A proposed anti-porn law in Michigan could also bar VPNs in an effort to block people from circumventing adult content restrictions.
The legislation, proposed by six Republican representatives, is exceptionally prohibitive. Not only would the legislation ban all types of adult content, but it would also prohibit any depictions of transgender people at all.
In addition, the law outlines a ban on "circumvention tools," which includes VPNs, proxy servers, and encrypted tunneling methods. Such a move would be unheard of, even as other states across the country have enacted age-restriction laws on adult material. To ban porn altogether, as well as VPNs, is extreme. Obviously, banning any and all depictions of transgender people simply existing is wildly extreme, too.
To be clear, this is just proposed legislation at the moment, and the chances of it becoming law are unclear.
But it is interesting to note how sweeping these types of bans can be, especially as similar legislation gains momentum across the country. The legislation goes into minute detail on the type of content it considers pornographic. It also specifically bans "one biological sex imitating, depicting, or representing himself or herself to be the other biological sex." That wide-ranging provision could unintentionally ban many Shakespeare plays, Mrs. Doubtfire, the 2002 flop Juwanna Mann, and much more.
VPNs are the most common method for unblocking porn sites and streaming adult content anonymously. We've covered the best VPNs for just that here at Mashable. We've also covered the implications these anti-porn laws — and age-verification rules, in particular — have for the open internet. These laws, while ostensibly aimed at keeping kids off adult sites, also raise serious privacy concerns, as they often require people to divulge personal information to access large portions of the internet.
