Some people say that outlawing VPNs is actually the goal, and that a social media ban for kids is really just a pretext for a government attack on communications that can't be surveilled and monitored. Banning VPNs “to protect the children” is supposedly easier to sell to the electorate than just banning VPNs “because we want to be able to see everything you do.”

Authoritarian regimes, of course, just ban VPNs outright (as far as they can).

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