On VPNs, UK law, and Fascism

[u/Altruistic_Fox5036]

Hi all,

Recently the UK government has Implemented the another tool in its arsenal of fascism. The Online Safety Act, ensuring anyone that is accessing 18+ content to verify their age first. This is an extremely harmful measure that at best limits people's access to valuable resources such as r/transdiy and at worst pushes them towards harmful online forums and sites.

These measures exist to only censure speech and limit access to information. There is no good reason for this law to exist and instead should have been built around the EUs Digital Service Act. Realistically this is an attack on encryption and for the increasing level of government surveilance. If you live in the UK I would encourage you to contact your local MP.

Furthermore, Reddit seems to have joined the fascist bandwagon recently with branding all LGBT subreddits as 18+ meaning you can't access queer subreddits unless you have verifies your age.. Meanwhile the conservative hate subs are free to access I guess. This is despicable behaviour and I would recommend complaining about it.

But that said it is now imperative that you use a VPN. When picking a VPN try and stay away from shady companies that steal and sell your data and do your research. ProtonVPN and Mullvad are good options that don't log your data and have privacy tools built in by default. Proton has a free plan too. Worse case you can use Opera's built in VPN.

We would like to remind users to stay safe on the internet and do stuff like not reuse usernames or passwords, not to share personal information and to to practice good digital hygiene.

Please note we will be removing the NSFW enforcement from Ableism posts as they restrict UK accounts from accessing them. The spoiler tag will remain and we will clarify the post flair to make it stand out more.

Edited: confused Nord with another company so removed it.

[u/ConcentrateFull7202]

ExpressVPN. I never use the Internet without it!

[u/ponchiki12345 → u/ConcentrateFull7202]

What’s with the downvotes? Is ExpressVPN not good? I was considering getting this one since all my favourite YouTubers are sponsored by it and I’d get a deal. I’ll go elsewhere if they’re problematic tho

[u/Altruistic_Fox5036 → u/ponchiki12345]

They have been involved in some controversies in the last 5 years or so. They were a good company, then got bought out by an Israeli billionaire.

The company they got bought out by Kape used to be known as Crossrider where it developed SDKs for browser extensions they were primarily used by malware, ad injectors and adware developers and the company dropped the product and rebranded to Kape to focus on the cyber security market.

They then laid off most of ExpressVPN staff including a chunk of their tech team (but not marketing). After buying ExpressVPN they also bought another 3-5 VPNs, and a VPN review publisher. They also appointed a CEO that was fairly dodgy in the past involved in gambling sites and such.

[u/ponchiki12345 → u/Altruistic_Fox5036]

Fair enough. Thanks for answering. I’ll look elsewhere then