Join us 2025-08-01T21:00:00Z for This Week In Privacy #12, to catch up on the latest Privacy Guides updates and to discuss trending news in the privacy space.
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Question for the discussion:
Apart from using a reputable and a trusted VPN, what can we do as private citizens beyond writing to our representatives?
Also, since many US states and several countries in Asia, Africa, and now the UK has restricted internet by default - what country or countries do you recommend connecting to via VPN has still has the most open internet for unencumbered access to all of the internet? Do we have a ranking of countries with the most open internet? What and how do you suggest we go about ensuring this for ourselves?
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I’m very prone to anxiety about what ifs and ruminating excessively about all the hypotheticals and worst case scenarios, so to your first point, what helps me is to focus on improving what I do have control over–apps I use, digital hygeine, etc. Informing my close circles of what’s going on so they can prepare as well. In light of the age verification nonsense I’m committing myself to using frontends like invidious and redlib as much as I can despite the inconvenience and frequent outages. Invidious instances acting up and not working? No youtube for me that day, gotta find another source of dopamine. I’ve been meaning to work on my phone/internet/social media addiction so if anything it’ll probably force me to reconnect with healthier hobbies (like finally getting around to writing that book I’ve been working on forever).
I’m also going to use onion services and eepsites as much as I can. My threat model (currently) doesn’t necessitate their use but it feels like a nice virtual middle finger to all the governments and platforms trying to criminalize anonymity.
As much as I love the convenience of youtube premium and all these other platforms I draw a hard line at being forced to give even more PII to shady third party verification companies who will absolutely be targeted for data breaches once this becomes more widespread.
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8 posts were split to a new topic: Why do we trust VPNs?
I feel seen with your entire reply. It all resonates with me, given where I’m at. Especially about the inconvenience being worth it. I’d rather just stop using some services than compromise my privacy for convenience or connection. It feels self-alienating. Like we’re pushing ourselves into isolation. But it also feels good to simply say “no” to the enshittifying.
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@jordan I’m not dragging you or being rhetorical. But I’m curious why y’all use YouTube for these. It seems massively ironic to hosting a privacy series on a Google platform. Why not use PeerTube, who now offers streaming?
Again, I’m not attacking you with this question. I’m just genuinely curious.
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We can spread the word in real life, and stay informed!
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I wonder if Brave proposal for zero knowledge attestation is useable in the situation. Even the 1st example they gave is for age verification.
Hey Mark, I appreciate you bringing up these legitimate concerns. It is something we are working on, however it’s not something I can give a specific time frame on right now. (although it will be soon)
If you’re concerned about viewing on YouTube, the live streams are mirrored over to PeerTube shortly after the live stream has concluded.
Thanks for your patience 
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Hey, Jordan.
I’m so glad to hear it will be mirrored on PeerTube. I’ll check it out there after the fact.
Also, thanks for accepting my feedback with grace.
Be well. And good luck with the livestream!
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My question for all our UK friends is with the bar set as low as 10,000 users means ID checks are in force, will fediverse instances or even forums like this now place that as their user limit and start to wipe old accounts to hit under that limit?
10,000 users isn’t exactly huge. I don’t hate the idea of the internet balkanizing and returning to smaller communities, but it’s only a matter of time before that 10,000 drops to 5,000, then 1,000…
If I were hosting a website I would just wait for Ofcom to contact me and then immediately block UK IPs with a landing page referencing the Online Safety Act.
If you’re controversial or big enough to be blocked by the Chinese Great Firewall already, you can even say something like “Unfortunately this website is not available to visitors from the UK and China due to local laws” which would hopefully make them fume a bit.
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I genuinely believe that if people don’t want this to happen to them as well, everyone should be very proactive with this and do it now. Block the UK from everything now, don’t wait until we’re all showing ID to check our email.
This isn’t just a UK thing. This is a world wide effort.
I doubt it’ll pass in the United states for now. But the EU and many other countries like Australia are proposing laws like this. This is a coordinated attack on your rights to not only privacy, but freedom of speech.
First it was disarm civilians for the children.
Now its restrict your privacy and speech rights, of course for the children.
Whats next? All I see is a surveillance state.
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[citation needed]
Non-sequitur.
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To go against this in the EU, I recommend upvoting here: The concept of this age verification as a whole seems potentially harmful · Issue #24 · eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification · GitHub This repo appears to be read by people apparently directly involved with the EU commission. And you can complain directly to the EU here, asking it is passed on to the EU commission: Do not add Google Play Integrity integration · eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification · Discussion #19 · GitHub
The least we can do is make sure they know how unpopular it is.
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