Comment by foldr
7 days ago
To an extent, but people can’t have this both ways. If the checks really are trivial to get around then why complain about them? In reality we know that most people are lazy and have poor technical skills, so it’s rather likely that this will substantially reduce the amount of porn that under 18s are accessing.
I think this is wishful thinking. Using a VPN is very much so within the capability of normal mobile users today and many people are aware of them (wide advertising on social media, news articles, discussions, etc.). It's not harder than installing e.g. WhatsApp or TikTok. Couple that with the Streisand effect and just normal teenage rebellion behaviour and honestly it could lead to an increase.
It’s not “wishful thinking” because I don’t have any reason to care particularly whether less porn gets watched or not. I don’t wish for it. I just think you’d be surprised at how much small inconveniences will affect the behavior of average people.
Another factor is that a lot of sites won’t work well with a VPN these days. So you really need to keep switching back and forth, which is a pain (especially on mobile).