Labour could ban the use of Virtual Private Networks after their use has skyrocketed to avoid the restrictions imposed by the Online Safety Act. Logical next step for the authoritarians…
A VPN reroutes a device’s internet traffic through another country. Swiss Proton VPN became the UK’s top free app on Apple’s app store over the weekend with downloads up 1,800%. Nord VPN reported a 1,000% spike in purchases from the UK. Half of the top ten free apps on the store are VPNs now. Well done lads…
Labour has previously supported moves to restrict VPN usage when the Online Safety Act was first going through parliament. Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against them:
“My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112. If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.”
Champion was supported by the Labour frontbench – the party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended. Shadow digital minister Alex Davies-Jones said at the time that the clause “touches on the issue of future-proofing, which Labour has raised repeatedly in debates on the Bill.” VPNs currently destroy the operation of the badly-designed legislation…
Under the terms of the act platforms are not allowed to promote VPNs as an alternative to ID checks. Labour will be minded to go much further. If China can’t do it…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”