Study Says Age Verification Ineffective Against Porn, Violates Constitution
State laws that require age verification to access adult websites fail a constitutional cost-benefit analysis and are easy to circumvent, particularly for teens, according to a study by free-market think tank Phoenix Center.
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To conduct the study, George Ford, chief economist at Phoenix Center, constructed a panel dataset from all 50 states and the District of Columbia of weekly Google Trends data on the search terms “VPN” and “free porn” between January 2022 and September 2025.
The pattern that emerged “aligns with expected behavioral responses to adult sites shutting down in response to age verification laws," Ford wrote. First, there's "an immediate panic as users discover access is blocked." Next, "sustained elevated interest" occurs "as users research and implement VPN solutions." This is followed by "decay as early adopters find workarounds and word spreads about alternative methods or sites.”
The study also found “a perverse outcome: age verification laws may be least effective at blocking motivated teenagers who are the primary policy concern,” while imposing costs on adults. The adults either give up as they try to access the legal content or face resistance when using a VPN.
VPNs can have spillover into things beyond the adult industry as well, the study found, and cause disruption to targeted advertising and issues with fraud detection. Additionally, “VPNs and firewalls accounted for 58% of ransomware incidents in 2024, with VPN vulnerabilities representing the top entry point for ransomware attacks,” it said.
“The evidence suggests a regulatory regime where the intended targets -- tech-savvy minors -- can easily bypass restrictions while adults exercising constitutional rights bear the primary costs,” said Ford in a press release Wednesday.
“When a policy’s burdens on protected speech substantially exceed its effectiveness at achieving its stated purpose, it fails the constitutional requirement of being ‘substantially related’ to that purpose, regardless of how important the objective may be,” he continued. “Add to this the cybersecurity risks and degradation of internet infrastructure, and we have a clear case where costs exceed benefits.”