How Geoblocking Works (Why You Might Not See Local Models)

If you want to meet hot single girls in your local area, webcam sites probably aren't the place to start.

That's partly because they're not dating sites (but it's easy to fall in love with a camgirl) but it's also because models in your city, state or country might have you geoblocked.

What is geoblocking? That's the burning question we're about to answer, as we take a look at which webcam sites allow geoblocking and the impact it can have on your choice of performers.

What is Geoblocking on Webcam Sites?

Geoblocking is a way to block visitors to a website based on their location. This doesn't only happen on live webcam sites - you might have tried to visit a newspaper website in another country, only to find it restricted.

Some other examples of geoblocking include:

• Streaming sites that can only be accessed from one country
• Government websites that will only load in that government's jurisdiction
• Ecommerce sites that only sell products in one (or a few) locations

Geoblocking on camsites is slightly different from these examples. There are a few reasons for this:

• The geoblock usually only blocks one (or a few) locations, but allows many
• It's usually a specific model who you cannot see, instead of the whole website
• You might be able to see (and visit) other performers from your country

In this guide, when I talk about geoblocking on webcam sites, I will usually be referring to a specific model blocking specific cities, states or countries in her broadcast settings - not to the whole website being restricted in certain countries.

How does geoblocking work?

To hide a performer from the right people, the camsite needs to be able to detect your location with a good amount of accuracy.

Depending on how you access the site (and your privacy settings), there are several ways this could happen:

• The website might ask your browser for permission to detect your location
• Your phone might reveal your location, if connecting via mobile data (e.g. 5G)
• A modem's IP address can give an approximate idea of your location

Usually, geoblocking will use your IP address - a number assigned to your internet connection by your service provider - to work out where you are, kinda like the dialling code on a landline telephone number.

This isn't perfect though. Depending on your service provider, your IP address could make it look like you're in another town or city, or even hundreds of miles away from where you really are.

Will I know if I'm geoblocked?

On adult webcam sites, geoblocking is a way for performers to make sure they can't be seen by members in their local area (or in some other area e.g. where most of their family lives).

To protect performers' privacy, most camsites will not tell members that a nearby model has been hidden from them - you usually won't see them on the homepage, or even on your friends list, and their profile page and VOD content will be hidden from you too.

It makes sense, as it removes the temptation to try to circumvent a geoblock. But it means you might never know that the girl of your dreams is camming just a few streets away from where you live.

As part of our work at CamsRank, we browse these sites from dozens of different countries (via VPN) to get a full understanding of the member distribution (an essential part of our annual site reviews).

Why Do Camgirls (and Camboys) Geoblock?

I mentioned privacy, and that's the big overall reason why webcam performers will often geoblock their own country (or state/province or city, if the website allows that level of detail).

But it's not always because they're worried about a local perv finding them and becoming obsessed. There's a whole range of reasons why camgirls geoblock their home location.

Stalkers

Let's deal with this one first of all. If you fall in love with a camgirl 3,000 miles away, you're less likely to show up at her door than if she's three miles away. That just stands to reason.

With the intimacy and intense emotions associated with camsite 'relationships' between models and their members, some prefer to be invisible to anyone who lives too close to comfort.

As I said though, that's not the only reason for geoblocking on adult camsites - so why else do models geoblock certain locations?

Family and Friends

Think about the people who you see most often in your real (offline) life. It's likely they live in your town or city, or in your hometown if you've moved away.

Blocking just 1-2 cities can hugely reduce the risk of an adult performer being found by someone they know IRL. That person could be a family member or a close friend - someone who knows everyone else in their immediate circle.

It's easy to see why a model might choose to avoid this risk by blocking their hometown and/or their current location, so the only people likely to come into their room are total strangers.

Familiar Locations

An extension of the above is this: the people who live close to you are more likely to recognise local landmarks.

This usually won't be an issue, as most camsites now ban their performers from camming in public places. But there are still times when a member who lives nearby might see something they recognise.

It could be as simple as a regional advertisement on a TV in the background, the name of a business that is only active in a small area, or a telephone dialling code that's accidentally visible on cam.

"How's Barcelona today, Mila?"

Yeah, we know... 

If you've got this view from your cam studio, you're probably doing just fine with your whales.

Personal Details

By reducing the risk of being seen by someone who knows you, you also reduce the risk of that person saying something stupid in your chat room.

That makes it much more worthwhile for models to stop local members from finding them. You don't want someone to drop your real name or location into a chat with hundreds of strangers reading it.

Geoblocking can stop those members from ever even entering the chat - so the performer doesn't have to worry about spotting them and banning or muting them manually.

Misdirection

This one is pretty wild but camgirls can get surprisingly creative with their cover stories, so consider this: is the model really located in the city, state or country she has blocked?

If you're in Australia (for example) and you find a model has you geoblocked, it's fair to assume that she's in Australia too. But that could just be a bluff.

Maybe she's in New Zealand. Or England. Or the USA. By geoblocking a specific country, it's easy to make members from ALL countries think that's where you are, even if you're not.

The Downsides of Geoblocking

Geoblocking isn't a straightforward decision for performers. By definition, blocking a country, state or large city reduces the number of potential viewers and visitors.

As a business decision, webcam models have to weigh up the benefits for their privacy and security, with the possible loss of income and other obstacles introduced by geoblocking their location.

There Goes the Neighbourhood

Let's be honest. As a camsite member, you don't expect to meet models in person, and you don't generally expect to find a performer based in your own town or city. 

But you might still hold out hope for either of those things to happen. Knowing a model is physically nearby can add excitement to a show and can be the start of a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship.

For models, blocking a location can remove the most relevant - and potentially most lucrative - members from their audience.

And even if there's no chance of ever meeting in person, just having members who live nearby can allow performers to chat about IRL events and landmarks, and in extreme cases can give them someone to reach out to in a real-life emergency.

Where Am I?

One of the dumbest downsides of geoblocking is that on some camsites, blocking your own location will literally block yourself from seeing your own profile, stream or VOD content. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Cams.com offers this helpful guidance for models when setting up geoblocking:

"Once you have made selections to be blocked, the Stream's Availability section should state [the names of] blocked US states and blocked countries.

"From this point Cams members, yourself, or anyone else from the blocked state or country will not be able to see your bio page or enter your chatroom from the Who's On Now section.

"This will also apply to any other models broadcasting from the blocked country."

Several other camsites, including Flirt4Free's Geo Filters setting and MyFreeCams' country and state blocking, will also prevent models from seeing themselves on the site.

(MFC offers a workaround for this - members on your Friends List will be able to see that you're online, even if they're in a geoblocked location. So models can add themselves to their Friends List to bypass their own geoblock.)

All of this means it's important for performers to know what the internet thinks their location is. You can do this using a website like What Is My IP? which will instantly tell you your current IP address and the geographical location associated with it.

Audience Impact by Language Loss

Blocking a country can have a big effect on the number of viewers who speak the model's own language. This is obvious when a language is only spoken in one country, but it also applies to some of the biggest languages in the world.

English is by far the most common language on the major camsites. With 620 million speakers worldwide and officially recognised in 48 countries, it's considered a mother tongue for about 1 in 13 people.

If you geoblock the UK, you lose 66.5 million native English speakers, about 11% of the total. But block the USA - the biggest English-speaking country in the world - and you wipe out 44% of your potential audience.

Language	Chinese	English	Hindi	Spanish	French
Countries	27	73	9	35	49
Official	5	48	1	22	39
Speakers	1.35 bn	620m	570m	460m	110m
% of world	17%	7.7%	7.1%	5.7%	1.4%
Biggest	China	USA	India	Mexico	France
Speakers	1.3 bn	275m	570m	115m	64m
% of total	96%	44%	100%	25%	58%

Source: https://www.worlddata.info/languages/

The numbers here show how blocking a single country can have a massive impact on some languages. 

English, Spanish and French are each recognised as official languages in over 20 countries, but Chinese and Hindi are only given that status in a handful.

Geoblock China or India, and you lose around 100% of native speakers. While there will be speakers living elsewhere in the world, this is based on where those languages are considered to be mother tongues - and highlights the millions (or billions) of potential viewers that can be lost with a single blocked location.

Needless to say... if camgirls get this wrong, it can be very bad for business.

Which Camsites Allow Geoblocking?

Most of the major camsites offer some form of geoblocking, but it varies. In some cases you're limited to choosing just a few locations to block, whereas others allow you to block as many as you want, right down to city-level instead of entire countries.

Depending on your circumstances (e.g. if you speak a language that is only widespread in a single country, or you have friends and relatives in 5+ different parts of the world) this could influence your choice of which websites to perform on.

For members, knowing this information could help you to find a website where you're less likely to be geoblocked by a performer in your own country.

What the Camsites Say

Information about geoblocking on webcam sites isn't always easy to find. Some sites prefer to hide their model broadcaster software behind a login screen - which is fine, but it means performers have to register an account before they can see the privacy controls.

The list below is based on the camsites' model support pages and FAQs, so it gives a good idea of what you can learn without signing up as a broadcaster.

StripChat: Block countries and "certain regions of most countries" via Settings and Privacy page.

LiveJasmin: Ban Guests and Members from own country, and Guests from up to 3 more countries.

Chaturbate: Geoblock countries and (in US/Canada) specific states/provinces. Includes specific blocks for individual UK countries (i.e. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

BongaCams: Block countries, states, regions and even specific cities via Settings > Geo Block.

Warehouse X: No public guidance on geoblocking options.

Cherry.tv: Block countries and regions via Broadcast Settings > Geolocation page. Includes support for specific Irish counties. Also has some of the most detailed guidance on how to set this up, which you can read without registering an account.

CamSoda: "Want to be discreet? Have no worries as our advanced geographical blocking system ensure your anonymity, block any state or country." This is on the CamSoda Wiki, but unfortunately doesn't provide any more detail than that.

MyFreeCams: Country and US state blocking via Model Admin page. Exception for members on Friends List. Detailed guidance on MFC's Wiki.

CAM4: Block countries, states and provinces via Broadcasters Dashboard. One-click removal of blocked locations if/when desired.

Flirt4Free: F4F allows up to 10 blocked countries and a further 10 (in total) US or Canadian states/provinces. A nice touch is that the F4F Geo Filters setup page automatically displays the performer's detected location, based on their IP address.

Streamate: No public guidance apart from a 2018 tweet warning models that use of the Geographic Restrictions feature "will have some impact on your visibility and traffic". Word on the street is that if you use geoblocking on Streamate AT ALL you will not appear on its white-label partner site Jerkmate - more about that below.

XloveCam: No public guidance on geoblocking options.

Xcams: No public guidance on geoblocking options.

Jerkmate: Probably the least model-friendly of them all, not only does Jerkmate not offer any clear guidance on geoblocking for performers, it actively encourages members to use a VPN to access websites and videos "that may otherwise be blocked or censored in your location". Not exactly ethical - although at least geoblocking one location in your Streamate settings should (if the rumours are correct) remove your room from all locations on Jerkmate, regardless of whether the member is using a VPN.

SakuraLive: No public guidance on geoblocking options.

ImLive: No public guidance on geoblocking options.

VISIT-X: No public guidance on geoblocking options.

Cams.com: Geoblock unlimited number of countries and US states via My Stuff > My Account > Block/Unblock Members. The awkward thing here is that to select multiple countries, you have to hold down your Ctrl key and click on them all in the list. If you forget to hold Ctrl you can accidentally erase your existing block list (although the change won't be permanent unless/until you click the 'Update' button).

MyDirtyHobby: No public guidance either way, although third-party sites say geoblocking is NOT currently available on MyDirtyHobby.

MV Live: If you have a ManyVids account, you can block up to 3 regions (e.g. state/province) and another 3 entire countries. This will apply both to your VOD content and to MV Live streams.

It's a real shame that (some) camsites don't make this information easier to find. 

It's not like members are going to stumble upon a wiki, FAQ or support page and be outraged by it. Yet for models, it's the kind of basic personal safety info that should be made clear even before signing up for a broadcaster account.

Camsite Geoblocks and VPNs

Finally, let's go back to that Jerkmate page about VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). 

A VPN reroutes your internet connection through a secure server elsewhere in the world, which can hide your IP address and make it look like you are physically located in a different country.

Jerkmate's page on this says: "VPNs let users bypass geo-restrictions imposed by video streaming platforms, enabling access to a wider range of content. Connecting to a server in a different location will unlock region-locked shows, porn videos, movies and live sporting events."

Some of the bigger camsites specifically forbid this in their terms of service - although it's still very common practice among members, it potentially puts you at risk of losing your account, any gold/tokens/credits you have purchased, and any archived VOD or private content.

The same is true for models. Check your T&Cs carefully before using a VPN to mask your real-world location, as again you could lose your entire account if you're caught. If it IS allowed by your favourite camsite, a VPN can be a good way to appear as if you're streaming from somewhere else in the world.

For members, just consider the impact it will have on a model's trust in you, if she eventually finds out that you're in her hometown and have somehow avoided her privacy settings.

Is The Juice Worth The Squeeze? 

Geoblocking is common practice across a wide range of platforms, including live camsites, VOD platforms and other adult channels.

It's not perfect - members in different countries often recommend models to each other, which will trigger the alarm bells if one member can't see your room, stream or profile page.

There are workarounds, such as VPNs. There are also legitimate ways to let specific members through the barricade, like MFC's Friends List bypass. Blocking a country doesn't have to mean losing trusted members you've already met.

But if you have a large family, or lots of friends, and you don't want them to know you're a sex worker, geoblocking is the first step towards protecting your identity.

And if you're a member, it's usually best to respect the model's own security settings, especially if you happen to find someone who you know in real life. 

Don't Be That Guy - your camgirl friendships will last longer and cut deeper if they're built on genuine trust.

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