Due to the UK’s Online Safety Act implemented earlier this year, accessing my Bluesky DM’s now means I need to allow a third-party service to scan my face, ID, or bank card. Understandably, that gives me the willies. So I can either simply never look at my messages again, whip out the likeness of Norman Reedus, OR I can log on via a VPN. However, the days of this vastly preferable third option may be numbered.
US states Wisconsin and Michigan have already proposed VPN crackdown bills aiming to close off this workaround—and the UK may be looking to follow suit. Online privacy nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation recently criticised this strategy, taking aim at Wisconsin’s bill in particular, saying that blocking the use of VPNs is “going to be a disaster for everyone.”
Such a law would prohibit Cloudflare’s entire business model. That interpretation will never survive the courts.
You good sir underestimate the stupidity of courts
The courts understand money. A handful of state legislators can’t throw nearly as much money at such a case as the big names in tech. Therefore, big tech wins.