The streets are saying the government’s going to ban VPNs, so here’s everything we know
https://thetab.com/2025/07/31/the-streets-are-saying-the-governments-going-to-ban-vpns-so-heres-everything-we-know
Posted by Plane-Cloud-5837
The streets are saying the government’s going to ban VPNs, so here’s everything we know
https://thetab.com/2025/07/31/the-streets-are-saying-the-governments-going-to-ban-vpns-so-heres-everything-we-know
Posted by Plane-Cloud-5837
25 comments
The idea that the government can ban VPN’s is one cooked up by those who do not know what they are talking about.
First of all, you can’t ban vpns because pretty much every UK business will be using them.
Second of all, you can’t ban VPNs because you can literally just make one yourself…
“The streets” don’t realise how common and easy it is to setup a VPN server. They also don’t understand that VPN server software is freely available. Even if VPNs software was banned there’s myriad ways to do the same thing with other software.
To be able to effectively ban VPNs would mean banning most technology developed since the 60s.
It would be like trying to ban bread.
Wonder what they will do for all the businesses running VPNs and all the people that work from home connecting to these businesses with VPNs?
Somehow I think its bullshit and someone trying to stir shit with little to no understanding of how it works.
The streets are lying then, aren’t they? If china hasn’t managed to effectively ban VPNs, then our (in)competent overlords sure as hell won’t be able to.
Once they do this, then ID cards, then road pricing they will be able to monitor what you do, where you go and what you read/see. There’s no way this direction of travel can possibly go wrong.
The Online Safety Act is overreach and the Tories are culpable for bringing it in and Labour for keeping it (and initially wanting it to go further). Banning VPNs will compound this further. Let’s stop pretending this is just about protecting kids – which it doesn’t even do.
That’s not fit for purpose and my god don’t they know it.
If they ban VPNs, every business with an IT department will be forced to close.
The clause in question – submitted by a backbencher – says Fuck. All. about banning VPNs.
It just recognises that this will be a way of getting round the legislation, asks for use of VPNs to bypass the legislation to be reported on and suggestions for how to address it if it becomes a major problem.
Fuck me, this Act really has turned the average redditor’s brain into a fine soup.
People. Don’t. Want. This.
Yeah well the streets haven’t been relevant for a long time, their music is shite these days and realistically even the older stuff doesn’t stand up these days.
Whenever this topic comes up people always point to a couple of things.
1. companies use VPNs
2. you can set your own VPN up easily
I completely agree with both but when there is talk of banning VPNs to avoid circumventing the OSA it seems obvious to me that they will just go after the commercial VPN providers who sell to the general public. They don’t ban VPNs *per se* they just ban the sale of them, this would include telling app stores to remove any commercial VPN apps from the store. This won’t stop it completely because there will be companies operating completely outside the UK and who don’t care about UK law who will continue to sell a VPN service. The Government could also force ISPs to start blocking the IP addresses of known commercial VPN providers.
The Government could go a step further and impose fines on anyone found using a commercial VPN but I suspect that would be more of a threat (like the TV Licence) than something that would ever be enforced, it is however something else that may put people off using a VPN.
Setting up a VPN server isn’t that difficult but is it something the average user will be able to do and manage. Bear in mind that a lot of people will have only ever installed apps through an app store and that their use of computers is largely limited to productivity and consumption, they don’t really know what is happening behind the scenes and if there isn’t an app for it their device can’t do it.
Any ban on commercial VPNs won’t be 100% effective but it would be a disrupter.
On the flip side it may serve to upskill people who look at how they can set up their own and there will no doubt be a glut of instruction guides and videos pop up.
Is this North Korea?
This is such a loser for the government, and their obsession with forcing it to the top of the news agenda is baffling.
MPs must be whispering to each other that, no matter what else the government has done, or will do over the next four years, this nonsense will be what voters remember in 2029. They’ve already cost themselves re-election.
I know Labour didn’t write the bill, or vote it into law (that was under the Tory government) but they could choose whether to enforce it and how vociferously to do so. And they’re just proving themselves to be everything their detractors have said – authoritarian, nanny state meddlers who want to make peoples’ decisions for them.
You could just use your current vpn to buy a vpn from another country before the ban /s
They won’t ban VPNs.
They will hold the companies responsible for the content they are ‘providing’ with harsh fines.
Which will force the VPN companies to geoblock the UK, and/or keep logs.
This gets around just about every argument being made here and is ‘on form’ for this government.
Yay! Just like China and we all know that is a model we in the western democracies are all dying to copy!
Why would they bother tbh.
Everyone is going on about VPNs like the good ones don’t require payment – and payment is a way to verify someone is over 18.
They can’t even block the fucking piratebay
What about using video game character creation screens to defeat age verification?
Will they ban realistic looking games?
I didn’t realise Mike Skinner could do that!
I’m sorry, ‘signposting VPNs’ is a crime wtf?
Anybody else feel like we’re being treated like children by the government with this shit? The whole thing is crazy.
Draconian laws are always introduced to “prevent” terrrorism/paedos.
Then it’s used for incrementally more petty stuff like “we noted you overfilled your bin”
And yes, this will result in citizen points, just as is being “successfully” trialed in China.
The west ain’t watching, it’s actively participating, which is interesting given the rhetoric of “west is a democracy = good” “communist countries/oppressive regimes = bad”
All states want a compliant populace
Uk seems to becoming more fascist by the day, won’t be long when you’ll be followed around the streets by government agents for have a different political view
We just need to follow the Australian model and ban under 16 year olds from ownership of smartphones, they will let them have basic phone for emergency and texting only.
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