Following the tightening of restrictions last year, Pornhub is now furthering its crackdown in the UK.
From today (2 February) users of the UK’s largest porn site will have to have already met specific requirements in order to access content.
And the company is blaming the government and the controversial Online Safety Act (OSA) for forcing its hand.
In July of last year, sites like Pornhub had to introduce new verification checks as the OSA came into force in the UK.
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With figures from LADbible's recent 'For F**k's Sake' campaign showing that 77 percent of Gen Z consume porn, the legislation was designed in order to prevent children from viewing ‘harmful content’.
But as it reports a fall in traffic, users of Pornhub will now already have to have verified their age to continue to use the site.
Restrictions for Pornhub users in the UK
The OSA meant that sites like Pornhub had to introduce much tighter age checks to stop those under 18 accessing inappropriate content.
Users had to verify their age before accessing content using photo ID documents, facial age estimation, digital identity services, open banking, email-based age estimation, mobile-network operator age checks or credit card checks.
Platforms found to be breaching the act could face fines of £18 million.
But from today, Aylo, the company that owns Pornhub, has said that it will be blocking new users in the UK who have not previously verified their age.
What has Pornhub said about this new move?
This change comes after Aylo claimed the law change caused traffic to Pornhub to fall by 77 percent.
The company’s statement about this change reads: “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 jeopardises 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."
And its head of community and brand Alex Kekesi criticised Ofcom as he said the OSA has ‘failed’ and added: “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 jeopardised the privacy and personal data of UK citizens."
Per the BBC, Ofcom 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.”
Where is Pornhub already banned?
Pornhub previously went dark in France following similar laws that demanded adult sites in the country included third-party verification for age checks via credit card or government-issued ID.
There are also 23 states in the US where the site is blocked: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming
A number of others have age-verification bills pending.
And there are a number of countries around the globe where pornography is banned and presumably therefore, Pornhub is: Afghanistan, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Botswana, Brunei, Cambodia, Equatorial New Guinea, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen.
Users’ ‘loophole’ to access Pornhub
Following the introduction of the OSA, Brits were quick to discover a ‘loophole’ to access adult content – the use of virtual private networks (VPN).
Pretty simply, this means people could just pick a country where the ban isn’t enforced to bypass the UK restrictions.
VPNs were designed as a way of keeping people safe online, as it masks the user's IP address by creating a secure, encrypted tunnel for internet traffic.
And as a result of this loophole, Liz Kendall, the UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, has suggested the UK government will now look at VPNs as part of a three-month consultation to explore 'further measures' to improve online safety for children.
Topics: PornHub, Adult Industry, UK News
Jess Battison