Time for a reality check. Legislators and regulators are now blindly heading towards a “disaster” of their own making. This needs to stop before it’s too late. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that banning or restricting online porn and then banning or restricting any technologies that enable adults to continue to watch online porn is a “terrible idea.”
EFF says VPN bans that have been mooted in parts of the U.S. and Europe are now “actually happening” and will be “a disaster for everyone.” This backwards privacy move has always been and should always remain inconceivable. But it’s suddenly very real. “Lawmakers want to ban VPNs,” EFF warns. “They have no idea what they’re doing.”
Whisper it quietly, but there’s a blatant flaw in all this thinking. There’s a solution to the problem that doesn’t completely break the internet and put millions of users at risk.
Porn bans and age verification restrictions have been justified on child safety grounds. Kids can too easily access porn, deliberately or accidentally, and this needs to stop. No argument from anyone to that. These bans and restrictions are geographically based. And so a VPN that hides a user’s location enables an easy, immediate bypass.
That’s why the same lawmakers and regulators behind porn bans are now proposing or exploring VPN bans. But this suggests kids are using VPNs to access porn. That’s not accidental or casual access to adult content. That’s something different.
That’s also not what’s happening. Adults are using VPNs to access porn, because they don’t want to identify themselves or provide ID, especially not to porn websites. And there’s a separate, unintended risk here as well. Many of those VPNs are dangerous.
Good VPNs — ones that actually keep you secure — are not free. They’re paid for on subscription and installed from official app stores. These VPNs may not monitor or log online activity, but they know who has installed the app. Because it’s paid for.
The best way to enforce porn laws is to ban free VPNs and VPNs from unofficial stores. That stops any casual use. Parents can then use existing family app store payment approvals to stop VPNs being installed by their kids.
The millions installing apps from Nord or Proton or Surfshark or Norton readily identify themselves to those developers. That’s very different to doing so to Pornhub or to a government mandated age verification service. We don’t need an ill-conceived, government designed software gate to guard access to VPNs.
The other benefit is that removing free VPNs or at least those not supplied to adult app store accounts would remove the threat that Google and others have flagged. Free VPNs, especially those from China, would be removed. And that’s a good thing.
Forcing users to pay for VPNs or at least open verifiable accounts with trusted VPN providers is the right alternative to further, ill-conceived legislation. In reality, though, it’s not needed. The great unsaid here is that there’s no surge in underage VPN use.
The problem has likely been fixed — mostly. Pornhub’s claim porn use has plummeted post new laws is not right. It coincides with VPN installs surging — almost all of which will be adult users. But it’s almost certain underage porn use has plummeted.
Whatever measures are put in place must be workable. Banning or even restricting VPNs is dangerous, but also technically near impossible. New bypasses would be found in this nonsensical game of whack-a-mole. Lawmakers need to take a step back, engage with industry experts, and stop this runaway train before it’s too late.
