Governments by no means current management as management. It’s at all times framed as safety. In France, the justification is shielding youngsters from dangerous content material on-line. However as soon as the state begins concentrating on instruments designed to protect privateness and free entry, the difficulty is not baby security however authority over the web itself.
In late January, the French Nationwide Meeting handed a invoice banning social media entry for people beneath 15, requiring strong age verification programs on all main platforms. The measure, championed as a safeguard towards dangerous content material, mirrors related age-restriction legal guidelines rising throughout Europe and Australia.
Now, France’s digital policymakers are signaling that the following goal may very well be digital non-public networks (VPNs), which is without doubt one of the web’s oldest instruments for safeguarding privateness and bypassing censorship. “VPNs are the following topic on my record,” declared Anne Le Hénanff, France’s minister delegate for digital affairs. This comes weeks after the social media ban was accepted, as officers search methods to stop minors from sidestepping age checks utilizing encryption instruments.
The declare: If VPNs permit youngsters to evade age filters, then limiting them would implement the legislation extra successfully. Authorities believes it ought to dad or mum your youngsters and also you. The web is not an area of free trade and open entry, however a website to be regulated, surveilled, and finally managed.
This isn’t an remoted coverage alternative by France. It displays a broader shift in how governments view the web. What was as soon as a decentralized, open system is more and more handled as infrastructure to be licensed, monitored, and managed. Age verification sounds cheap on the floor, however enforcement requires identification checks, information assortment, and centralized oversight. As soon as VPNs are labeled an issue as a result of they intrude with enforcement, encryption itself turns into the goal.
Historical past exhibits that freedom isn’t abolished outright. It’s narrowed step-by-step. Every restriction is justified as non permanent, restricted, or crucial. First, it’s to guard youngsters. Then to fight misinformation. Then to implement taxes, sanctions, or public order. The cumulative impact is at all times the identical: the person loses autonomy, and the state positive factors visibility and leverage.
Now we have already seen this development elsewhere. China and Russia didn’t start with complete web management. They started by regulating instruments that allowed individuals to bypass official narratives. Democratic governments insist they’re completely different, however as soon as they undertake the identical mechanisms with identity-linked entry, restricted encryption, and accepted routing.
The argument that VPNs should be restricted as a result of they undermine regulation turns the logic of freedom on its head. Privateness instruments exist exactly as a result of governments and firms search to observe conduct. When the state decides that privateness itself is unacceptable, the web ceases to be a free medium and turns into an extension of coverage enforcement.
This isn’t about youngsters utilizing social media. It’s about who controls entry to info and communication within the digital age. As soon as governments assert the precise to resolve when and the way residents could protect themselves on-line, the stability of energy shifts completely.
