Governments by no means current management as management. It’s all the time framed as safety. In France, the justification is shielding kids from dangerous content material on-line. However as soon as the state begins focusing on instruments designed to protect privateness and free entry, the problem 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 below 15, requiring strong age verification methods on all main platforms. The measure, championed as a safeguard in opposition to dangerous content material, mirrors related age-restriction legal guidelines rising throughout Europe and Australia.
Now, France’s digital policymakers are signaling that the subsequent goal could possibly be digital non-public networks (VPNs), which is likely one of the web’s oldest instruments for safeguarding privateness and bypassing censorship. “VPNs are the subsequent topic on my record,” declared Anne Le Hénanff, France’s minister delegate for digital affairs. This comes weeks after the social media ban was accredited, as officers search methods to stop minors from sidestepping age checks utilizing encryption instruments.
The declare: If VPNs permit kids to evade age filters, then limiting them would implement the regulation extra successfully. Authorities believes it ought to mum or dad your kids and also you. The web is not an area of free alternate and open entry, however a website to be regulated, surveilled, and in the end 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 id checks, knowledge 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 is never abolished outright. It’s narrowed step-by-step. Every restriction is justified as short-term, restricted, or mandatory. First, it’s to guard kids. Then to fight misinformation. Then to implement taxes, sanctions, or public order. The cumulative impact is all the time the identical: the person loses autonomy, and the state features visibility and leverage.
We have now already seen this development elsewhere. China and Russia didn’t start with whole web management. They started by regulating instruments that allowed folks 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 accredited 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 data and communication within the digital age. As soon as governments assert the suitable to determine when and the way residents might defend themselves on-line, the stability of energy shifts completely.
