Comment by kouteiheika
7 hours ago
> the main thing that we've done is we've commissioned additional research on this because I've not been happy with the evidence.
Ah, yes, the existing research doesn't agree with our biases, so let's fund new "research" that does.
Full context:
> Ms Kendall told Nick Ferrari: “I told MPs yesterday I'm going to come back to the House with a statement on the issue of VPNs in July. There are very strong views on both sides of this. For some people, it is about privacy, and it is the ability to use that is really held strongly by people. And for others, they say they should be banned because kids are using them to get around. And so I— the main thing that we've done is we've commissioned additional research on this because I've not been happy with the evidence."
Sounds like they realize there are two sides and no "clear winning argument" in either direction, that's why the additional research is needed. Sounds a bit more nuanced than what I expected based on your snippet.
What is there to research? Yes, VPNs can be used to circumvent geofences (and by extension, regional age restrictions). Yes, attempting to age-restrict VPNs is at odds with strong privacy guarantees. Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.
It's the UK gov. Rather than do something, it's endless inquiries and 'research'.
Example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Thames_Crossing - the planning application is 360,000 pages and not a single shovel is in the ground. Or HS2. The list goes on. This is a really, really minor example of the same sickness that infests British politics for the last few decades.
> What is there to research?
The trade-offs and how many people care and about what specifically.
E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? I'm all on board with just banning this kind of analytics, but there's a lot of people who are more angry with the EU for forcing companies to at least ask for permission before they sell your data to all those analytics firms.
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Are there ways of doing age gating while preserving privacy? For whom? How many people need that kind of privacy, would it impact lots of (say) teens seeking help or is this about whistleblowers? Are many under 18s using VPNs for porn? Or have they just shifted to other platforms anyway? If we implemented it “perfectly” would it even do the thing we wanted?
What are the actual numbers here? If there’s lots of fuss about vpns but actually while there’s been a big jump in use it’s not under 18s anyway it wouldn’t help.
> Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.
And does this get broken enough for age gating something? We age gate alcohol to reasonable success, sometimes that involves showing id.
I’m not arguing for age gating here but I do think understanding the tradeoffs may require more evidence.
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Good thing then that Democracy isn’t gonna defend itself.
But that's the point, circumvent democracy, to set the stage for techno-fascism. The citizen has no rights which the state is bound to respect.
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> What is there to research?
Probably how they can best attach a license to VPN use like they're doing with TV.
"I want to do the thing that gets me the most votes and carries the least political risk". Note this is not necessarily the wisest thing, or even the thing that objectively solves or mitigates the problem the most. Many such cases...
Democracy is a consent [to be ruled] manufacturing system which defuses head-lopping popular rebellions. It is not for the benefit of the people.
More context:
> Elizabeth Louise Kendall (born 11 June 1971)[1] is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology > [sic] graduating with first class honours in history in 1993 > [sic] after graduating from Cambridge, worked at the Institute for Public Policy Research (charity)
tl;dr never worked in the private sector, and utterly unqualified to make judgements on technology.
So of course she's the science minister.
This is what UK parliament is full of, ill qualified, political lifers.
What a depressing time to live in the UK.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Kendall
These people created a law that is catastrophic for privacy, so I don't believe they will be stopped from banning VPN's just because someone claims VPN's are good for privacy.
> they say they should be banned because kids are using them to get around.
Ummm what??? lolll
if they don't want their kids using vpn... why would banning vpn for everyone and requiring ID verification be the answer? LOLLLL
That sounds like they need to control their kids
"it's hard" ...
"WHY DID YOU HAVE KIDS THEN?!?!?!"
>both sides
Reminds me of the drugs tsar, Dr Nutt, saying that drugs should be legalised/decriminalised. So he got sacked.
Quite often, people in power don’t want to hear the truth, they want to hear their own words/views parroted back to them.
To put it into perspective he was asked to do the harm review, in which he proved how much more harmful the legal drugs (alcohol and nicotine) are from some of the banned ones (namely cannabis, LSD or Psylocibin).
Famously at the exact same time UK was claiming there was no evidence of the medicinal use of the cannabis, the UK was also the biggest exporter of it, and all was then turned into Sativex, a cannabis based medicine, not approved for use in the UK of course (individual import is allowed).
Interesting is that the husband of one of the very prominent Home Secretary and later Prime Minister is a senior executive in the producet.
Of course there's no suggestion of the financial interest of them in keeping a monopoly. See also: https://leftfootforward.org/2021/04/revealed-uk-is-the-world...
Nothing new unfortunately [0]. Happy to trust the science as long as it suits them.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt#Dismissal
Obviously Labour has been "lobbied" and now have to deliver this for whoever wants this.
It's pathetic how they use sobbing families to push it through, similar tactic like before Iraq invasion.
same players behind the scenes.
This is pretty much it. Bought and paid for, or hand forced by intelligence powers operating beyond ordinary voter politics
Conspiracy theory^
This is happening worldwide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_age_verification_laws_b...
What you linked is the evidence of the conspiracy, no need to turn it the other way round.
The fact that it's coordinated in all "Western" countries show it's a real conspiracy, not just a theory.
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Isn't it how it alwasy works?
The tobacco industry has decades worth of research saying smoking was beneficial. The antis just kept funding more studies.
So the government can't do the exact thing?