymously criticize the government, the rich, and those in power is a non starter.
Worse, even if it somehow came to fruition it won’t solve the problem of kids getting access to porn. You’ll sooner get pornographic zines and sneakernet. This is a parenting failure, not an auth failure.
The goal here isn’t to protect kids, its to silence dissent.
Losing the ability to anonymously criticize the government, the rich, and those in power is a non starter.
Have you lost that ability in your country? In my country, and in all of the EU (except Hungary), we have a ton of national and EU digital services. And yet, we can and very often do criticize our governments. Including online official channels, where they always know our identities.
This is a parenting failure, not an auth failure.
How does parenting solve anything in a society where porn is everywhere, including on services made for kids, and where cities are filled with billboards depicting erotic ads? Do you propose we cut our children from all contact with the outside world and lock them in the basement?
There’s only so much you can do as a parent faced with systematic issues. Even if you’re the perfect parent, your child will still suffer from worse parents’ children, from poor state policies, and from nearly all outside factors.
The goal here isn’t to protect kids, its to silence dissent.
That’s most likely true. No arguing about that.
I’m merely discussing a theoretical scenario, removed from the rot of our societies. Kind of like universal basic income. In theory, it may be a great concept that could solve many issues plaguing us today. However, in real life, it would no doubt lead to the erosion of our rights and freedoms, which largely stem from our contribution to society and the need for our labor.
Have you lost that ability in your country?
This post is about it being attempted. See the OP.
How does parenting solve anything in a society where porn is everywhere, including on services made for kids, and where cities are filled with billboards depicting erotic ads?
This is a strawman argument.
I’m merely discussing a theoretical scenario, removed from the rot of our societies.
You are talking about enabling fascism.
This would no doubt involve online ID verification at some stage, though that can be done with respect towards privacy.
This is exactly what the UK has attempted. It doesn’t work, either.
Porn is here to stay. “Children” covers a wide range of ages, and exposure to sex of some kind is not the debilitating thing it’s made out to be. The approach should be to contextualize it and educate about it.
Humans reach sexual maturity as young as like 8 years of age in rare circumstances. Trying to act like humans arnt just fucking animals is bafflingly stupid.
You can’t fucking hide humanity from humans. You want to prevent stupid kids from making more kids before they are ready? Or prevent them from easily being taken advantage of sexually?
TEACH THEM WHAT SEX IS, AND BE AS BLANTENT AS POSSIBLE.
The only thing that prevents people from doing something stupid is education and support . The only thing that stops people from letting others take advantage of them is education and support.
If you don’t educate your fucked up on bother counts. If you don’t support them you fucked up on both counts.
Pussy footing around, using complicated metaphors and flowery language does nothing but confuse children most of the time.
Kids are smart, give them the basic ass facts and they will understand.
Hell even teaching abstinence wouldn’t be so God damn fucking problematic if it wasn’t so wrapped up in religious bullshit to go along with it.
Just telling your kid what sex is, what porn is, that it’s risky and shouldn’t be done till they are older. But should it happen use a condom and talk to their parents about it. Would solve so many god damn fucking problems.
FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING PLEASE JUST TALK TO YOUR KIDS AND BE UPFRONT.
Also, what’s up with targetting ASMR?
Something with “morals”, I guess…
It makes them uncomfortable, and they can’t tolerate anything that makes them uncomfortable. The entire world exists to make them happy.
No, it makes them horny, because they confuse intimacy with sexuality because they get neither without force or payment.
Will it ban their Grindr access though?
Only for non-closeted gays. But for Republicans who only do it to remind themselves of the evils of gay sex it’ll be readily accessible.
This is a test balloon. One state is needed to overcome all the technical hurdles like clearing VPNs for work. Once that is done it will be roled out everywhere.
Without ruling out VPNs, all the other internet laws don’t make sense. So this step is necessary and almost inevitable.
Yup. It’s their strategy and they’ve used it multiple times with great success.
