EU Going To War With VPNs In Bid To "Save The Children"

Western European governments and EU bureaucrats are advancing tighter regulations on VPNs as part of a broader push for "online age verification" and their ‘Chat Control’ agenda.  Privacy advocates and digital rights groups warn that Europe is drifting towards a surveillance and censorship regime similar to internet restrictions and firewalls used by Russia and China.

Last week European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen suggested that Brussels may need to address the use of VPNs to bypass the EU’s upcoming age-verification systems.  Speaking during a press conference on the EU’s new digital age-verification app, Virkkunen acknowledged that users could circumvent the system with VPNs and stated that preventing such circumvention would be among the ‘next steps’ policymakers need to examine.

🚨EU plans VPN crackdown: New age ID system “cannot be bypassed” via VPNs.

Couldn’t stop illegal migration, but suddenly goes full North Korea on controlling what Europeans read online. pic.twitter.com/Kn8OnygnWW

— Don Keith (@RealDonKeith) May 2, 2026

Her statements were delivered only two weeks after she shared a stage with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who called for a crackdown on web media companies to "protect children" from dangerous content.  The first stage of their agenda is a government created universal age verification app which web companies will be required to integrate.  Von der Leyen asserts that the new restrictions are designed to "defend children's rights" (how does restricting access protect rights?).

The Orwellian language of the EU is not coincidental.  "Child vulnerability" is a carefully chosen vehicle to manipulate public approval, opening the door to incremental government management of online content and discourse. 

Age verification sounds like a common sense reform in order to prevent children from accessing adult content, gambling sites, age limited products, etc.  Some states in the US require pornographic sites to use age verification, but not a government developed app.  However, their real target is social media.

The Commission has regularly expressed their intent to gain more regulatory control of platforms like X.  Formerly Twitter, Elon Musk's acquisition of the social media site triggered a sea change in online discourse, removing years of left wing dominance in Big Tech and allowing conservatives and centrists to have a greater voice.  Immediately after Musk bought Twitter, a firestorm began in Europe as leftist politicians sought to silence the platform. 

Their reasoning?  Any platform that allows conservative, nationalist and patriot views to be heard is, by default, dangerous and must be censored.  In particular, the European elites fear a generational break from the progressive movement, the first in many decades.  

This is why the leftist controlled Australian government established strict age verification laws last year - They categorize X as restricted, but not Bluesky, an extreme left-wing activist platform which enjoys more open access.  After a torrent of criticism, Bluesky enforced it's own age restrictions, but was not required to by the Australian government. 

Moderating media access is typically the realm of parents, not governments.  Furthermore, pressing companies to take more responsibility for age restrictions is one thing, but demanding everyone use an intrusive government created app is another.  

The plan is transparent; liberal governments intend to use age restrictions as an excuse to limit more conservative leaning content while giving leftist content free rein.  The crackdown on VPNs is clearly the second stage.  VPNs allow users to access websites without using their primary IP address which links them to their home address.  They can also be used to circumvent websites that are restricted in certain countries by using an IP from outside that country.   

In other words, VPNs allow for a moderate level of anonymity.  This is something most governments have been seeking to eliminate for years.  One state in the US (Utah) is also trying to target VPN companies for liability. 

These measures have elicited strong criticism from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), cybersecurity experts, and VPN providers, who argue that the law is technically unenforceable and risks criminalizing ordinary privacy-conscious users. 

Meanwhile, in France, officials have also signaled that VPN restrictions could eventually follow the country’s planned social media ban for children under 15. French Digital Affairs Minister Anne Le Hénanff stated earlier this year that VPNs are ‘next on my list’ in efforts to prevent minors from bypassing online restrictions. 

It should be noted that the majority of European efforts to control social media access occurred in the wake of burgeoning conservative and nationalist movements successfully spreading online and overshadowing woke activism.  These movements commonly use online discourse to dismantle progressive talking points and propaganda and they are highly effective.  The political left has decided that if they can't win the debate fair and square, they will simply censor the debate so that no one can see how wrong they are. 

They will start with children and teens in the name of protecting kids from dangerous content, then expand their bureaucratic foothold into every corner of the web.