Virtual private networks, which allow internet users to bypass geographic restrictions, have seen a surge in demand after sites in the Pornhub family pulled their content out of France.
Aylo Freesites, the parent company of Pornhub, Redtube and YouPorn on Wednesday suspended the sites for French users, instead routing them to a message protesting planned French measures on age verification to protect minors.
The suspension took effect Wednesday afternoon and within half an hour ProtonVPN saw registrations increase by 1,000 percent, the VPN said in a X post. That’s a bigger increase than when the United States tried to ban video-sharing platform TikTok, ProtonVPN said.
France was the second-biggest source of traffic for Pornhub in 2024 behind the United States, according to the company’s own statistics.
A NordVPN spokesperson told POLITICO they have seen a 170 percent increase in usage since Wednesday. “We see similar spikes wherever digital freedoms are threatened or content is censored,” the spokesperson said.
Demand for VPNs overall increased by 334 percent on June 4, compared to the average of the 28 previous days, said ranking site Top10VPN.
France had set a deadline of June 7 for adult content sites to implement age verification measures.
Aylo says France’s measures do not effectively keep minors off their platforms and jeopardize people’s privacy. It says that while it isn’t opposed to age verification measures in principle, it argues these should primarily take place at the device level.
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