- Pornhub says there has been a 77% drop in UK visitors since July
- People who turn to VPN apps and non-compliant websites
- The government says the legislation is working as intended
There has been a big shift in people’s internet habits in the UK since age verification was introduced on adult websites – or so it seems at first.
Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, doesn’t think so. Instead, it 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 complying,” Alex Kekesi, a director at Aylo told the BBC.
With around 240,000 adult platforms online, it is not surprising that some have not followed the government’s demands.
But the huge drop in traffic cannot be explained only by people visiting other websites. Instead, it is the result of 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 redirecting your internet traffic through another server. This allows people to bypass geographic restrictions by accessing a website through a server based in another country.
It is not surprising that many people have used VPN to bypass the age control. As Laura Tyrylytė, Head of Public Relations at Nord Security told me, “It’s naive to think that users have stopped viewing such content; they’ve just switched to other methods.”
When the legislation first came into force, Proton VPN recorded a 1400% increase in sign-ups, and Cybernews recently reported that there were over 10 million VPN downloads in the first half of the year.
But these alternatives are not always safe. People “might try free VPN apps that are known to harvest user data or come from countries like China,” says Tyrylytė.
A recognizable VPN brand name, such as NordVPN and Proton VPN, is always best.
The government body responsible for implementing the online safety law, Ofcom, told the BBC that the law works 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 VPNs than they were in July and that overall UK visits to pornographic websites have fallen overall.
We contacted Ofcom and requested more information on these figures, but they declined to comment on the information.
What’s next for age verification in the UK?
Despite the years of debate leading up to the Online Safety Act, it is still early days and its long-term impact is yet to be seen.
What is clear is that people will continue to find solutions when they feel their privacy is at risk. The only question is whether these solutions will end up putting their data at even greater risk.
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