This is the kind of comment you get from someone who's never interacted with a Western legal system. Any kind of winking reference is immediately seen through.
I think you assume the fact that it's a winking reference means they have to use a winking reference. It seems like it would be legal for them to post a full guide for UK users on how to access their site using a VPN service.
There's literally "Best VPNs For Accessing Porn in the UK" articles, they'll be fine.
> It seems like it would be legal for them to post a full guide for UK users on how to access their site using a VPN service.
It isn't, the Ofcom OSA act codes explicitly say that the site cannot explicitly tell people how to get past it's verification methods.
> There's literally "Best VPNs For Accessing Porn in the UK" articles, they'll be fine.
They're on journalism sites that are explicitly exempted from the law, so they aren't advocating for getting around that specific site's methods.
It will be interesting to see how this works on any social platform though. To my reading of the guidance Ofcom require Reddit, BlueSky/Twitter etc to block any posts discussing using a VPN to get around it, or at least require age verification to access those posts too.
But I think that contradicts other parts of the legislation, and Ofcom have got themselves into quite a predictable mess.
I’d personally be interested in a risk analysis by a lawyer for that statement but it doesn’t seem particularly problematic. It does not seem to be actual encouragement to use a VPN, just acknowledgement that they exist.
There's literally "Best VPNs For Accessing Porn in the UK" articles, they'll be fine.