The place Florida’s new legislation falls brief

A number of the state’s new youngster security legislation will be simply circumvented. Ought to it have gone additional?

14 Jan 2025
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4 min. learn

Florida’s state legislators not too long ago handed a brand new invoice aimed toward defending youngsters on-line. The highlights of the invoice, which is named HB 3, are obligatory age verification for accessing materials that’s deemed dangerous to minors, and prohibiting youngsters youthful than 14 from joining social media, with parental or guardian consent required for these underneath 16.

With out wishing to enter the talk on the deserves of the intent of the invoice, I personally agree that defending minors from inappropriate and dangerous content material is a constructive step even when the measures are unenforceable and solely act to boost consciousness.

The VPN workaround

The requirement to limit entry to dangerous content material by requiring age verification has induced a surge of individuals trying to find ‘VPN’ (Digital Personal Community), in keeping with Google Trends. There’s additionally a flurry of articles that specify tips on how to circumvent the requirement through the use of a VPN to masks your location and look like outdoors of Florida. Many of those articles – which have been printed particularly after a number of main grownup web sites blocked the entire state from access in response to the legislation – are sponsored or comprise affiliate hyperlinks to obtain and buy VPN software program and providers.

Is that this all shocking? No. VPN know-how has lengthy been a preferred software for circumventing entry restrictions, whether or not they’re geo-restrictions on streaming platforms or entry to restricted content material. With HB 3 in place, implementing a restriction equivalent to age verification implies that all customers, no matter age, should be age verified, and thus anybody not wishing to be recognized in any manner when searching adult-based content material will search for alternate strategies to entry content material.

The Florida laws does, in some kind, restrict the chance of ‘unintentional searching’ of content material that could be dangerous, since entry to such content material will probably be behind the ‘age verification wall’, versus a publicly accessible homepage. I’m positive industrial corporations who monetize by offering grownup content material will wish to keep away from the eye of legislation enforcement and HB 3 to keep away from potential authorized motion and fines. However there’s a mass of grownup content material on the web that’s out there with out industrial intent and is hosted in nations the place taking authorized motion from Florida could be too complicated, or close to inconceivable.

Given the restrictions imposed by the laws are so simply circumvented, perhaps the invoice may have gone one step additional. When drafting the laws, somebody within the room absolutely talked about that it might be circumvented simply by using a VPN – at the very least I hope they did. For me, this raises the query of why the laws doesn’t place limitations that transcend the content material supplier and embody providers that present the power to virtualize your location to someplace outdoors of Florida.

VPN know-how offers cybersecurity advantages, significantly when connecting over public networks, however its performance is commonly misunderstood. The belief that the connection turns into non-public is just true partly. When utilizing a VPN, the connection is just encrypted between the machine and the VPN server; from this server to the meant vacation spot, the connection is now not within the encrypted tunnel and is similar as any customary connection between the browser and the vacation spot webserver.

VPN suppliers nonetheless have visibility into key particulars: they know the placement of the machine, by way of its IP deal with, and the meant vacation spot of the request. Utilizing easy net filtering instruments, the VPN supplier may merely block entry to grownup content material or implement their very own age verification necessities, eradicating the likelihood to bypass the restrictions. For instance, web service suppliers within the UK undertake the same method, as they block grownup content material by default except customers choose in, thereby defending minors.

Lacking the mark?

When creating laws, and realizing it might be bypassed simply, ought to legislators have tried to impose a restriction on the recognized straightforward strategies used to get across the laws? The reply, at the very least for me, is sure. With out taking the laws one step additional and offering strong restrictions that make it complicated and troublesome to bypass, the legislation dangers being decreased to little greater than a symbolic gesture or an consciousness marketing campaign.

If we’re severe about defending minors on the web and limiting entry to dangerous content material to these of an appropriate age, then it in all probability requires a courageous re-think of the web and the way its customers might be recognized.