UK Pornography Site Visits Falls After Age Checks, But VPN Usage Surges, States Watchdog
Visitor numbers to pornography platforms in the UK has seen a notable drop after the enforcement of mandatory age verification this summer, according to the nation's communications regulator. Concurrently, the use of tools designed to bypass these barriers has surged.
Sharp Drop in User Figures Following Rule Enforcement
The enforcement of age verification on 25 July led to an prompt reduction in visits to leading online adult platforms, such as the leading provider in the UK. Data indicates that visitor numbers to this site in August stood at 9.8 million, a decline of 1.5 million compared to the equivalent month in 2024.
Overall, visitor numbers to the 10 most-visited pornography sites in the UK have now stabilized at a significantly reduced level than before the late July deadline. Subsequent analysis indicates this slump in site visits continued beyond August.
Sharp Increase in VPN Adoption to Evade Checks
Reacting to the new rules, adoption of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can bypass location-based blocks by masking internet traffic through another nation—more than doubled after 25 July.
User numbers peaked at over 1.4 million in the middle of August, rising from around 650,000 users prior to the verification began. However, the watchdog stated that VPN usage has afterwards fallen back, with latest numbers standing at approximately 900,000. It added that the volume of regular VPN use is “much lower” than traffic for pornography sites.
Teenagers Responding to Harmful Material
Elsewhere, the watchdog's annual study revealed that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had taken action after seeing distressing content on the internet. Steps taken included flagging the material to the platform to blocking the person who shared it.
This research was conducted before new rules took effect that require social media companies to stop children from seeing dangerous content, including material related to suicide and adult material. The most common way teenagers encountered such content was by scrolling through a platform timeline, suggesting that recommendation systems were serving harmful material.
Ministers Launch Examination of Adult Content Legislation
In a related development, the ministers announced it would review the criminal law relating to pornography to assess whether it is “fit for purpose” in the ever-developing online world.
“The review will look into the efficacy of the current law in relation to criminalising, among other things, damaging depictions of incest and any forms of pornography which promote child sexual abuse,” said a government official.
Campaigners Push For Stricter Digital Regulations
Advocates for better regulation of adult content have urged the government to ban so-called “barely legal” material. This encompasses content featuring simulated familial abuse or that appears to promote child sexual abuse by casting youthful performers dressed as children.
Suggested changes to legislation aim to:
- Ban pornography where adults are impersonating children, sometimes filmed in settings like children’s bedrooms.
- Extend the offence of making an indecent image of a child to cover material where an adult plays the role of a child.
- Introduce tighter controls on incest-themed pornography, which research suggests is heavily recommended by platform algorithms.
- Introduce further controls on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an illegal act to own software designed to generate private images without permission.
- Create a new, separate regulatory body to perform inspections on pornography sites and respond to reports of unlawful content.
The campaigners argue that these steps would ensure the protections that have been enforced for decades in the physical world finally are extended to the online sphere.
