British Pornography Site Visits Falls Following Age Verifications, Yet VPN Usage Surges, Reports Regulator
Access to pornography sites in the UK has seen a notable drop since the roll-out of mandatory age verification this summer, according to the nation's communications watchdog. Simultaneously, the use of specialist software designed to circumvent these blocks has increased.
Immediate Drop in User Numbers Following Rule Enforcement
The enforcement of age vetting on 25 July caused an prompt decline in visits to popular pornography sites, such as the most visited provider in the UK. Figures indicates that user traffic to this platform in August reached 9.8 million, a decrease of 1.5 million compared to the equivalent month in 2024.
Overall, visitor numbers to the ten top adult services in the UK have now stabilized at a significantly reduced level than before the end-of-July implementation date. Later analysis suggests this downward trend in site visits persisted past August.
Surge in VPN Adoption to Bypass Restrictions
Reacting to the new rules, use of VPN software—which can circumvent geographic restrictions by routing internet traffic through another country—more than doubled after 25 July.
User numbers reached a high at over 1.4 million in the middle of August, up from around 650,000 people prior to the verification began. However, the watchdog stated that VPN usage has afterwards decreased, with current numbers at around 900,000. It added that the volume of daily VPN use remains “much lower” than user numbers for pornography services.
Young People Responding to Harmful Online Content
Elsewhere, the watchdog's report found that about 60% of teenagers aged 11 to 17 had taken action after seeing damaging content on the internet. Steps taken ranged from reporting the content to the site to muting the person who shared it.
This research was carried out prior to new regulations came into force that require social media companies to prevent children from accessing harmful content, including material related to suicide and pornography. The most common way young people encountered such content was by scrolling through a platform timeline, suggesting that recommendation systems were showing harmful material.
Ministers Announce Examination of Adult Content Legislation
Separately, the ministers stated it would examine the legislation relating to pornography to assess whether it is effective in the modern digital age.
“The examination will investigate the efficacy of the existing law in regarding criminalising, for example, damaging depictions of incest and any types of pornography which promote child sexual abuse,” stated a government official.
Campaigners Push For Tighter Online Controls
Campaigners for tighter control of adult content have called on 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 using youthful performers dressed as children.
Proposed amendments to government bills aim to:
- Prohibit pornography where performers are impersonating children, often recorded in environments like children’s bedrooms.
- Broaden the crime of making an exploitative portrayal of a child to cover material where an older performer plays the role of a child.
- Introduce tighter regulation on familial abuse pornography, which studies indicates is often promoted by platform algorithms.
- Introduce additional restrictions on “nudification” software, potentially making it an offence to own tools designed to generate private images without permission.
- Create a new, independent regulatory body to perform spot checks on adult platforms and respond to complaints of illegal content.
The advocates contend that these measures would ensure the safeguards that have been enforced for years offline finally are extended to the digital age.
