Porn restrictions are leading to a VPN boom

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

VPN Use Cases and Recommendations

  • Many participants use VPNs to:
    • Avoid ISP tracking, copyright trolls, or state firewalls (Texas-style porn laws, sanctions, generic censorship).
    • Bypass geo-restrictions and ISP DNS blocking.
  • Frequently recommended services:
    • Mullvad, AirVPN, ProtonVPN, PIA, Windscribe, personal WireGuard/OpenVPN on VPS, Tailscale exit nodes.
    • iCloud Private Relay and Cloudflare/AdGuard/Mullvad DNS for lighter “proxy-like” protection.
  • Some argue the “best VPN” is one you control (VPS + WireGuard/OpenVPN), especially for travel to countries like China.
  • Skepticism: hard to know if any VPN is truly trustworthy; lack of scandals and “techie” features are taken as weak proxies for trust.

Age-Verification Laws, Privacy, and Constitutionality

  • Strong debate about US state laws requiring age checks for porn:
    • Supporters: laws target distribution to minors, not adult consumption; analogized to ID checks for alcohol or adult stores; argue sites are negligent and brought this on themselves.
    • Critics: laws are vague, internally contradictory, and practically force use of privacy-hostile KYC/ID vendors and data brokers; retention clauses don’t fix risks from collection/transmission.
  • Disagreement over:
    • Whether existing ID services can avoid storing sensitive data.
    • Whether laws truly prohibit meaningful retention, and whether enforcement via user lawsuits is adequate.
    • How much these laws threaten free speech and whether they are effectively backdoor porn bans.
  • Alternative proposals:
    • Device- or OS-level age verification.
    • Standardized content labeling (e.g., RTA-style headers) plus robust parental controls and router/DNS-based filtering.
    • Some say porn platforms already support metadata and lobby for such solutions; others think they did too little, too late.

Censorship, Workarounds, and Kids

  • VPNs, Tor, DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS, custom DNS (1.1.1.1, Mullvad, AdGuard), and proxies are widely used to bypass censorship (schools, religious states, Turkey, UK ISP blocks).
  • Several note that in middle/high school VPN use to bypass school filters is already common.
  • Some warn against casually giving “security advice” in repressive contexts, because partial solutions (only changing DNS, for example) may create dangerous overconfidence.

Broader Normative Debates

  • Arguments over whether porn is:
    • A liberating force, a normal pleasure, or a serious addictive harm and tool of social control.
  • Some worry about slippery slopes: from porn restrictions to VPN bans or broader speech controls.
  • Others see these state measures as democratic “behavioral constraint” that aligns with large blocs of voters.