Labour is planning to ban Virtual Private Networks for children after insisting it would not do so. What number U-turn is that?
Back when the Online Safety Act first came in Guido exclusively reported on Labour’s support for action against VPN usage. The party supported Sarah Champion’s proposals to look at curbing their use if, after the OSA was introduced, people were circumventing the age verification firewall. Exactly what has happened – every outlet was very keen to run the government’s denial of this at the time…
Peter Kyle claimed in July last year that the government was “not considering a VPN ban” because there are “far more people who are actually there to prove their age in a legitimate way.” This was written up as Labour ‘ruling out’ a ban…
The position now, as per Starmer’s Substack: “Limiting VPN access for kids: to make it harder for kids to get around age limits of services or certain functionalities.”
That’s now been U-turned on. VPNs are crucial for internet security – Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo points out that an age threshold is effectively a ban on usage. Is Starmer going to start giving his speeches in Mandarin, too?
Speaking on the Labour chaos over the last few weeks, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told The Guardian:
“You call it a sh*tshow, I say it’s unforgivable…It does look to people outside that we’re more interested in ourselves and less interested in preventing chaos. […] We’ve not done enough, and this has got to be the moment of reckoning where we say not just what are we here for, but who are we here for?”