Pornhub will restrict access to its site for UK users from next week, effectively blocking new visitors, to protest stricter age verification requirements introduced under the Online Safety Act.
As of February 2nd, only people who already have a Pornhub account will be able to access the site. The same restrictions apply to other adult websites owned by parent company Aylo, including YouPorn and Redtube.
Aylo said the UK’s age verification system had failed to protect children and had instead pushed users into “darker, unregulated corners of the internet”. The company said traffic to Pornhub fell 77% after the new requirements took effect last summer.
Alex Kekesi, head of community and brand at Aylo, described the move as a “difficult decision”.
“Our sites hosting legal and regulated porn will no longer be available to new users in the UK, while thousands of irresponsible porn sites will remain easily accessible,” she said.
Aylo initially adhered to legal requirements, she added, in the belief that Ofcom could effectively enforce the legislation. However, six months after the rules went into effect, the company said its experience suggested the law had failed to achieve its primary goal of preventing children from accessing adult content.
Ofcom rejected this assessment. A spokesman said pornographic services had a clear choice: “to use age checks to protect users as required by the law or to block access to their websites in the UK.”
The regulator said it would continue discussions with Aylo to understand the change in its position, adding that the pension rules were “flexible and proportionate” and had been widely accepted across the industry.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said the law does not prevent adults from watching legal content and does not require companies to leave the UK market.
“The online safety law is clear: online pornography services must prevent children from accessing this material by introducing strict age controls,” a spokesman said.
According to Similarweb, Pornhub remains the most visited adult website in the UK. Visitors to the UK version of the site are currently faced with a notice asking them to provide proof that they are over 18 years old. Starting next week, new users will instead face what Kekesi calls a “wall” that blocks access altogether.
Solomon Friedman of Ethical Capital Partners, which owns Aylo, said the company believed Ofcom had acted “in good faith” but argued the legislation itself was flawed.
“You have a dedicated regulator that works in good faith, but unfortunately the law under which it operates cannot possibly succeed,” he said, adding that users could still easily find explicit material through search engines.
Legal and technology experts remain divided. Emma Drake, partner at Bird & Bird who specializes in online safety, said the study cited by Aylo also showed that adult use of porn sites had fallen overall and that this was likely true for children too.
“Putting barriers in the most prominent locations can still protect very large numbers of children who don’t bother to get around them,” she said.
Aylo has argued that device-level age controls should be implemented by companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft, rather than individual websites.
Ofcom said there was nothing stopping device manufacturers from developing effective pension protection tools, but stressed that its role was to enforce the law as written.
Cybersecurity expert Dr. Chelsea Jarvie warned that no single solution would be enough. “Virtual private networks provide a workaround, which is why protecting children online requires layered controls rather than relying on individual measures,” she said.
VPN downloads surged in the UK after age verification rules came into force in July. Colleagues in the House of Lords have since backed an amendment to ban the provision of VPNs to children, highlighting the growing political focus on enforcement.
Pornhub’s decision represents the biggest push yet against the UK’s online safety regime and is likely to intensify debate over how age verification laws should be implemented and who should be responsible for enforcing them.
