- On September 11, 2025, Michigan legislators proposed a bill to completely prohibit the content of adults
- The use of VPN is also in danger, as internet service providers would be forced to “monitor and block known bypass” tools “
- It comes when people are turning more and more to VPN applications to bypass compulsory age check checks
The use of VPN is at risk for the inhabitants of Michigan after having become a target of the legislators.
On September 11, 2025, six Republican representatives of Michigan proposed a bill to completely prohibit the distribution of the content of adults, representations of transgender people and VPNs.
Under new rules, Internet service providers may be forced to “monitor and block known bypass”, with fines of up to $ 500.00 not to comply. In addition, “the promotion or sale of bypass tools to access prohibited equipment” is also prohibited in the state.
Although the proposal is the most important so far, it certainly does not occur in a vacuum. Persons in and outside the United States has turned more and more to the best VPN services in order to bypass newly forced compulsory age verification checks.
In the United Kingdom, for example, the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, considered VPN as “a flaw that must be closed” and called on the government to prevent children from using VPNs to bypass age controls on adult sites.
Michigan proposal – what we know so far
Mainly sponsored by the Republican Josh Schriver, the House Bill 4938, or simply “Anti -Corption of Public Morals Act”, seeks to prohibit the sharing, distribution, sale or accommodation of “certain documents” on the Internet.
The targets of the bill include the content reserved for adults in all its forms – from video and audio to magazine, the content generated by AI and even manga – as well as any representation or description of trans people.
Unlike similar laws for American adults that have already been applied in certain states, Michigan’s proposals prohibit this material for all Internet – Not only for minors.
Above all, all Internet service providers operating in the state would also be required to detect and block connections from bypass tools.
Legislators define them as “all software, hardware or service designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions, including virtual private networks (VPN), proxy servers and encrypted tunneling methods to escape content restrictions”.
The proposal also prohibits both the promotion and sale of bypass tools to access the prohibited online content. A provision that resembles the law that Russia applied in March 2024 to criminalize the propagation of information on the means of bypassing the restrictions on the Internet.
The risk of prohibiting VPN
A virtual private network (VPN) is security software that costs Internet connections while usurping the real user’s IP address. These two skills can help individuals and businesses stimulate their confidentiality and online security by minimizing the data traces they leave around the Internet.
More specifically, VPNs work by creating a secure connection between your device and another location on the Internet. They mask your IP address and quantify the data transmitted to and from your device, so that it is impossible for third parties to intercept or follow your activities.
In addition, IP use can also ensure that users seem to sail in a completely different country.
The collection of data always invasive and an increase in cyber attacks make VPN a necessary tool these days. These applications help people regain the agency for their confidentiality and online safety-whether to protect their device when connecting to public Wi-Fi or access to geo-restricted services during its trips abroad.
A VPN prohibition in the United States also goes against the 2024 call for the Open Technology Fund supported by the United States (OTF) which has urged Big Tech to intervene and better take care of bypass software.
In addition, if the bill proposed by Michigan is adopted in its current form, it could also establish a legal precedent so that other states or nations can follow. This can give even more sample to people like China, Russia, Iran, Myanmar or Venezuela to strengthen their VPN repression even more.
