A law in effect for less than two weeks is already wreaking havoc all over the internet.
The United Kingdom law—called the Online Safety Act—is purportedly about protecting children. The best I can say about its rollout is that maybe it will serve as a cautionary tale for lawmakers here.
It's certainly not stopping motivated individuals—and who is more motivated than a teen told they can't do something?—from accessing verboten content. "Let's start with the most obvious sign that this law is working exactly as poorly as critics warned: VPN usage in the UK has absolutely exploded," notes Mike Masnick at Techdirt. "Proton VPN reported an 1,800% spike in UK sign-ups. Five of the top ten free apps on Apple's App Store in the UK are VPNs. When your 'child safety' law's primary achievement is teaching kids how to use VPNs to circumvent it, maybe you've missed the mark just a tad."
