The US government may be launching a new VPN, like a mosquito net developed by mosquitoes

Now there's a piece of VPN news I didn't see coming. The US government is now considering launching its own VPN. It's hard for me to believe that anybody who knows enough about the internet landscape to want to use a VPN, would also not know enough about the goings on in the world that they would think that they could trust an initiative like this from a government that is as surveillance-heavy as the US.

The official reason for this freedom portal (and its possible VPN) is to give people in European countries access to content that has been blocked in their country, hence the "freedom" in the title. It's all about "freedom of speech". It's probably not a coincidence that this development has come not long after Elon Musk's X platform gave premium users access to a tool that allows them to instantly create child pornography (which has, rightly, got several governments asking if they should ban it).

Naturally, as a writer, freedom of speech is incredibly important to me. Nothing should get in the way of our ability to speak out against the injustices of the world and speak frankly about our feelings and experiences of life. However, the perception of what freedom of speech is seems to have been twisted so that now people think that anyone should be able to say anything at any time, regardless of its factual integrity and whether or not it's harmful, hateful stuff that helps reinforce the injustices of society.

The demon that now possesses the corpse of the website that was once called Twitter has been used to help spread and reinforce far-right political perspectives (like those held by the US government). Now, with the US foreign policy increasingly focused on promoting the rise of right-wing parties across Europe (and the world at large), the introduction of the freedom portal makes sense as a part of this broader strategy. They don't want the purveyor of their favourite talking points to be inaccessible, do they?

Our old pal, Christian, warned us a few times about the dangers of dodgy VPNs, and by golly, if the US really does launch a VPN, I'm sure it will be the dodgiest of the bunch. Although it has claimed that it will not track user data, I consider this claim very dubious. After all, in order to get a visa to visit the US, the last five years of your social media activity must first be scrutinised. The exact criteria used for these assessments are not clear, but vocal critics of the government have found their visas denied.

Something else to consider is that the US government did not invent VPNs. It is unclear exactly what it believes this new freedom VPN would do that can't already be done by the countless other VPNs already on the market. Why would anybody need this one? The whole situation is just very fishy, and I think anybody who is privacy-conscious should avoid this VPN if/when it is released.

One thing's for sure - this is one VPN that'll never have a place on the list of the best VPN services. NordVPN, Proton VPN, Surfshark, CyberGhost, or ExpressVPN are all much better choices, and if you want our top recommendation, that would be Nord. You're a lot safer not leaving your privacy in the hands of a dodgy government.