# Is discussion of VPN's banned on the SDMB? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 28, 2018, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-discussion-of-vpns-banned-on-the-sdmb/823631 "2018-10-28T14:32:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 85
**Author:** ![DCTrekkie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dctrekkie/32/18862_2.png) [@DCTrekkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCTrekkie)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-discussion-of-vpns-banned-on-the-sdmb/823631/85 "2018-10-31T22:33:27Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Nonetheless orders from above are orders from above. Except these aren’t orders from above. TPTB laid down a rule of no p2p discussion, but it’s the mods themselves have decided that that includes VPN’s as well. > [@Interested to hear opinions about various VPNs.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interested-to-hear-opinions-about-various-vpns/823303/11): > > We have been a bit inconsistent in the moderation of VPN topics. Since the primary use of all of the VPN services listed is illegal file sharing, I tend not to allow much discussion at all about them. Other moderators want to allow the legal discussions of VPNs, but as this thread shows, it is difficult to keep everyone on the legal side of the line. The main feature of aiding illegal file sharing has already been mentioned, and I suspect that most of the VPN services listed are used more for illegal file sharing than any other purpose. As engineer\_comp\_geek has already said, it was discussed amongst the mods and implemented. Nothing to do with any lawyers. > [@Interested to hear opinions about various VPNs.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interested-to-hear-opinions-about-various-vpns/823303/11): > > Other unknown and unnamed people? Like the first responder in that thread who mentioned illegal file sharing, avoiding takedown notices from the ISP, and provided a VPN service unambiguously geared towards torrenting (to the point that it even had TOR in its name)? I must admit I didn’t even notice that post when I read the thread before. I fully agree and support the moderation of that post, including removing the links. I find it hard to believe that was your main issue in that thread however, considering you didn’t mention it until your third post, and even then only briefly. Your first post was to tell us (incorrectly) that the main use for VPN’s was illegal filesharing, and claim (again incorrectly) that breaking your Netflix user agreement was illegal, then your second was to claim it was against the rules to mention providers that allowed different destination IP’s or that didn’t keep logs. If you’d stuck to just moderating that one post I doubt anyone would have had problem. The issue is that engineer\_comp\_geek, for some reason, doesn’t like VPN’s and he’s therefore grasping at anything he can to tie them to p2p and stop discussion of them. He’s admitted that other mods would be happy for them to be discussed and he’s admitted that it was a decision made by the mod team when he raised the issue, nothing to do with the lawyers. On preview: > [@Interested to hear opinions about various VPNs.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interested-to-hear-opinions-about-various-vpns/823303/11): > > Even aside from likelihood to be sued, the Dope’s parent company runs newspapers, and newspapers depend for their existence on copyright laws, and so it’s in their interest to support copyright laws. So, yes, we take a stronger stance on copyright here than we do on some other issues. VPN’s are no more of a copyright issue than which ISP you use. Both can be used for filesharing, but neither have it as their primary purpose. Alos, as people have repeated shown in this thread, newspaper & media companies have no problems with VPN’s. All three of the ones mentioned in the previous thread have been featured, or even reccomended, on/in mainstream newspapers & tech blogs. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-discussion-of-vpns-banned-on-the-sdmb/823631)._