WTF?! An increasing number of states and even countries are introducing age-verification systems to prevent minors from accessing adult websites. For adults unwilling to hand over personal details such as facial scans, VPNs have offered a workaround. But six Michigan Republican representatives have introduced a bill that would completely ban not only porn for everyone in the state but also VPNs. It also proposes placing porn distributors on the sex offenders registry and banning depictions of transgender people.

Rep. Josh Schriver of Oxford, the lead sponsor of House Bill 4938, named the Anti-corruption of Public Morals Act, wrote that its "measures defend children, safeguard our communities, and put families first."

"Right now, we have a situation where you have over 90% of youth under the age of 18 who have seen pornography it's killing our drive it's killing our morality our moral and it's something that has no place is western civilization," Schriver said.

The act would prohibit the distribution of "real, animated, digitally generated, written, or auditory" depictions of sexual acts. This appears to cover quite an extensive range of subjects, right down to "erotic autonomous sensory meridian response content, moaning, or sensual voice content."

Moreover, the rules would force internet service providers to monitor and block "known circumvention tools." These are defined as "any software, hardware, or service designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions, including virtual private networks (VPNs), proxy servers, and encrypted tunneling methods to evade content restrictions."

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It adds that the promotion or sale of tools used to access prohibited material in the state is also banned.

Another section of the act covers transgender individuals, banning material "that includes a disconnection between biology and gender by an individual of one biological sex imitating, depicting, or representing themselves to be of the other biological sex."

If the bill becomes law, those who violate the rules could face a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and/or a $100,000 fine. That increases to up to 25 years in prison and/or a $150,000 fine if more than 100 pieces of prohibited material are involved.

Schriver's X post highlights how pornography providers would be placed on the sex offenders register. It's unclear exactly how such a proposal would work in practice.

The bill has been referred to the Committee on Judiciary. There is currently no meeting scheduled to review proposed law. In the unlikely event it does become a law, the bill would take effect after 90 days.

Banning VPNs and even their advertising sounds like something you'd expect to find only in countries like China, Russia, and Iran, but what was once inconceivable is starting to look possible. The UK government is said to be examining the use of the software in light of the Online Safety Act and considering technical measures to improve compliance with the act. In reality, completely banning their use would likely be unenforceable and lead to widespread outcry.