On September 25, a group of tech companies and digital rights activists came together to launch a global campaign. Together, they made their message clear: The time is now to rally behind virtual private networks (VPNs).
That message was amplified during the Defend VPNs Day of Action, an initiative led by the nonprofit group Fight for the Future. Together with VPN providers Surfshark, Windscribe, and Amnezia, Fight for the Future rallied to defend internet users’ collective right to use private networks.
Millions of internet users use VPNs to access websites that are otherwise geolocked or age-restricted. Legally speaking, those services are permitted because they fall under their users’ rights to free speech and expression.
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That may seem like a simple precedent, but recent events have complicated the VPN landscape. Numerous national governments are trying to limit access to social media for users under the age of 18, but VPNs make those measures difficult to enforce. In Australia, an attempted restriction has only made kids and teens more active online. Approximately one in 20 young Australians have evaded the ban by using a VPN to spoof their location.
Other governments want to follow Australia’s lead by enacting youth social media restrictions, but they have to deal with those pesky VPNs first. Utah became the first state to force websites to restrict traffic from suspected VPNs, and Australia is considering a blanket ban on the networks.
Those policy proposals don’t sit well with Fight for the Future. After previously throwing its weight behind another hallmark of the open web — net neutrality — the advocacy group is resisting VPN crackdowns and the “draconian censorship laws” that come with them.
“The most vulnerable people in every country in the world depend on VPNs, to communicate with their families and friends, to seek healthcare and abortion care, and find the information and resources that are increasingly gated behind an invasive biometric scan or ID check,” said Fight for the Future Campaign Director Sarah Phillips in a statement. “VPNs are a basic, necessary, and vital tool to protect us from everything from the most serious criminalization at the hands of an oppressive government hellbent on surveilling and censoring dissent to just wanting to protect ourselves from the steady leak of our data to be exploited.”
This is the second year in a row that Fight for the Future has hosted a Defend VPNs Day of Action. Perhaps, with collective action, future installments won’t be necessary, but the current state of affairs suggests that VPN usage will remain contentious at the state and federal levels.
