The place Florida’s new legislation falls brief

Children On-line

Among the state’s new little one security legislation will be simply circumvented. Ought to it have gone additional?

14 Jan 2025
 • 
,
4 min. learn

Florida’s state legislators lately handed a brand new invoice geared toward defending kids on-line. The highlights of the invoice, which is called HB 3, are obligatory age verification for accessing materials that’s deemed dangerous to minors, and prohibiting kids youthful than 14 from becoming a member of social media, with parental or guardian consent required for these below 16.

With out wishing to enter the talk on the deserves of the intent of the invoice, I personally agree that defending minors from inappropriate and dangerous content material is a constructive step even when the measures are unenforceable and solely act to boost consciousness.

The VPN workaround

The requirement to limit entry to dangerous content material by requiring age verification has triggered a surge of individuals looking for ‘VPN’ (Digital Non-public Community), in response to Google Traits. There’s additionally a flurry of articles that designate the way to circumvent the requirement through the use of a VPN to masks your location and look like exterior of Florida. Many of those articles – which have been printed particularly after a number of main grownup web sites blocked your complete state from entry in response to the legislation – are sponsored or comprise affiliate hyperlinks to obtain and buy VPN software program and companies.

Is that this all shocking? No. VPN expertise has lengthy been a preferred instrument for circumventing entry restrictions, whether or not they’re geo-restrictions on streaming platforms or entry to restricted content material. With HB 3 in place, implementing a restriction resembling age verification signifies that all customers, no matter age, should be age verified, and thus anybody not wishing to be recognized in any approach when shopping adult-based content material will search for alternate strategies to entry content material.

The Florida laws does, in some type, restrict the chance of ‘unintentional shopping’ of content material that could be dangerous, since entry to such content material will likely be behind the ‘age verification wall’, versus a publicly accessible homepage. I’m certain business firms who monetize by offering grownup content material will need to keep away from the eye of legislation enforcement and HB 3 to keep away from potential authorized motion and fines. However there’s a mass of grownup content material on the web that’s out there with out business intent and is hosted in nations the place taking authorized motion from Florida could be too advanced, or close to inconceivable.

Given the restrictions imposed by the laws are so simply circumvented, possibly the invoice might have gone one step additional. When drafting the laws, somebody within the room absolutely talked about that it could possibly be circumvented simply by utilizing a VPN – not less than I hope they did. For me, this raises the query of why the laws doesn’t place limitations that transcend the content material supplier and embody companies that present the flexibility to virtualize your location to someplace exterior of Florida.

VPN expertise supplies cybersecurity advantages, notably when connecting over public networks, however its performance is usually misunderstood. The belief that the connection turns into personal is simply true partly. When utilizing a VPN, the connection is simply encrypted between the machine and the VPN server; from this server to the meant vacation spot, the connection is not within the encrypted tunnel and is similar as any customary connection between the browser and the vacation spot webserver.

VPN suppliers nonetheless have visibility into key particulars: they know the situation of the machine, through its IP tackle, and the meant vacation spot of the request. Utilizing easy internet filtering instruments, the VPN supplier might merely block entry to grownup content material or implement their very own age verification necessities, eradicating the likelihood to bypass the restrictions. For instance, web service suppliers within the UK undertake an analogous strategy, as they block grownup content material by default except customers decide in, thereby defending minors.

Lacking the mark?

When creating laws, and understanding it could possibly be bypassed simply, ought to legislators have tried to impose a restriction on the identified simple strategies used to get across the laws? The reply, not less than for me, is sure. With out taking the laws one step additional and offering sturdy restrictions that make it advanced and troublesome to bypass, the legislation dangers being decreased to little greater than a symbolic gesture or an consciousness marketing campaign.

If we’re critical about defending minors on the web and limiting entry to dangerous content material to these of an acceptable age, then it most likely requires a courageous re-think of the web and the way its customers could possibly be recognized.