Pornhub to stop operations in the UK from February

Pornhub, the most popular pornography site in the UK, will restrict access to its site in the UK from next month. The company has blamed tougher age restrictions for explicit sites for the decision.

Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub, announced that from 2nd February only people who have previously registered an account on the site will be able to access its content in the UK.

The Online Safety Act, was brought into law in July. It includes requirements for explicit sites to implement robust age-verification checks, something that CARE was instrumental in advocating for.

Aylo announced in October that traffic to Pornhub had dropped by 77% in the UK as a result of the new law.

A spokesperson for Ofcom, who regulate the Online Safety Act, said that “porn services have a choice between using age checks to protect users as required under the Act, or to block access to their sites in the UK” and that they would continue discussions with Aylo about their change of position.

Aylo had initially complied with the Online Safety Act and implemented age-verification on Pornhub. However, they now believe that the Act has “not achieved its goal of protecting minors” and had “diverted traffic to darker, unregulated corners of the internet”.

Those attempting access to Pornhub from 2nd February will be met with a ‘wall’ rather than site content. This will apply to other Aylo sites such as YouPorn and RedTube.