Pornhub says UK visitors down 77% since age checks came in
96 comments
·October 31, 2025michaelt
highwaylights
It’s not that the UK government believes censoring porn is a vote winner so much as they really want to use “think of the kids” as a cudgel to widespread surveillance.
In other countries (not least the US) there’s an expectation of privacy which doesn’t really exist in the UK. It’s not seen as a right by any major party or particularly valued by the public at large (“nothing to hide nothing to fear” etc). The government still really wants E2E encryption banned here (as nonsensical as that is).
They don’t see any of this as a vote loser, as none of the alternative parties see it any differently.
Personally I’m kind of happy about this gating even if I disagree on principle, but they’ve already indicated that they have no line. They’ve been very open about seeing everything you say and do.
rich_sasha
Despite all this talk about privacy, US would appear to be leading the free world in surveillance and illiberalism right now. It is very reminiscent to me of the radical free speech of Twitter and Republicans, which in practice means censorship.
I'm not saying UK is great, but surely ahead of what the US is doing by a wide margin.
highwaylights
I sort of agree.
If you look at the UK through the MAGA lens you see that there’s a grain of truth in some of the comments about free speech.
Likewise terminology in the US is sometimes a little turned on its head - in the US “liberalism” means something completely different from actual liberalism (which would be closer to libertarianism).
Also “woke” has been used for so many things that its meaning has been warped from “don’t trust the system” to whatever the right dislikes on a given day, even though they’re ostensibly all about smaller government that stays out of your business.
Politics has always been very subversive but it’s more entangled than ever now.
bearburger
> how this plays with voters at the next election
Well. With the ageing population and the fact that older people are more conservative and they turn out to vote more often I would doubt that anything would change. At least not because of this.
bengbwing
> Yet in online spaces, this policy seems wildly unpopular
That depends on which online spaces you frequent. Ones like HN, which have a higher proportion of male users, will be statistically more likely to have commenters who engage in habitual pornography consumption and are vocally opposed to the OSA on this basis.
kfterrg67
Sorry to burst your bubble but porn use and addiction is a massive problem among women nowadays too.
FWIW the male spaces I'm in are supportive of porn bans.
hmlwilliams
UK visitors not using a VPN down 77%
DagsEoress
You believe all children know how to operate a VPN?
schnebbau
This is the problem. Adults thinking children are useless. Don't you remember being a kid?
Whenever there's a blocker (one case from my childhood was how to use net send to broadcast profanity across the network), someone will figure it out, and by the end of the day EVERYONE knows.
zeristor
Programming VCRs was famously something kids could understand.
plqbfbv
It's not like they need to `sudo apt install openvpn` and tweak the config file manually and tinker with routes and firewall rules afterwards.
Basically every youtube video for the past decade has been sponsored by a VPN service offering first-joiner discounts. My cousin uses a VPN and has no idea what it is and how it works, just that "he should protect himself while browsing". Those VPNs have invested massively in UX and ease of use so out of that 77% of users, I'd guess more than 80% of it switched to VPNs.
carus
Maybe not all, but kids pickup things fast. When I was young the school tried to block a popular flash games website, one lunch hour later and somehow we all learned how to use a VPN. I'd say I owe a lot of my technical ability to learning how to circumvent restrictions on school computers and whatever my parents tried to setup on the home computer.
DagsEoress
I agree. My point is we shouldn't simply open the doors for this degenerate content and make it easily accessible for children. Children who are already addicted to porn will be more inclined to find a workaround. But new children who haven't been exposed yet will be less inclined.
Lio
> You believe all children know how to operate a VPN
Yes. That’s exactly what we believe.
Do you believe that 77% of UK Pornhub users suddenly stopped wanking?
Seems pretty implausible to me.
DagsEoress
This all or nothing mentality is so disconnected from the real world. Of course some people started using VPNs, of course some children even started doing it. No law can prevent all occurrences of what it tries to prevent. But it can make it more difficult, and heighten the barrier of entry for children that are introduced to the internet.
h4ck_th3_pl4n3t
> Yes. That’s exactly what we believe.
So all minors in the UK have their own banking account and credit card? You know, to pay for the VPN.
null
InsideOutSanta
Based on my childhood memories, I would say kids are the most likely to figure out how to get a free VPN and look at porn that way.
Or just find another porn site that doesn't adhere to the law.
Ekaros
Lot of them do. Especially hormonal teenagers who have both lot of time and energy to find solutions. Not to forgot the lure of forbidden.
forgotoldacc
20 years ago, kids were using proxies and VPNs to get around forum bans. Kids today are most certainly still using VPNs.
DagsEoress
I honestly doubt ipad kids are as tech savvy as 90s or 00s kids. Not only that, I'm sure some kids will figure it out. But not all.
consp
Are you suggesting kids are not digitally versed and have no capability of searching and learning?
random9749832
1. A number of apps have made using VPN a 1-click task.
2. Children aren't as well versed with tech as you think, just because they spend a lot of hours in front of a screen.
deaddodo
Any sort of gating will always lower certain web usage, that's obvious.
It's also much more obvious that a taboo/illicit service asking you to, essentially, deanonymize yourself is going to be hit the hardest.
kubb
There were so many people saying that this isn’t going to work.
Remember that when discussing any regulation.
The „it’s impossible” and „let’s not bother” people are a scourge and they mustn’t be taken seriously.
niek_pas
The article pretty clearly states that it’s likely this is at least partly attributable to VPN use.
diffeomorphism
Yeah, those people were apparently 100% correct and this was a colossal failure.
Instead of large, accountable providers, now three quarters of their customers use vpns or switched to sites without age verification.
bengbwing
Yes indeed, and also worth bearing in mind that, particularly as this is a male-dominated forum, many of the people commenting here will be habitual porngraphy consumers who will have a negative view of any mechanism that gets in the way of their consumption.
DagsEoress
Very true. This all or nothing mentality is disconnected from the real world.
vasco
What do you mean by worked? Worked to move people to other sources of porn or vpns?
LtWorf
I mean they're all just using VPNs… I'm sure the VPN companies love the policy but other than that I'm not sure what problem they solved.
elyobo
oh my sweet summer child
MattPalmer1086
This is really surprising. 23% of pornhub users in the UK are willing to identify themselves to access porn.
I guess there are some who really want their porn and either don't know about the alternatives (VPN) or genuinely don't mind handing over identifying info to do it.
halJordan
In any other sexual context you'd be saying "wow such sexual liberty" "theyre so brave being straight up about themselves."
That watching porn is still an immoral act is implicit in your surprise.
MattPalmer1086
You are putting words in my mouth, maybe think about phrasing your points in a less personal way in future?
I don't actually see watching porn as immoral, although I am aware that there are a large number of people who do. Hence my surprise that so many people were willing to tie their identities to it.
heisenbit
Does that mean porn is watched by 77% fewer people or does that mean it is watched elsewhere? It may just lead to a greater exposure to malware of the UK.
wongarsu
Another significant portion of the 77% will be people who now use a VPN to visit pornhub and are no longer identifiable as UK visitors
davidwritesbugs
This. I still use xnxx but via a VPN now, same for Pornhub users I'd guess
INTPenis
I think the more striking question is, does that mean 77% of pornhub viewers are underage?
Obviously not, a lot of them just don't want to identify themselves. But having worked in IT for 25 years and knowing how free some people are to use their government e-mail to sign up at porn websites, I wonder even if 50% are underage, that's a huge number.
squigz
There are literally countless fully legitimate porn sites that aren't Pornhub and that won't give you "malware"
It's not 1999 anymore. Stop going to sketchy sites to watch porn.
k8sToGo
Is it really down or do they just use a VPN
InsideOutSanta
They don't even need to use a VPN, they just need to find a different porn site.
DagsEoress
Most likely a mix. Not all children know how to operate a VPN.
f33d5173
As soon as one of them figures it out, they tell their friends, who tell their friends, and so on until all of them know.
b800h
Interestingly, Google is still allowed to show explicit search results from these sites, which is absurd, and is a gap in the law, as now "search" sites have appeared which just do the same thing, but use videos.
mrweasel
If nothing else it is an interesting experiment. I'm just not sure what we should expect the result to be, both in terms of teen mentality and industry impact.
defrost
I'd expect teens entering UK industry to more mentally adept at bypassing gatekeeping.
yawpitch
Shockingly, visits from datacenters just inside the EU have more than tripled in the same time frame.
thefz
I guess some other places got an increase that summed up are close to that 77% :)
jasonvorhe
At least some grease in the Digital ID machinery.
random9749832
Civilisation would be better off without porn but this was obviously always a non-solution. In fact Google doesn't even censor its images still.
irusensei
I'm so glad there are people like you with opinions about what's best for me and civilization.
random9749832
I don't know about you but "defending pornography to strangers" wasn't on my bucket list. Glad you got it out of your system.
irusensei
I call it personal freedom.
I'd like very much to remove moral busybodies from my system but it seems very hard for people who have a grand plan for society to top coercing and leave me alone.
Its none of your business if people voluntarily produce it and its also none of your business if people voluntarily market it between each other.
jalapenoe
[dead]
BergAndCo
I'm so glad that the knobs who hate the idea of perpetuating civilization self-select out of the gene pool.
squigz
Is Safe Search not a thing anymore?
random9749832
you mean the thing you can turn off in a click?
squigz
Are you saying that blocks that are trivial to bypass are not very useful?
Hmmm...
(Also, I'll point out there are parental control settings for Google accounts)
In related news [1] "VPNs top download charts as age verification law kicks in [...] one app maker told the BBC it had seen an 1,800% spike in downloads."
It's going to be interesting to see how this plays with voters at the next election. Politicians think this censorship is a vote-winner, presumably because on the doorstep voters are unlikely to talk about their love of porn. Yet in online spaces, this policy seems wildly unpopular - especially with the high profile leaks of age validation services' user data; the government's legal battles with Wikipedia; Steam's demand for credit cards (debit cards are more common in the UK); and sites leaving the UK market all together.
I suppose we'll get to see whose polling is more accurate at the next election.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn72ydj70g5o