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Searches for “VPN” in Arizona over the last week have skyrocketed after a new porn age verification law took effect. Pornhub may have barred Arizona users, but some residents aren’t letting that stop them.
Over the last week, hundreds of Arizonans have been jumping onto their laptops or phones to Google “VPN,” which stands for “virtual private network.” A VPN is an application that blocks users’ IP addresses and connects them to a different location. In their search, they’ll come across various VPN platforms, including ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark.
According to Google Trends, the popularity of the Google search for “VPN” has peaked in Arizona over the last week. In the United States, Arizona remains the state with the most searches and interest in the topic for that time period. While it’s unclear if all Arizona searches were porn related — VPNs are often also used to access streaming services — many were. The top related searches to VPN are “internet pornography,” “Pornhub” and “RedTube,” another porn site.
While the search for VPN data fluctuates daily, the number of Arizonans searching for VPNs has been steadily increasing since mid-last week. That’s when Pornhub, the world’s most trafficked porn site, began warning users that they would soon be losing access to the website in a few days because of the law.
Republican state Rep. Nick Kupper sponsored the bill and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed it earlier this year. The law went into effect Sept. 26 and requires users to turn over their government IDs to porn sites to prove that they’re at least 18 years old. The idea is to prevent minors from accessing adult content, though Pornhub and other groups have warned about the privacy risks of asking users to associate their identity with what porn they watch.
Rather than require users to hand over their IDs or risk a $250,000 fine for a single failure to verify age, Pornhub decided to cut off access completely. In a statement on the website, Pornhub said handing over your ID card is “not the most effective solution” and will “put children and your privacy at risk.” In response, people are still finding ways to get their rocks off by exploiting the easily accessible VPN loophole.
A VPN will help users bypass the Grand Canyon state’s newly implemented age-verification requirements or bans. Instead of users’ IP addresses being associated with an Arizona location, a VPN will connect through a server in a different location to access the internet.
