Wikipedia blocking the UK would also do that afaik. Honestly, they should just do so at this point.

I can't help wonder if the MPs are now "child abusers" for using VPNs based on what that idiot of a technology secretary said, or if it's just those who aren't MPs.

Some countries (like the UK) make it illegal to draw things.

Hell, the UK are currently criminally investigating anime artwork websites.

Just noticed Flickr is jumping on the child-safety alarmism:

"Flickr will now require all new users to be 18 years of age or older to create an account"

Not just for UK but global.

People in the UK generally believe that the only people who use Tor are those looking for child pornography, even though it's an anti-censorship tool.

I'd be careful if I were you. The police could use that as an excuse to raid you.

The police aren’t going to raid you for using Tor any more than they would for you using a VPN.

Online petitions aren't worth the paper they're written on.

If people want change, they'll need to find alternative avenues. (Like civil disobedience.)

Or write to your MP. They care slightly more about that.

I've done this for so many issues in the past and not once have I had anything more than an automated reply. Often those replies then go on and reference a totally different bill that I'm voicing an opinion on. This isn't all just one MP either, I've lived in many different areas of the UK in recent years and most of them have flipped parties at some point or another.

Maybe this is the "Westminster Bubble" the journo's keep talking about. Whatever it is, MP's seem very reluctant to interact with their constituents unless they're campaigning for re-election. At that point they'll turn up on your door step in the middle of the day, expecting a half hour conversation.

How is a citizen meant to adovcate and voice their opinions when their representivies, and every candidate looking to replace them, refuses to engage?

This isn't really a specific question, or a critism on your point. It's just venting on my experience in recent years. Maybe someone else has had a more positive experience they'd be interested in sharing?

I've written to mine several times and usually I get a stock reply vaguely relating to the subject, but occasionally I've got actual replies. Once I sent a message about ordnance survey open data and they sent a clearly custom reply and forwarded my message to someone else.

In any case, my sister used to work in an MP's office and even when you get auto replies they tally it, and weight it quite heavily as a representation of constituents' views (unless it's a template letter in which case it goes straight in the bin).

It definitely has more effect than signing a petition - most of them are super dumb (lower taxes!) and as far as I know not a single one has actually changed the government's position. It's just too easy to sign them and too many dumb people do it.

At which point you just get the usual stock response from their secretary which is basically no different than the response you get from the petition.

They actually have the power to arrest them - or have them arrested - if they ever visit the UK, though.

Especially if they refuse to block stuff or if Ofcom feels that they didn't do a good enough job of censoring content.

This is one of the reasons why Civitai blocked the UK. (As confirmed by a member of staff on Reddit.)

I like Solo (Sudoku), but that's hard to play on my phone sadly.

I end up doing hard modes of Flood and Signpost a lot, though.

Yeah. They left unencrypted child (benefits?) information on a train once.

Vivaldi has the ProtonVPN extension built in. All you need is a free Proton account.

The Labour party want to criminalize VPNs, so it won't surprise me if they do.