this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 9 points 7 months ago (4 children)

A proposed bill in Michigan has a broad reach that covers everything from adult AI content to manga and even depictions of transgender people. It includes a VPN ban to avoid workarounds.

On Sept. 11, Michigan Republican representatives proposed far-reaching legislation banning adult internet content.

The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.

The Anticorruption of Public Morals Act has not passed the Michigan House of Representatives committee nor been voted on by the Michigan Senate, and it's not clear how much support the bill currently has beyond the six Republican representatives who have proposed it.

TL;DR: 6 Republicans in Michigan proposed a bill that won't pass, as the Senate and Governor are Democrats.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Any law that contains the word "morals" or "morality" in the title terrifies me. They 100% of the time are a net negative for society.

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[–] balrog@programming.dev 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Even if the entire state government were Republican, it wouldn't pass. This bill is basically the definition of governmental virtue signaling

Businesses require VPNs to function. Banning them would decimate Michigan's economy. The only thing these people truly value is money

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 1 points 7 months ago

Whether or not its realistic or functional has no real impact on a bill passing.

[–] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 0 points 7 months ago

This is about power. It could easily pass with this regime

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[–] nosuchanon@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

Porn for me but not for thee.

Ironic that the party of fucking pedophiles wants to block pornography because it’s indecent. But raping little children is OK by them so long as you’re sufficiently rich and well-connected enough to avoid any consequences.

[–] LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

I'd love to see how the banning of VPNs interferes with businesses lmao. I work for an MSP and like all of our clients have VPNs for business critical stuff.

[–] towerful@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Huh.
So the UK has previously failed to block encryption. And somehow the Online Safety Act got pushed through to PrOtEcT ThE ChiLDrEn - requiring age verification for all adult content.
Resulting in a study by ministers on how VPNs stop OfCom from enforcing the OSA.
Which is a thing VPNs do. So it's very likely VPNs get de-anonymised, regulated or outlawed.

Seems like there is a war on the actual internet, owning device and services.

Why don't they licence IP addresses? Require a change to IPv6 and just assign everyone a IPv6/48 block at birth. That means there are 281 billion birth assignments available, with everyone getting septillions of personal addresses - actually more than you could provision in a vibe coded k8s manifest.

If there are 200 million births per year (it's apparently 135 million atm), thats well over 1000 years before we run out of IPv6/48 blocks (1400 years, to be slightly more accurate. At a constant 135m births per year, thats 2000 years. But conservatively, 1000 years before we reuse IPv6/48 blocks... If we don't reduce the block size to represent year born or something)

Fuck.
The good internet is gone. The convenient internet is fading fast.

[–] Sylos@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

you'll own nothing and be Happy

[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Heh, I allocated a ipv6 cidr to a dev to use for ha testing. He created 1 /48 subnet then came back and asked for another 3. Sigh.

[–] RipLemmDotEE@lemmy.today 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

That's one hell of a misleading headline. It should read ”Michigan Republicans Introduced a Bill...”

[–] lukaro@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago (3 children)

If it's something shitty that the government is doing you can be assured, it's a republican.

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[–] banazir@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

Reading the bill, it's pretty insane. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to ban pretty much all sexual content and all depictions of cross dressing, along with proxies and VPNs. I'm pretty sure you couldn't show Monty Python, because they occasionally cross dress in their sketches.

Anticorruption of Public Morals Act. The name alone screams overreach.

[–] lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (4 children)

How do they plan to ban VPNs? Not on the legal side - they’ll just say they’re banned.

But in the real world, I can disguise my packets to not look like VPN packets, and I can also use many different types of obfuscation to ensure my activity stays private.

So my question is: where are the epstein files?

[–] Colloidal@programming.dev 0 points 7 months ago

Had me in the first half, NGL.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 months ago

They don't, because every business uses one.

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[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Wait until they find out that HTTPS traffic is encrypted

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Don't be naive and think they can't block this stuff because of encryption. They just go after the business entities. Eventually you'll only be left with super sketchy options that they'll try to block by IP.

They probably won't totally succeed, but they can make things far shitter than they are.

[–] The_Decryptor@aussie.zone 2 points 7 months ago

They can just make it a legal requirement to allow MITM, like Kazakhstan tried doing back in 2015. If every ISP requires you to have this cert installed before you can go online, you don't have many options.

[–] Transform2942@lemmy.ml 0 points 7 months ago

A middlebox can't see the actual content but they know what sites you are visiting and how often if you are only using HTTPS - meaning they can also block you from accessing sites of their choosing

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This won't survive lobbying by corporations who need VPN to work.

[–] bagsy@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

You can say that about alot of stupid trump laws, they just keep getting passed.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago
[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 7 months ago

BREAKING NEWS: It's time to jump ship

[–] cyborganism@piefed.ca 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Isn't this similar to what the Brits are implementing?

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