- Pornhub says there’s been a 77% drop in UK visitors since July
- People turning to VPN apps and non-compliant websites
- Government says legislation working as intended
There’s been a huge shift in people’s internet habits in the UK since age verification checks were introduced on adult websites — or at least that’s how it first seems.
Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, doesn’t think so. Instead, it says people are turning to platforms that are ignoring the new requirements. “There are a number of sites whose traffic has grown exponentially, and these are sites that are not complying,” Alex Kekesi, an executive at Aylo told the BBC.
With around 240,000 adult platforms online, it’s not surprising that some haven’t kept up with the government’s demands.
But the huge drop in traffic can’t just be explained by people visiting other websites. Instead, it’s the result a number of factors, including the widespread use of VPN apps as people feel uncomfortable linking their personal data to their online activity.
What difference does a VPN make?
A VPN works by encrypting and re-routing your internet traffic via another server. This allows people to bypass geographical restrictions by accessing a website via a server based in another country.
Unsurprisingly then, lots of people have used VPN to circumvent the age checks. As Laura Tyrylytė, Head of Public Relations at Nord Security told me: “It’s naive to think that users have stopped watching such content; they have just moved to other methods.”
Back when the legislation first came into force, Proton VPN recorded a 1400% increase in signups and, more recently, Cybernews reported that there were over 10 million VPN downloads in the first half of the year.
But these alternatives aren’t always safe. People “might try free VPN apps that are known to harvest user data or come from countries like China,” says Tyrylytė.
A recognisable VPN brand name, such as NordVPN and Proton VPN, is always best.
The government agency responsible for implementing the Online Safety Act, Ofcom, told the BBC that the law is working as intended by preventing children from easily accessing adult material and TechRadar certainly sees OSA’s potential benefits.
Ofcom also said that fewer people are now using VPN than they were in July and that overall UK visits to pornography websites have dropped in general.
We reached out to Ofcom and requested more information about these figures but they declined to comment on record.
What’s next for age verification in the UK?
Despite the years of debate that led up to the Online Safety Act, it’s still early days, and its long term impact remains to be seen.
What’s clear is that people will continue to find workarounds when they feel their privacy is at risk. The only question is whether those workarounds will end up putting their data in even greater peril.
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