Pornhub to Block UK Users From February: What’s Changing
Pornhub will block UK users from February 2, citing failures in the Online Safety Act age checks as traffic plunges and access rules tighten.
Pornhub has announced it will restrict access to its website in the UK from next month, blaming strict age verification requirements imposed on adult sites.
From February 2nd, only those who have previously created a Pornhub account will be able to access its content.
Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, said that updates to the UK's Online Safety Act (OSA), which mandate age verification, have "failed to achieve their goal of protecting minors" and have "driven traffic to more dangerous, unregulated corners of the internet."
In October, Aylo said that the changes to the law had resulted in a 77% drop in traffic to the website.
The regulator Ofcom said at the time that the stricter age checks were fulfilling their purpose of preventing children from accessing inappropriate material.
An Ofcom spokesperson said on Tuesday, "Porn services have the option under the Act to either implement the necessary age verification to protect users or block access to their sites in the UK."
The regulator said it would continue to engage with Aylo "to understand this change in their position."
Alex Kekesi, head of community and brand at Aylo, said the move to restrict access to Pornhub in the UK was a "difficult decision."
She said, "Our sites, which host legal and regulated pornography, will now be unavailable to new users in the UK, while thousands of irresponsible porn sites will still be easily accessible."
Kekesi said the platform initially complied with the OSA requirements "because we wanted to believe that a determined and prepared regulator like Ofcom could take a flawed law and implement it in a meaningful way."
But six months after the age verification requirements were implemented to prevent children from accessing adult content, Kekesi said the company's experience "strongly suggests that the OSA has failed to achieve that objective." A spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said: "The Online Safety Act is clear: online pornographic services must prevent children from accessing this material by implementing robust age assurance.
"This does not prevent adults from viewing legal content, and services do not need to leave the UK – they simply need to ensure that under-18s cannot access it. There are many ways to do this."
According to web tracker Similarweb, Pornhub remains the UK's largest porn platform.
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It was one of thousands of sites that implemented methods for UK visitors to prove they were over 18 after age verification requirements came into force last summer.
Aylo said that those attempting to access Pornhub in the UK after February 2 would effectively hit "a wall" instead of site content.
The same restrictions will apply to other porn sites owned by Aylo, including YouPorn and Redtube.
Solomon Friedman of Ethical Capital Partners (ECP), which owns Aylo, said the company believes Ofcom is "acting in good faith" in implementing the age verification requirements.
"However, the problem here isn't the regulator – it's the law," he said.
"You have a dedicated regulator acting in good faith, but unfortunately, the law under which they are operating is unworkable."
Friedman said that six months after the requirement came into force for sites with sexually explicit content in the UK, people were still easily able to access porn – such as by searching for it online.
Emma Drake, a partner in online safety and privacy at law firm Bird & Bird, said the research cited by Aylo also indicated that overall use of adult porn sites had decreased. “Those who are determined will find alternative routes, such as VPNs or the new methods suggested by Aylo, but blocking the most popular sites will still protect a significant number of children who wouldn’t try to circumvent the restrictions.”
The company reiterated its view that device manufacturers like Apple, Google, and Microsoft are best placed to implement technical measures to prevent children from accessing pornographic sites.
“When access is controlled at the device level, it’s efficient, it’s effective, and it preserves privacy,” Friedman said.
An Ofcom spokesperson said that “nothing is stopping” tech firms from introducing age verification methods at the device level, and added that “we would urge the industry to work on this if they can demonstrate that it is highly effective.”
However, they said their job was “to enforce the regulations as they stand.”
“We have put in place age verification rules that are flexible and proportionate, and we have seen widespread adoption of them,” the spokesperson said.
Cybersecurity expert Chelsea Jarvie told the controls implemented at the device level, while potentially playing a role in age verification, “are not a foolproof solution.”
“Virtual private networks still provide a workaround, which is why a layered approach with multiple controls is needed to keep children safe online, rather than relying on a single measure,” she said.
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