Republican lawmakers in Michigan have proposed a pervasive internet content ban while disallowing popular tools to access it. Dubbed the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act (link downloads a PDF to your device), the bill lumps depictions of transgender individuals, pornography, ASMR, and various forms of graphic imagery as “corrupting” public morals, proposing major fines and jail time for posters and platforms hosting said content. Beyond its dehumanizing categorization of transgender people, the bill outlaws “circumvention tools” like virtual private networks, proxy servers, and encrypted tunneling. Virtual private networks (VPN) disguise a user’s IP address through an encrypted tunnel to a remote server, making it appear as if the user is connecting through a different network.
The ban is part of a larger censorship movement in America and abroad. Legislators have introduced nationwide obscenity bans, while half of the U.S. has passed age-verification requirements. For activists, the Michigan ban is about more than moderating content. Globally, VPNs play an essential role in protecting citizens’ right to access and share information, particularly in authoritarian countries with major content bans and firewalls. Nepalese activists used the technology to circumvent social media bans and organize a revolution in September 2025. Historically, authoritarian regimes like Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China have restricted VPNs to enforce stringent censorship laws, though the success of such efforts is widely mixed.
Activists have responded with a global campaign to stop the legislation. Led by the organization Fight for the Future, the VPN Day of Action saw thousands of users sign an open letter demanding lawmakers defend access to VPNs. While it’s unlikely that the Michigan law will go into effect, observers stress it as a major milestone in a nationwide struggle over informational freedoms.
It seems unlikely that this will pass in Michigan with a Democratic Senate and Governor. Along the lines of what the article was saying, it appears that this is more of an attempt to move the goalposts and make banning VPNs a more common topic, with the aim of making the idea seem less crazy to the general public in the future.
Correct me if I am wrong but aren’t VPNs just encrypted connections between 2 computers? HTTPS is already the norm so… Are we going back to plain unencrypted HTTP? Do they know that encrypted computers communication is the entire backbone of the internet?
No, they do not know that, and they don’t understand it. They literally don’t understand it. Even on the most basic level. I’m not exaggerating, and I’m not being hyperbolic. I have worked in the public sector, and everything the internet jokes about when it comes to elected officials in the United States isn’t a meme, that’s exactly how they are in real life. Every election cycle we end up with the most technology illiterate people imaginable, and we hand them the wheel.
Ironically, my experience’s been that privacy spaces leaned right (mostly due to Libertarians) but as of late, they have been pretty quiet as their party’s concerted effort becomes more indefensible from a privacy perspective.
My guess is that there’s only so many times that Republican politicians can erode rights by cycling between “chasing illegals”, “sticking it to libtards”, “instilling conservative values”, protecting the kids before privacy-conscious Republicans realize that they are losing their rights as well.
I thought about creating a thread on it, but political conversations tend to spiral out of control.
I have so many proper thoughts on this but I just wanted to comment in a more sarcastic but a warranted manner:
Tell me again about the land of the free again?
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With that out my system, all I can blindly hope is that the newer TikTok generation can come to realize once they start actually reading more is that the US has fallen a long way down the wayside. All that it was once known for and wants to continue being known for is no more the case. If you’ve even traveled and lived elsewhere long enough to know how the rest of world lives and thinks of the US, you’d know I’m not wrong.
But I’ll comment again later once I have more thoughts better organized.
This is a sad thing and really, a more disgusting thing to see. I know many things have happened and are still happening in and to the US and I can’t help but still ask, what the fuck, America? You were supposed to be one of the best of us.
