Internet Porn Censorship

Pornhub explains in a press release:

In line with other stakeholder groups, academics and public policy institutions, Aylo's assessment is that the Online Safety Act (OSA) has not achieved its intended goal of protecting minors. Effective February 2, 2026 Aylo will no longer participate in the failed system that has been created in the United Kingdom as a result of the OSA's introduction. Based on Aylo's data and experience, this law and regulatory framework have made the internet more dangerous for minors and adults and jeopardizes the privacy and personal data of UK citizens.

New users in the UK will no longer be able to access Aylo's content sharing platforms, including Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube. UK users who have verified their age will retain access through their existing accounts.

Statement by Alex Kekesi, VP Brand and Community, on behalf of Aylo:

We've made the difficult decision to restrict access to our sites (user-uploaded content platforms, including Pornhub, YouPorn, Redtube) in the United Kingdom.

As of February 2, 2026, our library of thoroughly moderated and consensual adult entertainment, on one of the most trusted adult sites in the world, will be restricted. Our sites, which host legal and regulated porn, will no longer be available in the UK to new users, but thousands of irresponsible porn sites will still be easy to access.

Aylo initially participated in the Online Safety Act (OSA) because we wanted to believe that a determined and prepared regulator in Ofcom could take poor legislation and manage to enforce compliance in a meaningful way, while offering more privacy preserving age assurance methods than we'd seen in other jurisdictions. Despite the clear intent of the law to restrict minors' access to adult content and commitment to enforcement, after 6 months of implementation, our experience strongly suggests that the OSA has failed to achieve that objective. We cannot continue to operate within a system that, in our view, fails to deliver on its promise of child safety, and has had the opposite impact. We believe this framework in practice has diverted traffic to darker, unregulated corners of the internet, and has also jeopardized the privacy and personal data of UK citizens.

In October we met with both the government department which authored the OSA, and the UK regulator responsible for enforcing it, to re-iterate our concerns about the law's vulnerabilities. We presented data and continued advocating for a device-based solution and are disappointed that despite the evidence shared, such little progress has been made, especially when an alternative and viable solution exists.

Aylo consulted with the regulator and was committed to giving the OSA every chance to succeed, but we believe Ofcom was given an impossible mandate. In our view, it is clear this is too big a challenge for any regulator to execute within the parameters of the Act. Based on our data and experience, effective enforcement is not possible, circumvention is rampant, privacy is compromised, and new, unregulated sites quickly fill any gaps left by responsible operators. In other jurisdictions, Aylo has often been one of the only major platforms to comply, only to see traffic diverted to even larger, non-compliant sites. Although larger operators are compliant, we believe the OSA has created an ecosystem where the vast majority of sites with age-inappropriate content are left unchecked. Users are turning to sites that do not have uploader verification measures and do not moderate content, leading to an increased risk of exposure to dangerous or illegal content. What is alarming about the top 10 Google and Bing search results for free porn in the UK is not just that more than half of the sites lack any age verification, but that the specific sites keep changing. (January 20, 2026) Search results are constantly replenished with new, non-compliant sites, demonstrating how easily new players can enter the market. This revolving door means the internet remains wide open to unmoderated, unverified and potentially unsafe content, regardless of how many times authorities attempt to crack down. The longer this goes on, these non-compliant sites are accessed by more minors and adults. As outlined by Lucy Faithfull Foundation, we know that when faced with age verification, some adults are choosing riskier, irresponsible sites to avoid age checks. Alternatively, they seek out solutions to circumvent restrictions by using virtual private networks (VPNs) to connect to the same websites via a different country.

We remain committed to working with the UK, European Commission and other international partners to ensure the lessons learned in the UK inform future policymaking. We continue to believe that to make the internet safer for everyone, every phone, tablet or computer should start as a kid-safe device. We've seen progress in this space with Apple's recent iOS 26.1 update, which enables built-in content filters to limit adult websites by default on existing minors' accounts and requires parental consent to disable them. This method blocks access to known adult content websites, cannot be circumvented with VPNs and does not introduce any data privacy risks. This is a big step for online safety that can go even further. We encourage all device manufacturers to make this the default setting on all devices, not just known minor accounts, to better protect everyone. Laws should mandate that only adults be allowed to unlock access to age-inappropriate content. We are determined to be part of this solution and want to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution.

 

The BBC makes an interesting comment with reference to an upcoming censorship law that will ban choking and strangulation content on porn websites. How on earth are foreign porn websites expected to implement such a ban on material that is so commonplace, just for the UK. Perhaps the answer is to simply self block in the UK with the knowledge that keen UK users with a VPN can still access it.

The BBC article notes:

Anti porn campaigner Prof Clare McGlynn believes Pornhub would prefer VPN usage to having to regulate or moderate its content more, particularly as the UK looks to restrict more material. The UK government recently announced plans to make online porn showing strangulation or suffocation illegal.

On VPNs being used to get around checks, social media expert Matt Navara says Pornhub's decision to restrict UK access may be more about creating a legal firewall about restrictions than a protest. He said:

I think blocking UK access lets Pornhub dodge some of the regulations, skip the costs and still collect the traffic from users they can no longer see.

Ofcom writes:

Ofcom has set out the next steps in its investigation into X, and the limitations of the UKs Online Safety Act in relation to AI chatbots.

Ofcom was one of the first regulators in the world to act on concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share demeaning sexual deepfakes of real people, including children, which may amount to criminal offences.

After contacting X on 5 January , giving it a chance to explain how these images had been shared at such scale, we moved quickly to launch a formal investigation on 12 January into whether the company had done enough to assess and mitigate the risk of this imagery spreading on its social media platform, and to take it down quickly where it was identified.

Since then, X has said it has implemented measures to try and address the issue. We have been in close contact with the Information Commissioners Office, which is launching its own investigation. Other jurisdictions have also launched investigations in the weeks since we opened ours, including the European Commission on 26 January.

Our investigation remains ongoing and we continue to work closely with the ICO and others to ensure tech firms keep users safe and protect their privacy.

Not all AI chatbots are regulated

Broadly, the Online Safety Act regulates user-to-user services, search services and services that publish pornographic content.

Chatbots are not subject to regulation at all if they:

• only allow people to interact with the chatbot itself and no other users (i.e. they are not user-to-user services);

• do not search multiple websites or databases when giving responses to users (i.e. are not search services); and

• cannot generate pornographic content.

We are not investigating xAI at this time.

When we opened our investigation into X, we said we were assessing whether we should also investigate xAI, as the provider of the standalone Grok service. We continue to demand answers from xAI about the risks it poses. We are examining whether to launch an investigation into its compliance with the rules requiring services that publish pornographic material to use highly effective age checks to prevent children from accessing that content.

Because of the way the Act relates to chatbots, as explained above, we are currently unable to investigate the creation of illegal images by the standalone Grok service in this case.

Where we are in our X investigation

In our investigation into X, we are currently gathering and analysing evidence to determine whether X has broken the law, including using our formal information-gathering powers. The week after we launched our investigation, we sent legally binding information requests to X, to make sure we have the information we need from the company, and further requests continue to be sent.

Firms are required, by law, to respond to all such requests from Ofcom in an accurate, complete and timely way, and they can expect to face fines if they fail to do so.

We must give any company we investigate a full opportunity to make representations on our case. If, based on the evidence, we consider that the company has failed to comply with its legal duties, we will issue a provisional decision setting out our views and the evidence upon which we are relying. The company will then have an opportunity to respond to our findings in full, as required by the Act, before we make our final decision.

We know there is significant public interest in our investigation into X. We are progressing the investigation as a matter of urgency. We will provide updates and will be as open as possible during this process. It is important to note that enforcement investigations such as these take time -- typically months.

We must follow strict rules about how and when we can share information publicly, as is the case for any enforcement agency, and it would not be appropriate to provide a running commentary about the substantive details of a live investigation. Running a fair process is essential to ensuring that any final decisions are robust, effective, and that they stick.

While in the most serious cases of ongoing non-compliance we can apply for a court order requiring broadband providers to block access to a site in the UK, the law sets a high bar for such applications, and a specific process must be followed before we can do this. It would be a significant regulatory intervention and is not one we are likely to make routinely, given the impact it could have on freedom of expression in the UK.

A new survey of 1,469 adults, which was conducted by the child protection focused Lucy Faithfull Foundation, has noted that 45% of adults who dont want to verify their identities to access porn have turned to using sites without age checks. In addition, 29% have used Virtual Private Networks to bypass age checks on sites that have them.

Kerry Smith, CEO of the Foundation, said:

Its highly concerning that age verification measures are not being implemented on certain platforms. Safeguards on pornography sites are essential to protect children from accessing pornography, which we know, if viewed at a young age, can normalise harmful sexual behaviours and leave children more vulnerable to grooming from predators.

There needs to be strong enforcement of the Online Safety Act to ensure robust and meaningful safety measures are put in place on pornography platforms, including the use of deterrence messaging and signposting for adults to appropriate support services.

We would also encourage the government to bring in even more robust legislation, so online pornography is treated just as it is in the offline world.

An Ofcom spokesperson said

Change is happening, and the tide on online safety is beginning to turn for the better. Last year saw important changes for people, with new measures across many sites and apps now better protecting UK users from harmful content, particularly children. But we need to see much more from tech companies this year, and well use our full powers if they fall short.

Ofcom does have the power to impose significant financial fines, although there remains a question mark as to how much impact this will have on non-UK based sites. The regulator could also ask broadband ISPs and mobile operators to block the sites at network-level, although this would have little impact on VPN users.

Overall, its hardly surprising or controversial that many adults do not want to have to share their private personal or financial details with unknown and unregulated third-party age verification providers, particularly when those services are associated with porn peddlers. The infamous Ashley Madison hack showed just how dangerous such information could be in the wrong hands (countless cases of blackmail and suicide etc.).

Pornhub writes:

Overview.

A recent cybersecurity incident involving data from a third-party data analytics service provider has impacted some Pornhub Premium users. Specifically, this situation affects only select Premium users. It is important to note this was not a breach of Pornhub Premium's systems. Passwords, payment details, and financial information remain secure and were not exposed.

What Happened.

We recently learned that an unauthorized party gained unauthorized access to analytics data stored with Mixpanel, a third-party data analytics service provider. The unauthorized party was able to use this unauthorized access to extract a limited set of analytics events for some users. This was not a breach of Pornhub Premium's systems. No passwords, credentials, payment details or government IDs were compromised or exposed and we have since secured the affected account and stopped the unauthorized access.

Potential User Contact. We are aware that the individuals responsible for this incident have threatened to contact impacted Pornhub Premium users directly. You may therefore receive emails claiming they have your personal information. As a reminder, we will never ask for your password or payment information by email.

What We Are Doing.

Upon becoming aware of this event, we immediately launched a comprehensive internal investigation with the support of our cybersecurity experts. We have engaged with relevant authorities and with Mixpanel so that we can provide you with facts. We are working diligently to determine the nature and scope of the reported incident.

What You Can Do.

While our investigation is ongoing, we encourage all users to remain vigilant by monitoring their accounts for any suspicious emails or unusual activity.

Australia has activated a new requirement for search engines to verify the ages of their signed-in users, with companies now facing a six-month countdown to full compliance.

The rule, which began on December 27, sits within a newly registered industry code under the authority of the eSafety Commissioner and extends the countrys expanding system of online censorship controls.

Search services such as Google and Bing must soon introduce age-assurance checks when logged-in users perform searches that might surface adult or otherwise high-impact material. The mechanisms vary, but common approaches include prompting users to confirm their age through a pop-up screen or submitting an official document, credit card details, or digital ID.

For those not logged in, searches will still function, but some content may appear blurred. Logged-in users under 18 will automatically receive filtered results excluding topics the government labels as harmful.