I've seen a few people plurking this news to private timelines but I thought I would boost visibility with one that's replurkable

dwrp can we get a replurk?

also from denise: "Also, following up here really quickly because I'm pretty sure someone will ask: we do not believe we have a significant enough number of users in the UK to require us to comply with the age-verification provisions of the Online Safety Act!"

also confirmed to not affect Australian users either with their upcoming law.

whaaaa

super bummer

would VPNs help these guys?

yes, a vpn is confirmed to be able to get around it

"If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would."

tl; dr is an injunction against the law was overturned, and even as high up as the Supreme Court is like 'DW et al are likely to win this legal challenge but it'll be fiiiiiiine in the meantime!' (It Will Not Be Fine)

That's good, at least! Still a bummer they're dealing with this crap

And since DW is so vocal in the suit, they're being proactive against retaliatory finings.

10K once would be a hit to DW, but it's 10K per user, per load of page.

I'm glad they're fighting back. This is all so freaking ridiculous

i never did think i'd actually be forced into a vpn for my daily internet use but here we are

Right? Ugh

DW, as a member of Netchoice, has been at the forefront of age verification litigation. In one of the Netchoice cases (California/Bonta or Ohio/Yost, maybe?) Denise submitted a significant affidavit. And Netchoice has some really top-notch First Amendment firms (Lehotsky Keller, Davis Wright Tremaine) working on these cases.

denise linked the affidavit on the dw post i believe

it is Hefty

"it'll probably be fine"
Me, looking at the past eight months or so: are you sure

watchet: Nah there was an earlier one that tried to explain what DWRP was in words a judge would understand (fucking lol).

insanityprelude: Considering even Kavanaugh was in favor of Netchoice in their case against Ohio, I trust Denise to know what she's talking about

ahhh gotcha also lmao

She has been in the thick of it for some time now and she's always been transparent about the going ons of the site. I don't think she would make a statement that "it'll probably be fine" unless she was reasonably sure of it.

10k per user per load damn

the sheer speed of that number going up is terrifying

So lol i live in Mississippi - in the search of a home outside the state but it’s slow going, so I’m very much affected here

I never had to resort to using a VPN up until now - and I just don’t have the money to spare to spend on one

So I’m hoping Opera VPN will do the trick

Another Mississippian here, and if nothing else, Denise recommends Proton VPN on the post, which does have its problems, but also has a pretty good freebie model.

I was on the impression the freebie is only good for a few months

I mean I’ve heard free VPNs are not as sure fire as paid VPNs but it’s what I have to get

The free tier, according to the site as linked on the post, is limited to one device, but doesn't seem to have an expiration date?

I must have confused it with something else then good to know

No expiration date on free proton, it's just a bit slower and has limited countries to choose from compared to the paid tiers. I've been using it since the whole YouTube ai age verification thing rolled out and haven't had any serious problems. little slow to load pages sometimes

vivaldi (the browser) also iirc introduced a free built in VPN but i haven’t used it myself to say what it’s like

Vivaldi's built-in is Proton. (I haven't actually used said VPN, though.)

oh good to know!

I use surfshark and while it's not free, its very inexpensive and offers a host of features beyond vpn.

not that I use any of them but still lol

Mullvad VPN - Free the internet$5 a month isn't free but i've been using mullvad for YEARS and they've been the best so far

i use mozilla vpn and pay yearly, and it's worked great

I've been using Opera since it imports everything from Chrome easily and it has a free VPN that works very well

Opera was originally gotten for the ad blocking but VPN wound up being a pleasant surprise later. Especially with all the BS happening

I can second the recommendation for Mullvad! Very fair price, good speeds, and one of the few left with a true no-logging policy.

IIRC Proton is also considered top tier these days.

skiesonfire: icb I’ve been using Opera for like two months now and had no idea it had a free built in VPN omg

opera is pretty cool!

i use it

especially the features it comes with

What about Vivaldi? I’m looking at a reddit post about ProtonVPN being built into that browser?

devimelete: it was mentioned

oh shit sorry I think plurk didnt refresh that for me oops

I swear I'm not a proton shill, but I do want to point out a couple things: I find it reassuring that they've stated they're prepared to move their entire operation if their country (switzerland? I think?) passes any AV or censorship laws AND

proton mail, protonpass, and their google drive alternative are all encrypted, if that's a concern for anyone

they're all available free with limitations as well

that is good to know