VPNs Are Straight Up Being Sold As a Method to Circumvent Age Verification

Age verification is seen as a financial boon for VPN services – and some sites are capitalizing on this.

Government mandated age verification is a colossally stupid idea. It puts people’s highly sensitive data at risk, assaults free speech, makes the internet a more dangerous place, is a major inconvenience, and literally solves nothing outside of giving people who want to force their morality on others the warm fuzzy feelings and filling the pockets of slimy age verification companies. All of the verifiable evidence pretty much points to any or all of these pitfalls through one method or another.

One of the many Achilles heels of age verification has long been VPN services who happily adjust your location to avoid age verification altogether. Some argue that lawmakers should just bury their heads in the sand and hope this whole thing just goes away on its own. Others have suggested outlawing VPNs selling their services to circumvent age verification. Then there are some of the more extreme thoughts on this subject such as some lawmakers calling for age verification to apply to VPNs (WTF?) or banning VPNs outright (WTF?). The reality is that VPN services existing today exposes just how badly flawed the concept of government mandated age verification really is. This is because there is no real practical way of actually reconciling the existence of VPN services and proposed age verification mandates. Any solution lawmakers come up with only makes the situation worse.

Ultimately, there are good reasons not to input your personal information into age verification systems. In some countries, there are no penalties in the event an age verification company would retain all that information and sell it off to data brokers for a massive profit. It would be straight up immoral for a company like that to do so, but morality is about the last thing on their minds when it comes to trying to make bank off of a moral panic that’s being pushed.

What’s more, any logical person will look at the Discord data breach that exposed tens of thousands (hackers have claimed they stole millions) of government ID and say, “Hey, maybe I don’t want my personal information to be part of the next hack.” After all, a hack like that came amidst so many claiming that personal information is not being stored. After all, this isn’t even a one off incident after the AgeGO scandal.

So, with all this perfectly valid apprehension towards age verification, is it really a surprise that some sites are selling VPNs as a method of circumventing age verification? Not really, but that’s exactly what I spotted today. In one of my feeds, I saw an article on Cloudwards with the headline “Best Missouri VPN 2025 to Bypass Age Verification”. The headline is confusing since it’s built with SEO in mind. It would probably have been better for the headline to read “Best VPN to Bypass Age Verification in Missouri (2025)”, but hey, welcome to the broken English of the underbelly of the internet. The article hilariously does nothing to hide the intention:

Why You Need a VPN for Missouri

You need a VPN for Missouri to keep your online activity private, especially as new laws expand digital tracking. A VPN hides your IP address, encrypts your data and stops third parties from linking your identity to what you’re doing online. This helps you stay secure, private and in control of your online presence.

What Is the Missouri Age Verification Rule: Explained

Missouri’s new age verification law (15 CSR 60-18) takes effect on Nov. 30, 2025, and it requires websites containing at least 33% adult content to verify that visitors are over the age of 18. This must take place through an age verification vendor that checks government-issued ID or digital credentials.

While the law aims to protect minors, it also forces adults to share sensitive data with third parties. Using a VPN for Missouri helps safeguard your privacy by hiding your IP address and bypassing verification requests.

For those who don’t want to click on the link, the recommendations were NordVPN, SurfShark, and ExpressVPN – basically three heavily advertised ones.

What I find striking in all of this is that the fears of personal information are perfectly legitimate. What’s more, I doubt this is the last time someone publishes something like this.

I know there are plenty of those who argue that age verification is basically a method to train people to use VPN services. This shows that there is truth to that, though VPNs aren’t the only ways of circumventing these things. Still, it drives home the point that government is working against your interest and it is up to individuals to protect themselves from government intrusion. What a ridiculous timeline we live in.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.