Pornhub Blocks UK Access, Exposing Age Verification Paradox

77%. That's how much Pornhub's UK traffic plummeted after the Online Safety Act kicked in last July. But the law designed to protect children is producing the opposite effect.

Starting February 2, Pornhub will block new user registrations in the UK, allowing access only to previously verified users. It's essentially a self-imposed ban from one of the internet's most visited adult sites.

The Compliance Penalty

The UK's Online Safety Act requires adult sites to implement strict age verification—face scans, ID uploads, credit card checks. It sounds comprehensive, but there's a fatal flaw: only some sites are playing by the rules.

Solomon Friedman, VP of compliance at Ethical Partners Capital (which owns Pornhub's parent company Aylo), demonstrated the problem during Tuesday's presentation. Of the top 10 Google results for "free porn" in the UK, six aren't complying with age verification laws.

"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," Pornhub noted in its announcement.

The irony is stark: sites that invest in compliance face traffic losses and operational burdens, while non-compliant competitors operate freely.

A Pattern Across States

This isn't unique to the UK. In the US, 25 states have implemented similar age verification laws, and Pornhub has pulled out of most of them. Yet the US remains the site's top traffic source—users simply circumvent restrictions with VPNs.

Meanwhile, explicit content proliferates on platforms that face little scrutiny. State attorneys general are now targeting xAI over nonconsensual sexual images generated through its Grok chatbot on X.

Friedman pointed out that Google Images has "thumbnails of every single porn image cached available online," yet current age verification laws don't address explicit content on social media platforms.

Tech Giants' Silent Treatment

Last November, Aylo sent letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft urging them to support device-based age verification across their operating systems. This approach would keep personal data on users' devices rather than requiring submission to third-party sites.

The response? Radio silence.

Microsoft previously suggested age verification should happen at the service level. Apple pointed to its default web content filters for under-18 users. Google said adult entertainment apps aren't available in its app store and that companies like Aylo "need to invest in specific tools to meet their own legal and responsibility obligations."

The tech giants' reluctance isn't surprising—device-based age verification would require significant infrastructure changes and raise new privacy concerns.

The Regulatory Catch-22

The current system creates perverse incentives. Legitimate operators face compliance costs and user friction, while bad actors operate with impunity. It's a regulatory whack-a-mole that misses the real targets.

Friedman argued that device-based verification could address explicit content across platforms—"explicit tweets or posts on X or explicit use of AI chatbots or explicit Reddit subreddits and posts." But without cooperation from device manufacturers and platform operators, such solutions remain pipe dreams.

The age verification debate reflects broader tensions in internet governance: balancing child protection with privacy rights, innovation with regulation, and global platforms with national laws.