Does the new age verification law solve the problem?
Why it may not & what can be done
July 2025 is set to mark the beginning of significant changes for adult entertainment companies, particularly in the UK.
For those of you who don’t know: The UK has now enacted mandatory age‑verification for all pornography websites and platforms under the Online Safety Act, with enforcement by Ofcom beginning July 2025, requiring users to provide photo IDs, credit‑card checks, facial age estimation, or mobile/bank confirmation that they're over 18. Under this regulation, non‑compliant sites may face fines or be blocked entirely in the UK. The move aims to protect children, who often encounter pornography.
However, as someone who has run an adult company and worked in child protection, I’m concerned these regulations won’t solve the problem they’re set out to solve. It’s a complex problem, and a “quick fix” might not be the answer. Here’s why…
VPN
People will always find a way around the system. I remember when I was in middle school, they blocked Facebook. So, we all found a free VPN within the space of 10 minutes and evaded the system at the age of 14.
In fact, most people have access to a VPN, and providers like NordVPN and ExpressVPN have already reported a surge in sign-ups. This begs the question of whether this was the correct way to “solve” or go about the problem.
Not all sites will regulate
A large proportion of mainstream sites will listen to the regulation; however, thousands and thousands of online pornographic forums and smaller sites have no clear ownership. These sites are unlikely to be regulated, and if young people can’t access mainstream sites, I fear they will go on to smaller, more dangerous and unregulated ones. It will be interesting to see how OFCOM plans on blocking these sites that do not adhere to the regulations. If it’s just a fine and not a quick block, then I don’t see how this will solve the problem.
What about X?
When I was running Freyja, we had many conversations with UK regulators over the age verification regulation. We were prepared to adhere to it; however, we asked them:
“What about Twitter?”
This is because, Porn is not against twitter’s guidelines. In truth, it is one of the biggest traffic funnels for adult sites, and you can easily find full pornographic videos and photos. I have seen more than I wanted to on Twitter… So if we want to stop young people accessing porn, then why is Twitter not being asked to also abide by the regulation? Well, according to our conversations with OFCOM, this is because they have a different intended purpose… intended purpose or not, it’s still covered in unverified porn. whereas most mainstream adult sites have to verify the content.
In sum, I understand the sentiment behind his regulation. But if they want to succeed with the overall goal, this may not be the correct course of action. After seeing the problems first-hand that adult companies & social media face, this would be my recommendation for a safer internet:
We need to improve sex education and porn literacy. People will come across pornography in some shape or form. It might not first be by stumbling across a porn site, it could be from a movie or an Instagram post & then they look for porn. That is hard to stop & what needs to happen is to improve sex education so that people understand the difference between sex & porn. Likewise, parents need to have discussions with their children on porn literacy & ongoing consent.
Porn companies need to improve their moderation systems to catch illegal & harmful content. This includes increasing the number of moderators, modern systems for third-party consent checking and more.
X needs to be held to the same standard & control the unverified pornography that it hosts.
There needs to be a game plan for tackling sites that host pornography, but where it’s not their intended purpose. As long as these sites are not regulated, then it won’t make as big a difference to regulating the adult ones.
Finally, we need more funding opportunities and fairer banking for young adult startups who want to make the space safer through innovation.
To learn more about the complexities of making the adult space safer, check out my book: Why I Failed in Porn. Click the following link to Read it now.