More Evidence Surfaces That Users Are Heading to Non-Compliant Websites Over Age Verification

The prediction of users flooding websites that refuse to comply with age verification continues to hold true.

Throughout the various debates about age verification, experts like myself warned that age verification technology is vulnerable to privacy and security risks, are easily circumvented, unreliable, prone to expand further and further into other lawfully protected forms of speech, and would cause users to flood websites that refuse to comply in droves. At this point, every single one of those predictions came true despite politicians who insisted that the problem is that people aren’t believing hard enough in these laws. For those politicians, all it takes is those large sites to nerd harder and come up with a solution to comply with the law they are dreaming up. As it turns out, wishful thinking doesn’t necessarily make for good legislation.

Already, ID verification systems have been known for getting hacked, leak, and breached, fulfilling the security prediction of these things. As for privacy, research into these “solutions” have repeatedly shown that privacy is not respected. This was found by a CNIL study, a 2023 Australian study and a subsequent Australian study earlier this year. One of the overwhelming conclusions is that these companies are known to hold on to information far more than they say they do. That fulfills the privacy nightmare prediction.

As for the prediction that these technologies would be easily circumvented, that has played out with users using VPNs, video game characters, and fake IDs. these methods are known to fool the age verification systems. That fulfills the easily circumvented prediction.

Then there is the unreliable factor. Research has long concluded that things like facial recognition and artificial intelligence are often very inaccurate – especially when dealing with people close to the age limit being set. That fulfills the unreliability prediction.

Next is the prediction that such policies are prone to censorship creep. Indeed, the UK has already pushed to expand into other areas beyond “pornography” and included the language “harmful” on their Online Safety Act. Reddit, in response to age verification requirements, began censoring speech and even going so far as to censor support groups on quitting smoking and drinking among other things. Australia, for their part, have been pushing a blanket ban of youth access to social media including YouTube. That fulfills the prediction of censorship creep.

Finally, there is the prediction that people would also start flooding websites that refuse to comply in droves. Last month, traffic data confirmed that this is precisely what is happening. Apparently, additional research is confirming that this is exactly what is happening. The hilarious thing about this is the fact that some media outlets are acting as though this was totally unexpected and unforeseen when this was long warned about. From PCGamer:

A new report suggests that the UK’s age verification measures may be having unforeseen knock-on effects on web traffic, with the real winners being sites that flout the law entirely.

Web users in the UK will likely be familiar with the new measures: a lot of my usual social media haunts now require age verification to even let me look at my direct messages as part of the Online Safety Act’s stipulations. I swear that’s the real reason I’ve not been getting back to folks in my direct messages—and not, you know, the usual excuse of a mix of overwhelm and straightforward forgetfulness. Social apps aside, many genuinely adult websites are restricting access too.

Sure, there are ways around this if you’d rather not feed your personal data to a platform’s third-party age verification vendor. However, sites are seeing more significant consequences beyond just locking you out of your DMs. For a start, The Washington post reports web traffic to pornography sites implementing age verification has taken a totally predictable hit—but those flouting the new age check requirements have seen traffic as much as triple compared to the same time last year.

The Washington Post looked at the 90 most visited porn sites based on UK visitor data from Similarweb. Of the 90 total sites, 14 hadn’t yet deployed ‘scan your face’ age checks. The publication found that while traffic from British IP addresses to sites requiring age verification had cratered, the 14 sites without age checks “have been rewarded with a flood of traffic” from UK-based users.

Let me reiterate: nothing about this was unforeseen or even surprising. People and organizations like Pornhub have long warned that people will flood websites that don’t have these requirements. Back in February of 2024, I reported on a story that contains a statement from Pornhub. Here’s a quote from that report:

“In US states where we have introduced age verification or removed access to our platform, we have seen a surge in searches for other, often unregulated adult sites with no trust and safety or moderation processes,” stated the company, adding that users can find ways to torrent illegal sites that do not ask for age verification.

(emphasis mine)

Oops!

The problem is that the media and lawmakers ignored these warnings and excised these warnings from their collective memories. This in a bid to pretend that there are no valid counterarguments to their totally legit and totally perfect age verification bill. This is reality continuing to do what it wants and not caring about these lawmakers personal beliefs. There’s a big difference between something unforeseen happening and something that happened that was long warned about.

Now, I know there will be those out there arguing that this is something that is going to get addressed over time with the use of DNS blocking. Websites – especially pirate websites – have long evaded DNS blocking by constantly changing domains. This been going on for decades with one example being The Pirate Bay’s ‘The Hydra Bay‘ project clear back in 2007. If the site is determined to screw with authorities, they will be able to do so. Blocking orders for websites take time to work through the courts. Mirrors and alternative domains can crop up overnight. This makes trying to block an offending website through DNS means a futile effort. Hosting content that the government is trying to block can be a highly lucrative business. Someone out there is going to be willing to do it for the money. Either way, this is a losing battle for the government.

At any rate, this is little more than reality finally hitting and bursting the bubbles of the highly delusional. Unfortunately, governments are going to be incentivized to inflict further damage onto the internet in response to things like this. The people that get hurt are going to be the people who are suffering under these surveillance and censorship programs and people who are trying to build legitimate businesses online. It happened with file-sharing and free speech is on track to repeat this history. Again, something that I have long predicted.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.