Pornhub, YouPorn, Redtube, and other content sharing platforms will block new users in the UK starting next week(February 2)
9 months ago by Beep to c/technology
Someone has been reading 1984… I’m not disagreeing with you, just saying ‘hi fellow doom reader’.
Hey I heard that theres a Very Pretty Neat trick for Brits to "travel abroad" effortlessly
House of Lords voted for age verification on VPNs. Not for them of course.....
So rent a VPS abroad and run your own VPN from it. Comercial VPNs have a business to maintain so they've got to comply to keep operating and public advertising, but a privately run VPN just for yourself is just another TLS connection in a sea of other traffic.
I'm aware, got options set up. But the vast majority of people? It's not all about me like.
Give it a bit of time and you'll need a license to use a VPN. Without a license, your ISP can snitch in you. Unless you use starlink.
Your ISP could snitch on you for tons of 'illegal' traffic, but they don't because that would require deep packet inspection on an absurd amount of traffic and they gain nothing for it. Instead they pass on notices when they receive them from third parties, and take enforcement actions (like cutting off their service to you) only when they're directed to. They want your money after all.
Torrenting for example; only gets flagged when copyright holders join torrent trackers, then send letters to ISPs that control the IPs found in those groups. That's not the ISP hunting you down, they're just passing on a legal notice they've been given and thus are obligated to pass it to you.
From and ISPs perspective; a VPN connection doesn't look any different than any other TLS connection, ie https. There's nothing for them to snitch because a) they can't tell the difference without significant investment to capture and perform deep analysis on traffic at an absurd scale and b) they have no desire to even look and then snitch on customers, that just costs them paying customers.
The ONLY reason this can be enforced at all, is because comercial VPN companies want to advertise and sell their services to customers; so lawmakers can directly view and monitor those services.
Lawmakers have no way of even knowing about, let alone inspecting an individuals private VPN that's either running from private systems or from a foreign VPS.
All that's not even touching things like SSH tunneling - in a sense, creating a VPN from an SSH connection; one of the most ubiquitous protocols for controlling server infrastructure around the globe. Even if traffic was inspected to find SSH connections, you CAN'T block this or you disrupt IT infrastructure at such an alarming scale there'd be riots.
Time for a VVPN.
Jokes aside, a Double VPN exists, which masks your VPN with a VPN.
Doesn't matter. Chinese people found a way around the firewall, pretty sure there are nerds in UK that will find a way.
What does age verification mean for VPNs?
Because if I'm using a VPN using a UK server and I get any issues, I can switch to Spain, or Italy, or Zimbabwe or whatever. Is that not the case?
The government can decree that ISPs have to block the IP addresses of known VPN endpoints. That's perfectly possible. They did something similar with piracy sites before (e.g. if you go visit piratebay on virgin media you'll get an error page). It's a game of cat-and-mouse because if it's done with DNS then aliases pop up immediately, and if it's by IP then other proxies pop up, but the fact is they could make is so difficult for average users that people give up.
So I guess no more internships at companies with more than one office.
China doesn't even really allow VPNs at all, yet some people can still go over the firewall.
If it's just "age restriction", I'm sure there will suddenly be a lot of grandpa/grandmas buying VPNs¹
¹When China tried to restrict online video games, kids just used their grandparents IDs for verification lmfao
China's VPN blocking is actually very, very effective, and the vast majority of people don't go around it.
And that's kinda the point - the controls don't have to be 100%, they just have to cover the majority. And for the few that do circumvent - well, that's just one more easy crime for the authorities to charge you with if they ever feel the need.
the vast majority of people don’t go around it
That's because there's also a language barrier thing.
Exhibit A: My parents (born in China) are here in US and they just be using wechat all the time even without the firewall.
This will lead to, sexual blackmail of children, suicide and financial fraud.
You should thank the UK for sacrificing so many of its citizens to show the world what peak government stupidity looks like. We thought the point was made with Brexit, but the UK says “hold my beer” one more time.
Ah yes America, the embodiment of “if he jumped off a cliff would you do it as well?” Followed by “Hold my Bud Light”
Which will be reacted to with even more authoritarian shit.
If you live in the UK or in another country where porn is being restricted:
- Talk with friends and family about getting a VPN (EDIT: Some recommendations I've heard are Air VPN, Private Internet Access, and, despite not having port forwarding, which is essentially one less major feature, Mullvad VPN. A thank-you to @jmf@lemmy.dbzer0.com for suggesting the former two.)
- Learn to use the Tor network (it's really easy to start, and unlike popular belief, Tor isn't only for illegal activities)
- Pressure MPs that didn't vote in favor of the age verification bill by sending emails to them about it so that they fight (or keep fighting) this age verification nonsense.
You don't need to be a porn addict to do these things. In fact, they have started with porn, but they may as well keep going and fight for age verification in other types of content, making access to said content way more difficult. The best thing you can do right now is to learn to fight back.
If you live in the UK or in another country where porn is being restricted: Talk with friends and family
Hmmmmm... Maybe not though
" Help me, stepbro. I can't access PornHub anymore 🥹 "
Im stuck in age-verification
UK is going to be requiring age verification for VPN access. https://reclaimthenet.org/...
Will this mean all VPNs will comply? Obviously not, but the bigger names will either pull out or comply as we seeing with the bigger porn sites.
The next step after this will be criminalization of using a VPN without age verification.
Wait, WHAT? They already voted? I didn't expect that so soon...
It was planned from the beginningas the real drivers behind the detail of the legislation, the security services, knew people would use VPNs and those have always been the main target.
Its why the legislation was written in the first place. Most people's identity is already tied to their connection via big tech social media. Its the people who use VPNs they can lose track of.
I would expect this to be a live requirement by the end of the year at the latest.
Just be glad the client side scanning keeps getting rejected thats in the same legislation.
Are there any VPNs that didn't? I couldn't really find any, and tbh it's not a massive issue for torrenting. I still upload a fair bit, but obviously not as much as I would be if I had ports open.
Private Internet Access and Njalla both allow port forwarding.
Mullvad is heavily shilled, and for some reason no online discussion ever ends on a critical note. Be wary and don't assume the group is always correct.
You say that Mullvad is heavily shilled, and I'd like to learn more about it. Would you mind showing a concrete example, so I can better inform myself?
AirVPN allow port forwarding.
I use Mullvad for my day to day devices like my phone and laptop, and AirVPN in my homelab for things like torrenting.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I'll try this out with my current torrenting setup and see if it is better
P2P requires at least 1 person to have open port forwarding. Ideally, everyone has it open on their VPN. The more people start recommending vpns without it, the more torrents as a whole start to die as everyone I inherently becomes a burden on the system.
I had no idea. According to what I'm reading, if I switch to IPv6, it would effectively solve the problem? I see that mullvad does support it, but will have to look into the individual containers I'm using, as well as docker itself I guess.
Networking is a nightmare to understand
What VPN(s) would you recommend?
PIA (Private Internet Access) seems really good. I am currently finishing up a 2 year discounted Protonvpn subscription but am reevaluating it as a viable option due to recent political posts from the CEO. As far as the service goes it was great though.
Fair point. I just assumed most people reading my message wouldn't care much about torrenting, but in this economy where censorship is pretty much happening, port forwarding would definitely be a plus. Do you have better suggestions?
Airvpn or Private internet access seem to be the good options nowadays, MAYBE protonvpn if you can separate the product from the owner, due to the CEO making inflammatory statements on his socials. That's a call you have to make for yourself and your own threat model.
Sorry it took so long, but I added some of your suggestions in. Thanks.
Don’t use tor for porn. Use i2p. You can torrent without breaking shit on i2p.
Here's a free VPN that you can use: https://riseup.net/en/vpn
Try not to assume that there aren't free alternatives to what "the crowd" is constantly herding you to pay for. Do some digging, and you may be surprised by what you come across.
Most of the good stuff is buried underneath mountains of bullshit.
The cost for us to offer RiseupVPN is approximately $60 USD per person per year. If you use the VPN, please consider donating at least this much. Thank you!
That's the same as Mullvad then, or more if you consider that everyone who can afford it should pay for more than their fair share because some can not.
If no one pays for it then it disappears, dummy.
Yall may wanna step in and nip that kind of authoritarianism in the bud because it doesn't get easier when it's matured.
That's not the point. This is a protest by the company running these sites against a system that's not fit for its claimed purpose (age restriction of websites) but is very fit for surveillance.
Well it kinda is the point, people will either use VPNs or go to riskier sources. I found a new site with loads of porn and all you have to do is install their browser plug-in, and video player!
What would we even call a decentralized porn site?
FaptivityPub
FapivityPub*
Fapiverse
OpenVDA
Open Vagina, Dick, Asshole
More importantly, what type of content would be most popular in fediverse?
Wouldn’t the ideal be self hosted content made by the people hosting it? Obviously there’s no mechanical means to block people from uploading content that they don’t make, but those kinds of ethical questions and control of access can be handled by federation networks.
Decentralizing these things could lead to a better way for sex workers to work safely (SESTA/FOSTA closed up a lot of safer avenues for sex work in the US) There’s a lot of rules for trust that you can build into these systems, things like basic encryption with private and public keys.
Someone who didn’t want their content online could take it down easily. They could easily gate it - like, think about where most of the profit the actresses and actors videos go to now? If you are watching stuff for free on a website, it’s the website getting ad revenue and maybe the company. Do they get royalties? Workers should own the means of their reproduction.
There calling it NoFap February.
I think it will be interesting to see what happens as a result of cuting a population off from porn.
Oi there bruv, you got a liosence for that there wank
or use vpn/proxies to get around it. these are all PH-owned sites, i wonder if it affects the non-PH affiliates porn sites.
UK is requiring age verification on VPNs too
If videos from other places with no porn are anything to go off of, they're going to start learning how to drive their cars on two wheels without the distraction of porn.
Also seeing how many times they can get the car to spin after pulling the handbrake at highway speed.
I remember when you didn't have to have a VPN to enjoy the internet.
What vpn obfuscations do you use? Because you know they'll block vpn next.
It's not some theoretical topic, it's the reality for China, Russia, Iran. They do block commonly used VPN protocols, so people now use VPN with obfuscations. Some work, some doesn't, some stop working as time goes. So when people say "Ha-ha, I'll just use VPN", it will help you for some time but the trend is they will make it a problem for you, better start preparing before it happened.
How do you know if something is encrypted?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
Or for more practical implementations: https://blog.frost.kiwi/ssh-over-https-tunneling/ (granted, this one uses normal looking encryption to hide hide maybe unwanted encypted traffic) https://nurdletech.com/...
I knew HTTP would make a return without its brother TLS someday!
There several sites I visit I have to fight with cause of VPN blocking.
They fully can't, there's too many legitimate reasons that their corporate overlords use it for, the most you'll get is loud filibuster about "we'll totally do that!" until the topic gets forgotten.
Also, my personal conspiracy is that someone important in the gov owns some secret stocks and shares in a VPN company and this was very much a cash grab from that person.
Again, that's not some theoretical topic. They can block most VPNs, they do so in China, Russia, Iran. And there are no riots on the streets, their corporate overlords don't do anything against it. One of the reasons is that they do allow ipsec for corporate clients. Are you a corporate client? Do you use ipsec for vpn? Are there riots on the streets for this censorship instance?
You think the UK could?
The "tech experts" in government are fucking idiots, almost every single one of them. The most I think they'd be capable of asking providers nicely to follow their rules and then going "hahaha, no", same as happened for every other time.
And I know for a fact that those blocks in China and Russia don't work, cause I talk to a Russian on the daily (she wants to get the fuck out, but hasn't got enough money)
And one major difference, it's very very very easy to form a company in the UK, it's literally a small fee and a form that takes 30-60 minutes to fill in
Tally ho chaps. God hates wankers. 
Uk is even more puritanical than the US,
Coz thats the only place porn exists
Policy makers so naive
Username does not check out.
Or it absolutely checks out.
So that's why that back mirror episode with the pig was set in the UK. They knew.
Looks like it were gonna go back to private VPNs with 10/20 people putting in each month to pay someone in a unrestricted area to run them a VPN.
Keep it small, make it look like enterprise kinda shit.
And UK bollocks grew 5 shades bluer that winter
I just found out today due to work needs that Vimeo already does this.
TBH I didnt know Vimeo was anything like this.
A lot of sites had to block the UK like Imgur, or completely shut down like Urban Dead, because they aren't the kajillion dollar companies the UK government thought the Internet was made of. I don't know why the UK didn't enforce parental control software instead. OSA is a solution for a problem solved 30 years ago and is just going to destroy the Internet since it's not possible for the vast majority of it to adhere to its laws.
its mostly surveillance of political dissidents, they dont really care about the porn content, they just want the identies of everyone that is a potential threat to the oligarchy. and PALINTIR has pitched their services to them already.
Are they partnered up with VPN companies by any chance?
Some random YouTube video? Weak.
Anyone who thinks a government can ban VPNs without destroying economy is deluded. Politicians who say they will don't understand the internet, they're old. Countless businesses use them every day.
So you can still easily hide your location? If I live in Maine and my IP says California, that's still the same country.
Companies and universities are controlled by China in China. There's no opposition party that will win the next elections based on the bad economy.
Again, this thread is about the UK, which is WHY I'm speaking in terms of Western democracies.
Isn't a democracy. We're talking about the UK, remember?
Politicians who say they will don’t understand the internet, they’re old
And that's exactly why they will try. Keep in mind their will still be VPN's. You just won't be able to access it. It will only be for governments and the elite.
And that’s exactly why they will try
And exactly why they'll fail. I can guarantee it's already a minority of lawmakers and that number will dwindle when younger members of their staff tell them how stupid it is.
And every business or school of any size is the "elite"?
Anyone who thinks a government can ban VPNs without destroying economy is deluded
Anyone who thinks government would never do something as utterly stupid as shooting itself repeatedly in the everything out of spite is deluded. Banning all form of encrypted traffic would be insane. Now tell me, how many insane things have we witnessed in the recent years from our collective governments?
Anyone who thinks government would never do something as utterly stupid as shooting itself repeatedly in the everything out of spite is deluded
Yeah, that's just kind of unsubstantiated anti-any-government that is not reflective of reality. We can already see the discontent causes by Trump's economy, it's the biggest threat to him.
Now tell me, how many insane things have we witnessed in the recent years from our collective governments
What does "insane" mean? How is that measured, however you see fit?
It's not unsubstantiated. Push for government-sanctioned client-side spyware already happened years ago with the intent to scan all content and keeps happening every other year, each time with more support, inefficient laws about age control have been pushed in many countries and other are following suits, there's constant harassment to tech company for them to create backdoor for spying on demand, device manufacturer are threatened for allowing custom software that can be used to circumvent such provisions, etc.
If you haven't seen any of this, then sure, be surprised that a ban on general public encryption is not unthinkable.
I’m actually a little concerned some of porn torrenting communities aren’t ready for the jump to i2p yet. Gaytorrents, for example, seems to think this all being blown out of proportion and couldn’t possibly effect them.
Why did your politicians become right-wing grifters? Genuine question.
Sometimes you can bait leftists into "taking the moral high ground"...
I will never understand why people insist on using VPNs in 2026. You are just moving a single point of failure elsewhere and paying someone to lie about spying on you. Move to i2p.
vpn is too easy to track, thats why reddit immediately would recognize user and ban vpn users. on another site, they use private proxies mobile, residential, with anti-detect browsers(use to spoof your fingerprinting, canvas,,,etc) thats how they are using it with hordes of reddit accounts that wont get immediately detected.
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Sexuality is a human right, and controlling sexuality is an authoritarian tactic to manufacture compliance.
“Age verification” is not just a tool for elimination of Internet privacy, it’s also a tool for sexual control.
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