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Age restrictions + VPN bans + encryption restrictions + client-side monitoring + restricting general purpose computing.. It's just rapid descent into digital fa

Age restrictions + VPN bans + encryption restrictions + client-side monitoring + restricting general purpose computing.. It's just rapid descent into digital fascism set up by people who have no ability to see how the dots will end up connecting.

lpcvoid 4mo ago
I think they absolutely have the ability to see it, it's part of the value proposition for them.
- pveierland 4mo ago
  Speaking from the POV of my country, you absolutely have prime minister + minister level understandings that seem to plainly be based on issues such as "we need to stop children from bullying each other on social media", "we need to help police surveillance to stop crime", "we need to protect people from internet porn" etc, and it seems to be that the political capital and will to create these measures comes from short-term attempts to solve certain problems, without being able to understand how a broader set of these measures will together create digital fascism. Beyond that I fully believe there are intelligence agencies, advertising agencies, military interests, IP control interests etc that are all working very diligently and in more targeted ways to each achieve their goals better by pushing for specific measures and helping to amplify moral panics to build the necessary political capital.
rufasterisco 4mo ago
I am sorry you see it this way, when the very subject at hand is a practical example of how the EU has planned and built a wallet around the very same ideas you seem to cherish. Unfortunately, now that it comes to the news cycle, it’s easy to get outraged around misleading headlines. I encourage you to invest time in researching what the EU has done in the past decade around digital identities and their framing around privacy questions on this. I hope you will find, as I do, that it moved the needle in t he right direction.
- pveierland 4mo ago
  I don't care for a limited and selective best-possible interpretation of a subset of measures viewed in isolation. The point is that a broader set of vectors are being used continuously to gradually ensnare and limit digital freedom. This is not a misleading headline, this is a document from the European Parliamentary Research Service that calls out VPNs as a technology that may need to be moderated in order to enforce restrictions such as age verification. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2026/782618/EPRS_ATA(2026)782618_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2026/7826... As you are calling me out - specifically answer how restricting access to VPNs would benefit the freedom of thought, communication, and information within Europe, and not be something that - together with other measures - can help facilitate digital fascism.
  - rufasterisco 4mo ago
    Ok, my answer was sloppy. Here’s what I meant: 1. Context is “EU digital identity”. For a decade EU asked researcher how to have a way to verify age only, without extra data leaking. They have a working solution, and it’s the one rolling out to EU citizens. 2. This document talks about VPNs because they have been bought up recently as “how to skip age verification tools”. It is a legitimate concern. Every EU citizen has/will-have a privacy safe wallet to prove age, users from other nations will not, EU minors can just VPN to nation X, and skip age verification. 3. The org producing this doc outlines that yeah, the above is true. It’s actually a balanced doc. Each of us would have written a different one, sure. I likely would have liked “yours” better, since I think we feel we share common values. I’m just saying i don’t thing it is misrepresenting reality. The doc targets eu legislators, likely not tech savvy. This is not about restricting access to VPNs, this is about outlining that they exists, that they have an impact on solutions proposed for age-verification. Did it not exists, it would reinforce that eu votes on shot without having any grasp on what is at stake. I actually agree with you: I see civic liberties under attack way too often (and try to contribute as much as possible to upholding them). But by large, the EU has done a good job at upholding those freedoms. Repeated attacks on those freedoms have been rejected when it was time to vote (in the EU parliament!!!). This makes me confident in the process. Yes, of course, we can always have “better”, but at some point calling out as fascists some legislators trying to understand what’s the relationship between VPNs and age verification seems to me as the opposite of wanting them to be better educated. To precisely answer the “restrict access to VPNs”, no of course that’s not “good”. But I like the fact that EU legislator get to read that document, instead/on-top of some partisan mumbo jumbo from whatever news outlet.

lpcvoid 4mo ago

I think they absolutely have the ability to see it, it's part of the value proposition for them.

pveierland 4mo ago
Speaking from the POV of my country, you absolutely have prime minister + minister level understandings that seem to plainly be based on issues such as "we need to stop children from bullying each other on social media", "we need to help police surveillance to stop crime", "we need to protect people from internet porn" etc, and it seems to be that the political capital and will to create these measures comes from short-term attempts to solve certain problems, without being able to understand how a broader set of these measures will together create digital fascism. Beyond that I fully believe there are intelligence agencies, advertising agencies, military interests, IP control interests etc that are all working very diligently and in more targeted ways to each achieve their goals better by pushing for specific measures and helping to amplify moral panics to build the necessary political capital.

rufasterisco 4mo ago

I am sorry you see it this way, when the very subject at hand is a practical example of how the EU has planned and built a wallet around the very same ideas you seem to cherish. Unfortunately, now that it comes to the news cycle, it’s easy to get outraged around misleading headlines. I encourage you to invest time in researching what the EU has done in the past decade around digital identities and their framing around privacy questions on this. I hope you will find, as I do, that it moved the needle in t he right direction.

pveierland 4mo ago
I don't care for a limited and selective best-possible interpretation of a subset of measures viewed in isolation. The point is that a broader set of vectors are being used continuously to gradually ensnare and limit digital freedom. This is not a misleading headline, this is a document from the European Parliamentary Research Service that calls out VPNs as a technology that may need to be moderated in order to enforce restrictions such as age verification. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2026/782618/EPRS_ATA(2026)782618_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2026/7826... As you are calling me out - specifically answer how restricting access to VPNs would benefit the freedom of thought, communication, and information within Europe, and not be something that - together with other measures - can help facilitate digital fascism.
- rufasterisco 4mo ago
  Ok, my answer was sloppy. Here’s what I meant: 1. Context is “EU digital identity”. For a decade EU asked researcher how to have a way to verify age only, without extra data leaking. They have a working solution, and it’s the one rolling out to EU citizens. 2. This document talks about VPNs because they have been bought up recently as “how to skip age verification tools”. It is a legitimate concern. Every EU citizen has/will-have a privacy safe wallet to prove age, users from other nations will not, EU minors can just VPN to nation X, and skip age verification. 3. The org producing this doc outlines that yeah, the above is true. It’s actually a balanced doc. Each of us would have written a different one, sure. I likely would have liked “yours” better, since I think we feel we share common values. I’m just saying i don’t thing it is misrepresenting reality. The doc targets eu legislators, likely not tech savvy. This is not about restricting access to VPNs, this is about outlining that they exists, that they have an impact on solutions proposed for age-verification. Did it not exists, it would reinforce that eu votes on shot without having any grasp on what is at stake. I actually agree with you: I see civic liberties under attack way too often (and try to contribute as much as possible to upholding them). But by large, the EU has done a good job at upholding those freedoms. Repeated attacks on those freedoms have been rejected when it was time to vote (in the EU parliament!!!). This makes me confident in the process. Yes, of course, we can always have “better”, but at some point calling out as fascists some legislators trying to understand what’s the relationship between VPNs and age verification seems to me as the opposite of wanting them to be better educated. To precisely answer the “restrict access to VPNs”, no of course that’s not “good”. But I like the fact that EU legislator get to read that document, instead/on-top of some partisan mumbo jumbo from whatever news outlet.