UK Pornography Traffic Falls After Identity Verifications, Yet VPN Use Spikes, Reports Regulator
Traffic to adult content sites in the UK has decreased markedly after the roll-out of mandatory age verification earlier this year, as reported by the nation's communications watchdog. Concurrently, the adoption of tools designed to dodge these barriers has increased.
Immediate Fall in Visitor Figures After Rule Enforcement
The introduction of age verification on 25 July resulted in an prompt fall in traffic to popular online adult platforms, such as the top provider in the UK. Data reveals that user traffic to this site in August reached 9.8 million, a drop of 1.5 million compared to the equivalent month in 2024.
Overall, visitor numbers to the 10 top pornography sites in the UK have now settled at a significantly reduced level than before the late July implementation date. Subsequent analysis suggests this downward trend in site visits persisted beyond August.
Surge in VPN Adoption to Evade Checks
In response to the new regulations, adoption of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can bypass geographic blocks by masking internet traffic through another nation—more than doubled following 25 July.
Usage peaked at over 1.4 million in the middle of August, up from around 650,000 people before the verification were introduced. Subsequently, the regulator noted that VPN usage has since decreased, with latest numbers at approximately 900,000. It clarified that the level of daily VPN use is “much lower” than traffic for adult services.
Teenagers Taking Action to Damaging Material
Elsewhere, the watchdog's report revealed that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had acted after encountering damaging content online. Steps taken included flagging the content to the site to blocking the user who posted it.
This research was carried out before new rules came into force that require social media companies to prevent children from seeing harmful content, including material related to self-harm and pornography. The most common way teenagers encountered such content was by scrolling through a platform timeline, indicating that algorithms were serving harmful material.
Ministers Announce Examination of Adult Content Laws
In a related development, the government stated it would review the criminal law governing pornography to assess whether it is effective in the modern online world.
“The examination will investigate the efficacy of the existing law in relation to making illegal, for example, harmful portrayals of incest and any forms of pornography which encourage the abuse of children,” stated a government official.
Campaigners Push For Stricter Online Regulations
Campaigners for better control of online pornography have called on the government to outlaw so-called “barely legal” material. This encompasses content featuring incest scenes or that appears to promote child sexual abuse by casting youthful performers dressed as children.
Suggested changes to government bills seek to:
- Ban pornography where adults are impersonating children, sometimes filmed in environments like children’s bedrooms.
- Broaden the offence of creating an exploitative portrayal of a child to include material where an older performer acts the part of a child.
- Apply stricter regulation on familial abuse pornography, which studies indicates is heavily recommended by platform systems.
- Add additional controls on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an offence to own tools designed to generate non-consensual nude images.
- Create a new, separate oversight agency to conduct inspections on adult platforms and respond to complaints of illegal content.
The campaigners argue that these measures would ensure the safeguards that have been enforced for decades offline finally apply to the online sphere.
