- Pornhub says there has been a 77% drop in UK visitors since July
- People turning to non-compliant VPN apps and websites
- The government says the legislation is working as intended
There has been a big change in the internet habits of people in the UK since age verification checks were introduced on adult websites, or at least that’s what it seems at first glance.
Pornhub’s parent company Aylo doesn’t think so. Instead, he says people are turning to platforms that ignore the new requirements. “There are a number of sites whose traffic has grown exponentially, and these are sites that are not compliant,” Aylo executive Alex Kekesi told the BBC.
With around 240,000 adult platforms online, it is not surprising that some have not lived up to the government’s demands.
But the huge drop in traffic cannot be explained simply by the fact that people visit other websites. Rather, it is the result of a number of factors, including the widespread use of VPN apps, as people feel uncomfortable linking their personal data with their online activity.
What difference does a VPN make?
A VPN works by encrypting and redirecting your Internet traffic through another server. This allows people to bypass geographic restrictions by accessing a website through a server located in another country.
It’s no surprise then that many people have used VPNs to bypass age controls. As Laura Tyrylytė, head of public relations at Nord Security, told me: “It’s naïve to think that users have stopped seeing that type of content; they’ve simply moved on to other methods.”
When the legislation first came into effect, Proton VPN saw a 1,400% increase in subscriptions, and more recently, Cybernews reported that there were over 10 million VPN downloads in the first half of the year.
But these alternatives are not always safe. People “could try free VPN apps that are known to collect user data or come from countries like China,” says Tyrylytė.
A recognizable VPN brand, 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 the potential benefits of OSA.
Ofcom also said that fewer people are now using VPNs than in July and that UK visits to pornography websites have decreased overall.
We contacted Ofcom and asked for more information on these figures, but they declined to comment officially.
What’s next for age verification in the UK?
Despite the years of debate that led to the Online Safety Act, it is still early days and its long-term impact remains to be seen.
What is clear is that people will continue to look for solutions when they feel their privacy is at risk. The only question is whether those solutions will end up putting your data in even greater danger.
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