British Adult Content Site Visits Falls Following Age Verifications, Yet VPN Use Surges, Reports Regulator
Traffic to adult content platforms in the UK has decreased markedly since the enforcement of age-checking measures earlier this year, according to the nation's communications regulator. Concurrently, the use of specialist software designed to bypass these blocks has surged.
Immediate Fall in Visitor Figures After Law Enforcement
The enforcement of age vetting on 25 July resulted in an swift decline in visits to popular pornography sites, including the top site in the UK. Data shows that visitor numbers to this platform in August reached 9.8 million, a decline of 1.5 million from the same period in 2024.
In total, traffic to the 10 top pornography sites in the UK have now stabilized at a “lower level” than prior to the late July implementation date. Subsequent analysis shows this decline in site visits persisted beyond August.
Surge in Virtual Private Network Adoption to Evade Restrictions
In response to the new rules, adoption of VPN software—which can circumvent geographic blocks by masking connections through another nation—more than doubled following 25 July.
User numbers peaked at over 1.4 million in mid-August, rising from approximately 650,000 users prior to the verification were introduced. Subsequently, the regulator stated that VPN usage has afterwards steadily declined, with latest figures standing at around 900,000. It clarified that the level of daily VPN use remains “much lower” than traffic for pornography sites.
Teenagers Taking Action to Harmful Material
Elsewhere, the regulator'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 ranged from reporting the content to the platform to blocking the person who shared it.
This research was conducted before new rules came into force that compel platforms to prevent children from seeing harmful content, including material related to suicide and pornography. The primary way teenagers encountered such content was by looking through a platform feed, suggesting that recommendation systems were showing inappropriate material.
Ministers Launch Review of Adult Content Laws
Separately, the government announced it would review the legislation governing pornography to consider whether it is effective in the modern digital age.
“The review will investigate the efficacy of the existing law in relation to making illegal, for example, harmful depictions of incest and any forms of pornography which encourage child sexual abuse,” stated a government official.
Advocates Call For Tighter Digital Regulations
Campaigners for better control of adult content have urged the authorities to outlaw so-called “barely legal” material. This includes content featuring simulated familial abuse or that appears to promote abuse by casting youthful adults dressed as children.
Proposed changes to government bills aim to:
- Ban pornography where performers are impersonating children, sometimes filmed in environments like children’s bedrooms.
- Extend the crime of making an indecent image of a child to cover material where an older performer acts the part of a child.
- Apply tighter regulation on incest-themed pornography, which studies indicates is heavily recommended by platform systems.
- Introduce additional restrictions on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an offence to possess software designed to generate non-consensual nude images.
- Create a new, independent oversight agency to perform inspections on pornography sites and respond to complaints of unlawful content.
The campaigners contend that these steps would ensure the safeguards that have been enforced for decades in the physical world finally are extended to the digital age.
