#vpn-restrictions

#vpn-restrictions

When Gabon's media regulator indefinitely suspended major social media platforms in February, citing security concerns during anti-government protests, it became the talk of town literally. Within weeks of the announcement, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass the restrictions surged in the central African country. When gendarmerie began stopping young men at road checkpoints in the capital Libreville and other urban centres to confiscate mobile phones with VPNs installed or detain the owners, warnings spread by word of mouth.

The Kremlin's ongoing battle against VPNs has intensified, with a law banning circumvention of blocked websites introduced in 2017 and mass bans on VPN services starting in 2021. By 2024, advertising for these services was also prohibited, marking a significant escalation in efforts to control internet access.

As reported by Politico, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced that social platforms will soon be required to implement effective age verification systems, in order to stop young teens from accessing their apps. And to some degree, that does seem to be working. Meta says that it's which it believes belong to young users, while Snapchat has restricted 415k accounts.

The rules in their current form are not suitable for cracking down on, for example, illegal IPTV services or illegal use of VPN connections, because the rules are primarily aimed at illegal decoders and other decoding equipment," the document [PDF] reads (machine translated).