Jacob Ogles
Demand for virtual private network (VPN) services surged in Florida after Pornhub shut down access in the state. But cybersecurity experts say Floridians using VPNs may find more exposure than they desire.
A report by vpnMentor found the interest in VPNs skyrocketed as the internet’s leading pornography publisher publicly punished states over age verification policies. No state witnessed greater enlargement than Florida, where VPN interest jumped by 1,150% immediately after Pornhub started limiting access on Jan. 1.
“This surge in VPN usage suggests users are circumventing the IP-block and accessing Pornhub (and other restricted websites) through IPs where the block is not implemented,” a report reads.
Pornhub beginning Jan. 1 prohibited users in Florida from accessing pornographic content on the site. A video now greets Florida porn consumers trying to access the site and urges them to contact state lawmakers to object to age verification requirements. The state imposed a requirement for third-party age verification on publishers of content “harmful to minors,” with rules in effect as of the beginning of 2025.
But VPNs allow users to work around geo-blocking measures, including those used by Pornhub, to restrict traffic from certain states. Sports fans have for years used such services to evade regional broadcast rights restrictions.
The vpnMentor report also mentions other contributors to a surge in demand for restriction-dodging technologies. Use of VPNs soared nationwide when a U.S. TikTok ban briefly went into effect this month.
But the researchers found interest in the location-masking software went up disproportionately in 17 states where Pornhub now limits access. They based findings on state-by-state search volume, web traffic and clicks to downloads for VPN services.
Florida’s 11-fold spike led all other states. In South Carolina and Tennessee, where Pornhub limited access the same day as in the Sunshine State, VPN demand jumped 171% and 40%, respectively.
Other states with content throttled also saw mass interest in VPNs. In Oklahoma, where Pornhub announced a ban in October, demand spiked by 1,060%. In Utah, where Pornhub blocked access in mid-2023, VPN demand rose by 967%.
In Louisiana, where Pornhub allows access but other publishers restricted visits after age verification states went into effect in 2022, VPN demand leapt by 200%
Of note, Pornhub saw a significant decline in U.S. traffic last year regardless of VPN usage. Researchers found 15 million fewer visits to the website from U.S. users (or at least those with U.S. IP addresses). But that likely matters little to the publisher as traffic to the site exceeded 1.8 billion visits before the end of 2024. The website continues to have around 500 million more visitors than its closest competitor, XVideos.
While Florida users may turn to VPN services to bypass Pornhub’s gateway restrictions, that brings certain unsafe surfing risks.
Many VPN services lack the same security of major internet providers. In 2023, vpnMentor reported that a cybersecurity security researcher had found 360 million records leaked online after a breach of SuperVPN users’ data. The records included passwords, email addresses, personal financial information and personal content from individuals’ personal devices.
The report recommends users only employ VPNs with strong encryption services, an enforced policy not to log personal data from users, a “kill switch” feature that automatically disconnects users from the internet if a VPN connection drops, and a built-in DNS leak protection.
