VPNs popular workaround as US age verification debate comes to a head

A large swath of the southern United States have lost access to major online porn sites over age verification laws.

With the issue set to hit the U.S. Supreme Court next week, when oral arguments regarding Texas’ age assurance law begin, legal friction continues over whether age assurance measures violate the Constitution.

Pornhub, one of the world’s largest purveyors of adult content online, is standing firm, listing 16 states which now have the digital equivalent of a chastity belt. “We firmly believe age verification can make the internet a safer space for everyone, when it is done right,” says a statement from the company. “Unfortunately, the way these new laws are executed by lawmakers is ineffective and puts users’ privacy at risk.”

Alongside digital rights activists, porn providers lean into arguments about free speech and access to educational material. Meanwhile, virtual private network (VPN) use in the southern states has grown noticeably engorged, as randy surfers look for security workarounds.

Tennessee law blocked on First Amendment grounds

Tennessee wants in on age assurance laws for pornographic websites, but a judge has blocked the state’s law for now. ABC News reports that U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman in Memphis ruled that the law would likely suppress the First Amendment rights of adults without actually protecting children.

Florida’s attorney general’s office is appealing the decision.

The proposed Tennessee law, which is popular with the state’s supermajority Republican legislature, would impose felony penalties and civil liability for violations – some of the stiffest age verification laws on the books.

The judge’s ruling notes that easily accessible VPNs make it easy for minors to skirt age verification measures, and that porn is still easy to find on social media.

On New Year’s Eve, Florida fappers flock to VPNs

In Florida, the Free Speech Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group for the adult content industry, is making a similar legal play. A report from MyNews 13 Orlando says the group claims House Bill 3 – which imposes civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation on websites that fail to verify the age and identity of users – doesn’t do what it’s supposed to.

It quotes the coalition’s director of public policy, Mike Stabile, who notes that websites hosting adult content are exempt from the law if the material comprises less than a third of their total content.

“The way HB 3 works is it says if you have less than a third of your content on your site, then you don’t have to comply with this law,” Stabile says. “That means tons of sites with adult content are not age-verified. It’s tremendously ineffective.”

While Stabile might have trouble pointing to sites that are, say, two thirds scrapbooking content and one third threesomes, he may be right in noting the existence of loopholes in some age assurance schemes. Forbes cites numbers from VpnMentor, a site that tracks the VPN industry, which “detected a surge of 1,150 percent in VPN demand” in Florida between midnight and 4am on January 1 – just after Pornhub pulled out.

The trend isn’t limited to Florida. According to a recent piece in Forbes, “the raft of U.S. states that have jumped on this age verification bandwagon has triggered the kind of rush to VPNs normally only seen in war-torn, autocratic or heavily censored markets – Iran, Russia, China and North Korea, rather than Florida, Texas and South Carolina.”

Age Verification Provider’s Association (AVPA) Executive Director Iain Corby calls this “the VPN fallacy,” saying during a panel discussion in late-2023: “I’ve never seen a piece of legislation that says, ‘we wish to protect children in this particular U.S. state (unless they use your VPN, in which case it’s okay).’ That’s not how the legislation is written.”

LGBTQ+ advocates fear censorship, conservative crackdown

The ongoing VPN orgy points to a couple of hard truths. One, a lot of people use porn but would prefer to keep their habit private. Two, as much as adult industry representatives talk about the First Amendment, their main problem is that, when age assurance measures take effect, they lose users by the millions.

The First Amendment argument holds more weight when tabled by LGBTQ advocates. A piece in Them, a Condé Nast publication featuring “storytelling on the fight for LGBTQ+ rights,” suggests that right-wing politicians who helped craft the Project 2025 “policy wish-list” see age verification as a “back door” to broader bans on pornography, and a way to crack down on LGBTQ-positive resources. Pornography has long been a ripe target for conservative politicians, and the architects of 2025 skew toward the Christian right, and have shown open hostility to diversity initiatives.

Can age assurance work without collecting any PII at all?

Privacy advocates often raise flags about the retention of user data, and the related risks of data breaches and identity theft. Their assertions like to ignore that porn sites themselves aren’t typically collecting data, and that laws, policies and practices ensure any personally identifying data collected by third parties for age verification is deleted as soon as possible.

A government ID, face biometrics, a browser history heavily weighted toward S&M content: none of this is appealing to hand over to untrusted parties. Age verification providers are working to build the necessary trust to operate as intended. But they also understand the evident truth: people in the southern United States really want to watch porn.

Whoever can offer them an accurate, secure way to do it without handing over ID or personally identifying biometrics will likely receive a warm welcome, indeed.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  data collection  |  data privacy  |  digital identity  |  Florida  |  legislation  |  Tennessee  |  United States