Pledgely
You turned on Limit Adult Websites, and porn still got through. You're not doing it wrong: Screen Time's filter has genuine gaps, and one structural flaw no toggle can fix. Here's each failure mode and what to do about it.
The technical failures (fixable)
It misses newer sites
Apple's filter recognizes the big names but lags on the long tail, and new adult domains appear daily. Sites slip through, especially smaller ones.
Fix: add repeat offenders to Never Allow under the same Web Content screen, and layer a family-filter DNS resolver underneath so unknown adult domains fail at the network level. Both are covered in how to block porn on Safari.
It can't see inside apps
Reddit, X, Telegram, Discord: a huge share of adult content lives inside apps, not on websites, and a web filter never touches it. Each platform needs its own settings lockdown: Reddit, X, Telegram, Discord.
Search results and images leak
The filter blocks adult sites, but explicit results still surface through search and image search on engines it doesn't force into safe mode.
Fix: lock SafeSearch on the engines you use.
VPNs route around it
A VPN app can tunnel traffic past network-level filtering. If a VPN is installed and you don't need it, remove it; if restrictions matter, disallow installing new apps in Screen Time.
The structural failure (not fixable with settings)
Do all of the above and one gap remains, and it's the one that actually ends streaks: you know your own Screen Time passcode. The whole filter switches off in under a minute, by you, for you, with nobody watching and nothing lost. And if you have someone else set the passcode, "Forgot Passcode?" hands control back through your own Apple ID.
Screen Time is a parental-control system. It assumes the person holding the passcode and the person being protected are different people. When both are you, every restriction is a suggestion.
The fix: make switching it off cost something
What's missing isn't a better filter, it's a consequence. Pledgely blocks adult content system-wide using Apple's Screen Time technology, in every browser and every app, and then adds the piece Apple can't: a pledge of your own money, $1 to $100 a day, set up on the web at pledgely.app. The pledge is held daily, never charged for anything you browse (Pledgely collects zero browsing data), and released as long as the blocker stays on. Switch the blocker off mid-cycle and it's charged.
"Limit Adult Websites" fails because switching it off is free. Make it not free, and the same filter concept suddenly holds.
Next: The 7 best porn blockers for iPhone, compared honestly
Put real stakes behind quitting
Pledgely blocks porn across your whole phone and charges your own pledge only if you turn the blocker off. Stay clean, pay nothing.