LET’S be clear from the outset: children should not be exposed to the darkest corners of the internet. That much is obvious, and few would argue otherwise. The government is right to want to protect young people from harmful content. But how they’ve chosen to go about it — through the Online Safety Act that came into force last Friday (July 25) — is so clumsy, so misguided, and so technologically illiterate, it’s almost embarrassing.
The new law demands that websites hosting adult material, along with many social platforms, verify the age of all users. On paper, this might seem like a bold step forward. In practice, it is already collapsing under the weight of its own futility.
Take Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), for example. These simple tools allow users to hide their location and bypass region-specific restrictions. Searches for VPNs have surged by over 230 percent across the UK since the law came into force. In Wales, that figure hits 341 percent.
Why? Because even a 12-year-old with access to Google can figure out how to activate one in under a minute. And in many cases, they won’t even need to — browsers like Opera, Brave, and Tor come with VPN functionality built in. Even Microsoft Edge is rolling out a native VPN. There’s no need to pay, no need to be tech-savvy, and no need to slow down. The law is being outwitted at the press of a button.
Meanwhile, legitimate users are paying the price. Platforms like Reddit, X, Discord, and Wikipedia are all caught in the web of the new regulations. Some gaming companies are threatening to shut down group chat functions altogether for UK users, just to avoid falling foul of the rules. Wikipedia, which relies on open access, has floated the idea of limiting the number of UK visitors to dodge compliance.
The government has managed to miss the mark on both fronts: the bad actors aren’t being stopped, and ordinary people are seeing the internet they use daily become more cumbersome, restricted and invasive.
Instead of delivering protection, the new regime risks creating a false sense of security while pushing young people to more obscure, less safe parts of the internet. It’s digital whack-a-mole played with blindfolds on.
If we are serious about shielding children from harm online, the solution lies not in half-baked tech measures, but in education, open conversation, and giving parents the tools they need to guide their children responsibly. Regulation has its place — but it needs to be smart, realistic, and informed by how the internet actually works.
This law isn’t it.
