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Pornhub is to stop new users accessing its site in the UK from next week, citing the impact of mandatory age checks that were introduced last summer under the Online Safety Act.
The pornography website, which is one of the most visited in the world, announced that from 2 February only users who have already verified their age will retain access through their existing accounts. The change also affects YouPorn and RedTube, explicit websites operated by the same Cyprus-based company, Aylo.
The move comes after Pornhub said in October that its traffic was down 77% in the UK since July, when the age checks came in and began to be enforced by Ofcom, the communications regulator.
In a statement, the company said that it would “no longer participate in the failed system” created as a result of the OSA.
Alex Kekesi, vice-president of brand and community for Aylo, said: “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.”
She added: “We believe this framework in practice has diverted traffic to darker, unregulated corners of the internet, and has also jeopardised the privacy and personal data of UK citizens.”
Pornhub remains the most popular porn site in the UK, according to the web traffic analyst SimilarWeb. Last month, Ofcom said visitor numbers to Pornhub in August were 9.8 million, a decline of 1.5 million compared with the same period in 2024, but the fall appears to have continued since.
Meanwhile, use of specialist software, such as VPNs, to dodge viewing restrictions has increased. VPN usage more than doubled in the wake of age checking being introduced, rising from 650,000 users to a peak of more than 1.4 million in mid-August and falling back to 900,000 in December.
The OSA, which came into effect in July 2025, requires pornography providers to carry out “highly effective” age checks to protect children from accessing explicit videos. These checks can be made through facial age estimation technology, credit card checks or other methods.
But Kekesi said Porhub’s data and experience suggested that effective enforcement of the OSA “is not possible, circumvention is rampant, privacy is compromised, and new, unregulated sites quickly fill any gaps left by responsible operators.”
He said: “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.”
An Ofcom spokesperson said: “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. There’s nothing to stop technology providers from developing solutions which work at the device level, and we would urge the industry to get on with that if they can evidence it is highly effective.”
The regulator said its job was to enforce the rules as they stand and its age assurance rules were flexible, proportionate and resulted in widespread adoption.
As of this week, 68 of the top 100 pornography services in the UK have deployed age checks.
“We’ve taken strong and swift action against non-compliance, launching investigations into more than 80 porn sites and fining a porn provider £1m, with more to come,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue our dialogue with Aylo to understand this change to its position.”
