The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

Overall view of the Online Safety Act changes

• Many see the age-gating rules as technically naïve “theater” that politicians know won’t work but can sell as “protecting children.”
• Others argue it’s a deliberate step in a longer UK trend toward greater surveillance and control (e.g. compelled decryption, attacks on end‑to‑end encryption).
• A different view is that this is a partisan trap: an outgoing government passed an unworkable, illiberal law, forcing the new one to either enforce censorship or be painted as “pro‑porn for kids.”

Circumvention and VPNs

• Commenters list easy bypass paths: free VPNs (often shady), built‑in VPNs in browsers, friends’ VPNs, TOR, and countless non‑UK porn sites.
• Payment isn’t a strong barrier: teens can have debit/prepaid cards, crypto can be acquired without formal KYC (mining, informal cash trades), and some VPNs accept mailed cash.
• Several predict the rules will mainly drive minors toward risky “free VPN” botnets and black‑market services, harming overall cybersecurity.
• Some fear the next step will be age/ID checks to buy VPNs or de facto VPN criminalisation; others think that overestimates legislators’ competence or intent.

Crime, safety, and political rhetoric

• One thread ties the law to a narrative of exploding crime, rape, and religious extremism and claims the Act is used to silence discussion.
• Multiple replies push back hard, calling this far‑right fear‑mongering and citing official statistics that overall crime is generally down, with caveats about recording changes and sexual offences.
• There is disagreement over how to interpret rising reported rapes: more crime vs better reporting. Some note the original claim was repeatedly edited to track the argument.

Effectiveness and harms of porn controls

• Supporters argue controls don’t need to be perfect, just reduce exposure, analogizing to tobacco and alcohol regulation and indoor smoking bans.
• Critics say downloading a VPN is vastly easier and lower‑friction than sneaking cigarettes, and that blocks risk pushing kids toward unmoderated, illegal content.
• A long sub‑debate questions whether “porn addiction” is comparable to alcohol/gambling, whether harms are empirically demonstrated, and whether that justifies sacrificing privacy.

Jurisdiction, geoblocking, and platform responsibility

• Some are disturbed that sites with no UK presence are pre‑emptively geoblocking UK IPs; others say extraterritorial claims (like GDPR or state laws) are longstanding and part of doing business online.
• There is debate over whether liability should sit with foreign site operators or domestic ISPs acting as “importers.”
• A recurring theme is frustration that large social and porn platforms allegedly prioritise growth and profit over moderating explicit content for minors, motivating calls for stronger regulation.

Age verification technology and privacy

• Several commenters doubt face‑based age estimation: even with huge datasets it’s said to be unreliable across ethnicities, mixed heritage, and real‑world lighting.
• Others note ongoing work: EU age‑verification blueprints, W3C digital credentials, and Apple/Google wallet‑based ID systems, some aiming at zero‑knowledge proofs.
• Proposed designs range from complex identity‑authority protocols to a single shared “over‑18” token; discussion centres on token sharing, deanonymisation risks, and whether any scheme can stop adults from simply “lending” their credential.

Parents vs state

• One camp says parents should use device/platform parental controls and allow‑lists, not state censorship.
• Another argues parental controls are weak in practice and that governments must force large platforms and porn sites to implement real age checks, analogous to ID checks for alcohol or gambling.