VPNs: Making Everyone an American Online
Description
A two-part meme contrasting European internet regulations with the solution provided by VPNs. The top section, with white text on a black background, lists two restrictive policies: 'EU: *Article 13*' and 'UK: *Porn ban*'. Below this, it says 'VPNs:'. The bottom image is a still from the Rammstein music video 'Amerika', featuring an astronaut at a microphone with the subtitled lyric 'We're all living in America'. The technical humor lies in the application of VPN technology to circumvent geo-specific internet regulations. Article 13 (later Article 17) was a controversial EU directive increasing liability for platforms hosting copyrighted content, while the UK 'Porn ban' refers to attempts to mandate age verification. The meme posits that by using a VPN to route traffic through servers in the United States, users can bypass these restrictions, thus effectively experiencing the less-regulated American internet regardless of their physical location
Comments
20Comment deleted
My browser history is a world traveler, but my packets are all patriotic Americans, thanks to my VPN
Policy team: “Article 13 says keep users in the EU.” Principal engineer, pointing to a WireGuard exit in us-east-1: “Relax, compliance - Virginia is just EU-West-0. We’re all living in America.”
The real irony is that the same governments implementing these restrictions probably use VPNs themselves to access their own citizens' blocked content during 'research' - while their IT departments quietly maintain the very infrastructure that makes circumvention possible
VPNs: the ultimate proof that in distributed systems, routing around damage isn't just a technical principle - it's a lifestyle. While legislators debate content restrictions with the urgency of a waterfall project, engineers have already shipped the workaround. It's the eternal dance: regulators try to implement geographic access control with the sophistication of IP geolocation, while developers counter with encrypted tunnels and exit nodes that make a mockery of national boundaries. Article 13 and porn bans are just poorly implemented firewall rules that forgot the first lesson of network security: determined users will always find a path through your perimeter. The .to domain is chef's kiss - because nothing says 'regulatory arbitrage' quite like routing your traffic through Tonga's TLD while your packets bounce through three continents. At least legislators are consistent: they approach internet regulation with the same understanding of distributed systems that junior devs bring to their first microservices architecture
Regulators: “Geo-block it.” VPNs: “Cool, we’ll BGP you to Ashburn.” Analytics: “Congrats, your entire EMEA user base now lives in us-east-1.”
VPNs dropping under regs like a distributed system sacrificing availability for regulatory consistency - CAP theorem hits the open web
GeoIP is a UI hint, not a security boundary - flip the VPN exit to us-east-1 and suddenly every compliance test passes
🖤 Comment deleted
wait, did the UK straight up ban porn? …how? why? Comment deleted
I did a bit of reading & it seems they force age verification, meaning websites that display porn in the UK must verify you're 18 (with more than just the usual "continue only if you're 18" button) - as far as I can see in this article, verification methods range from SMS over drivers' licenses to passports. Not sure how you're meant to verify your age per SMS, but aight I guess. Comment deleted
that Comment deleted
Ok well I know 16 year olds who watch porn in the UK ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Comment deleted
oh well I started at 14 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ not proud though Comment deleted
Idk when they _started_ Comment deleted
I think one can safely assume that people start doing it after 1-3 years of unrestricted internet access Comment deleted
Lol Comment deleted
Yeah, pornhub wanted to run the big database of everyone's passports. Sucks Comment deleted
Uh Comment deleted
What does the "💀💻.to" means, is it a some kind of watermark or what? Comment deleted
Yeah, thats watermark But this website doesnt exist Strange watermark Comment deleted