UK Age Verification Data Confirms Mass Migration to Sketchier Sites

The Tech Dirt story conflates two things. 1) their own experiment that proved no age check applied behind a vpn 2) the astronomical rise in UK originated visits to adults-only sites from VPN and derived a statement of a third thing: this means "more kids" are bypassing and accessing sketchy sites.

In simple arithmetic terms yes: more kids are now probably using VPN. In equally simple absolute terms, probably less kids overall are now accessing sketchy sites because many kids won't do this, and there is a problem latent here for both sides: the number of under-age visitors is an unknown. It's an estimate.

I don't think techdirt did themselves any favours in this story. It doesn't make me think the UK government will reverse course, or that they will see this as a "failure" any more than kids lying about their age to get smokes and booze makes the government stop applying age rules over the counter in dodgy shops.