How Can We Create a Censorship-Free Internet?

 VPN signups skyrocketed last month, with some providers seeing rises of 1,400% and VPNs for mobiles taking top places in app stores as the British public demonstrated their contempt for the British Government’s new internet censorship regime. Although the Online Safety Act was voted through by the previous, supposedly conservative, government, the main symptom of it emerged this July. 

Social media companies began age-gating various content, much of it entirely benign or of significant political importance, in a dangerous potential precursor to a digital ID system. Recall that the present government is running a consultation on Digital ID, deadline August 21^st. Britons, wanting none of this, rushed to buy VPNs.

Labour’s ministers condemned VPN usage while claiming for them on expenses. To be clear, while corporate and organisational VPNs use exactly the same underlying technology as anti-censorship services, the fact that Business Secretary Jonathon Reynolds claimed for NordVPN shows he was buying a service – many others are available too – which lets users bypass censorship and avoid surveillance by ISPs (Internet Service Providers). His use of VPNs was not therefore limited to using a government-hosted VPN to access official resources from off-site as if he were in an office....<<<Read More>>>...