I'd love to see how the banning of VPNs interferes with businesses lmao. I work for an MSP and like all of our clients have VPNs for business critical stuff.
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
359 points (99.4% liked)
Privacy
2577 readers
398 users here now
Icon base by Lorc under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
A proposed bill in Michigan has a broad reach that covers everything from adult AI content to manga and even depictions of transgender people. It includes a VPN ban to avoid workarounds.
On Sept. 11, Michigan Republican representatives proposed far-reaching legislation banning adult internet content.
The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.
The Anticorruption of Public Morals Act has not passed the Michigan House of Representatives committee nor been voted on by the Michigan Senate, and it's not clear how much support the bill currently has beyond the six Republican representatives who have proposed it.
TL;DR: 6 Republicans in Michigan proposed a bill that won't pass, as the Senate and Governor are Democrats.
Any law that contains the word "morals" or "morality" in the title terrifies me. They 100% of the time are a net negative for society.
Especially when morals vary and are just someone's opinion. Morals should only be involved when it's based on the most popular opinion. Moral laws should 100% be voted on by the people not just some old people that are out of touch with society.
Even if the entire state government were Republican, it wouldn't pass. This bill is basically the definition of governmental virtue signaling
Businesses require VPNs to function. Banning them would decimate Michigan's economy. The only thing these people truly value is money
Businesses require VPNs to function. Banning them would decimate Michigan’s economy. The only thing these people truly value is money
I mean it's not hard to see them carve out an exception for business uses, and allow them only on business-grade ISP plans. Tech won't stump these people because they don't care about it, when they can just force the people to play along.
Whether or not its realistic or functional has no real impact on a bill passing.
This is about power. It could easily pass with this regime
Not a chance this would pass. This is virtue signaling, or what is the opposite of virtue in government oppression.
Faschignalling. But a lot of other shitholy States have passed these kind of laws, like Montana and Texas.
This is how Trump works, and it is a technique used by many others (see Brexit) though. Suggest something completely ridiculous without intention of it passing but the idea sticks and you end up with a compromise being considered that wouldn't have previously stood a chance.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Porn for me but not for thee.
Ironic that the party of fucking pedophiles wants to block pornography because it’s indecent. But raping little children is OK by them so long as you’re sufficiently rich and well-connected enough to avoid any consequences.
It's just like the oversexualization of our natural forms. By taking away something that leaves those who have it with a commodity to sell.
How do they plan to ban VPNs? Not on the legal side - they’ll just say they’re banned.
But in the real world, I can disguise my packets to not look like VPN packets, and I can also use many different types of obfuscation to ensure my activity stays private.
So my question is: where are the epstein files?
Michigan's bill would charge internet service providers with detecting and blocking VPN use, as well as banning the sale of VPNs in the state.
Sounds like they are basically planning to tell ISPs to just figure it out, and suing VPN companies that don't block people from their state.
Well the great Chinese firewall recently got involuntarily open sourced so they might take some notes from how they are blocking VPNs.
Well the Chinese firewall must not be very effective at blocking VPNs considering the numbers of Chinese players I see in various online games
load more comments
(1 replies)
They don't, because every business uses one.
Had me in the first half, NGL.
That's one hell of a misleading headline. It should read ”Michigan Republicans Introduced a Bill...”
If it's something shitty that the government is doing you can be assured, it's a republican.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Literal China surveillance state bill. How the fuck do I keep reading shit like this every day. What even is the US?
It’s becoming a mirror of the Middle East, not China.
They want the same type of Sharia like morality controls over the populace just in a ‘Christian Nationalism’ wrapper.
Wait until they find out that HTTPS traffic is encrypted
Don't be naive and think they can't block this stuff because of encryption. They just go after the business entities. Eventually you'll only be left with super sketchy options that they'll try to block by IP.
They probably won't totally succeed, but they can make things far shitter than they are.
They can just make it a legal requirement to allow MITM, like Kazakhstan tried doing back in 2015. If every ISP requires you to have this cert installed before you can go online, you don't have many options.
The last thing the rich want is to slow their internet access down to Kazakhstan levels at their businesses
Huh.
So the UK has previously failed to block encryption. And somehow the Online Safety Act got pushed through to PrOtEcT ThE ChiLDrEn - requiring age verification for all adult content.
Resulting in a study by ministers on how VPNs stop OfCom from enforcing the OSA.
Which is a thing VPNs do. So it's very likely VPNs get de-anonymised, regulated or outlawed.
Seems like there is a war on the actual internet, owning device and services.
Why don't they licence IP addresses? Require a change to IPv6 and just assign everyone a IPv6/48 block at birth. That means there are 281 billion birth assignments available, with everyone getting septillions of personal addresses - actually more than you could provision in a vibe coded k8s manifest.
If there are 200 million births per year (it's apparently 135 million atm), thats well over 1000 years before we run out of IPv6/48 blocks (1400 years, to be slightly more accurate. At a constant 135m births per year, thats 2000 years. But conservatively, 1000 years before we reuse IPv6/48 blocks... If we don't reduce the block size to represent year born or something)
Fuck.
The good internet is gone. The convenient internet is fading fast.
you'll own nothing and be Happy
load more comments
(1 replies)
[The bill] includes language that could ban not only VPNs but any method of bypassing internet filters or restrictions.
It sounds to me like I2P and tor would also be illegal.
load more comments
(2 replies)
It’s some sort of weirdo purity thing not a safety thing.
So... how do they plan to sell this idea to companies that require their employees to sign into their corporate VPNs when they're on the job?
Forced to work in their ~~private equity~~ buildings, like they’ve been doing forever?
load more comments
(1 replies)
This won't survive lobbying by corporations who need VPN to work.
You can say that about alot of stupid trump laws, they just keep getting passed.
I sure as hell hope you're right.
Business is the number one user of vpn and the reason it was created.
Isn't this similar to what the Brits are implementing?
Yes.
Friendship with VPN has ended.
New best friend is Proxy Server.
Can't catch me, FBI-man. I'm behind 7 proxies.
I learned this on Law and Order circa 2007.
BREAKING NEWS: It's time to jump ship
But don't you dare tell an American to rise up against this. They are so busy campaigning the next election, they don't have the time and finance to insurrect.
So enjoy your Syrian internet.
This is for Michigan and it will not pass. No wonder I have you tagged as a knee jerk flame fueler.
load more comments
(11 replies)
view more: next ›