Education Minister Erica Stanford says she is not pursuing restrictions on Virtual Private Networks as part of her under-16 social media ban, soon after ACT said this would be a red line for it.
The Post reported on Tuesday morning that the Government was pursuing some kind of restriction on VPNs as part of its work on an under-16 social media ban, after being told by multiple sources with knowledge of the work that this was the case.
It had put this to Stanford’s office on Monday morning and not received any denial.
But on Tuesday morning, soon after ACT leader David Seymour made clear that ACT would never support such a move, Stanford’s office emailed The Post to say it was “not looking at restricting or banning VPNs”.
It seems the Government was looking at doing so, but ACT has stopped it. Regardless of why, it is good there will be no attempt to ban VPNs, such as China does.
VPNs have many many legitimate uses. They provide extra security. I use one sometimes for a legitimate purpose. I do a monthly newsletter which includes in it the odds on governments getting re-elected in Australia, Canada, NZ, UK and US. Since the Government banned NZers from overseas online gambling sites, I am unable to even browse those sites to find out the odds. A VPN allows me to do this – and I have a legal right to browse these sites – just not to actually use them.
If the Government did try to ban VPNs, I would hope there would be a huge huge backlash to fight against this.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
1 comment:
Why oh why are National buggering around with this subject? They CANNOT address the woes of the internet nor can they enhance its positives.
It is another indicator just how far off the beaten track National have gone. They like their mumsy Labour siblings just want to save us from ourselves but just like the woke, they don't understand the problems they think exist. The internet is a classic example of - "for every action there a reaction". You cannot stop people looking at something posted somewhere unless you shut the whole shooting match down. And they cannot even do that.
National are frozen at 30% for a few reasons, they've fiddled whilst Rome burns with the economy thinking they would be loved for being moderate but instead look out of their depth and Labour like as the economy limps along. Auckland is approaching 3 years in recession and interest rates are rising in a classic stagflation scenario. I wonder if it was we who invaded it neighbour like Russia, given the anaemic similar state of both our economies. Then there's the need to be dragged kicking and screaming to address the treaty rort that is saturating this country with seemingly endless new negative examples appearing whilst National remains catatonic.
And then there's the Luxon problem. He's worse than 3 years ago and he wasn't an asset to National then apart from being an unknown. They are going into election 2026 without a leader and without purpose or a plan.
National, it's too late with Luxon, but with the internet thing, give up and think of something much more immediately obvious and relevant. You guys are going down in a whimper and it's impossible to watch.
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