Pornhub says it will block access for new UK users from February 2, 2026 rather than comply with the UK’s Online Safety Act age-check regime, a move that has reignited debate over privacy, overblocking, and whether compliance costs are pushing sites out of the UK market.

Pornhub’s planned UK restrictions are being framed by some commentators as more than an adult-industry headline — and as a warning sign about how the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) is reshaping access to the wider internet.

In a City A.M. opinion piece, political journalist Tom Harwood argues that while few will publicly rally to defend Pornhub, the platform’s retreat should be treated as a “canary in the coalmine”: a high-profile example of businesses deciding that operating under the UK’s new compliance environment is no longer worth the risk or cost.

What Pornhub is changing in the UK

According to reporting on the decision, Pornhub’s parent company Aylo plans to restrict the site for UK users who have not already completed age verification, allowing continued access for users who have previously verified and logged in, while blocking new UK users from registering or accessing the site from February 2, 2026. The change is also reported to affect other Aylo-owned sites such as YouPorn and RedTube.

Aylo’s stated objection is that the age-check system is flawed and privacy-invasive, and that compliant sites may be penalized while noncompliant or offshore sites remain accessible — which, it argues, can drive users toward less regulated corners of the web.

Why the UK’s Online Safety Act is at the center

The UK’s Online Safety Act introduces duties aimed at keeping children from accessing online pornography and other harmful content. Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, has issued guidance on “highly effective” age assurance and explains that pornography services accessible from the UK must use strong age checks.

Harwood’s argument is that the practical effect of strict age-gating is not limited to minors. If platforms must reliably exclude under-18s, they often end up treating all users as potentially underage unless they provide verification — meaning adults face new friction and may be asked for sensitive proof such as identity or facial scans, depending on the service’s chosen method.

The “overblocking” concern

In his City A.M. column, Harwood claims the OSA’s impact has extended beyond pornography into broader online content, including news and civic material, describing a climate of caution where platforms block first to reduce liability. He also points to smaller community forums reportedly shutting down or restricting access due to compliance burdens.

Separate reporting notes that Ofcom maintains the rules are workable and that many top adult sites have moved toward compliance, but critics argue the incentives created by enforcement and potential penalties can still lead to over-removal and conservative moderation choices — especially for smaller operators without legal and trust-and-safety teams.

VPNs, offshore sites, and unintended outcomes

A recurring theme in both the opinion piece and wider coverage is displacement: if large, regulated platforms pull back, traffic doesn’t necessarily disappear — it may shift to VPNs or to less regulated providers. Recent reporting cited a sharp drop in UK traffic to Pornhub following enforcement and ongoing discussion about VPN circumvention.

Harwood’s central warning is that a “shrinking” UK internet footprint can have knock-on effects: fewer services willing to operate locally, more users adopting workarounds, and a growing gap between what UK users can access easily versus what exists elsewhere online.

Why adult-industry watchers are paying attention

Even for readers who don’t view Pornhub as sympathetic, the story matters because it highlights a broader trend: policy decisions aimed at child safety increasingly shape platform design, identity verification expectations, and operational risk for adult and mainstream sites alike. As enforcement tightens, the competitive advantage may shift toward large platforms that can absorb compliance costs — while smaller publishers and communities face difficult tradeoffs.

For now, Pornhub’s UK move is being watched as a test case: whether age assurance becomes normalized with minimal disruption, or whether more platforms decide the simplest option is to reduce features, restrict access, or exit the market altogether.

Source: theguardian.com

Update (January 2026): EU regulators have opened a formal inquiry into Grok/X under the Digital Services Act, Malaysia temporarily blocked Grok and later lifted the restriction after X introduced safety measures, and California’s Attorney General announced an investigation; researchers say new guardrails reduced—but did not fully eliminate—nudification-style outputs.

What this is about

The passage describes the Grok “nudify” controversy that erupted in late December 2025 and carried into January 2026. Grok, X’s built-in AI chatbot, could be prompted to create sexualized edits of real people’s photos—such as replacing clothing with a transparent or minimal bikini look, or generating “glossed” and semi-nude effects—often without the person’s consent.

Why did it become a major problem on X

The key difference from fringe “nudify apps” or underground open-source tools is distribution. Because Grok is integrated into X, users could generate these images quickly and post them directly in replies to the target (for example, “@grok put her in a bikini”), turning image generation into a harassment mechanic at scale through notifications, quote-posts, and resharing.

What researchers and watchdogs flagged

The text claims that once the behavior was discovered, requests for undressing-style generations surged. It also alleges that some users attempted to generate sexualized images of minors, raising concerns about virtual child sexual abuse material and related illegal content—especially serious given X’s global footprint and differing international legal standards.

The policy and legal angle the article is making

• X’s own rules prohibit nonconsensual intimate imagery and child sexual exploitation content, including AI-generated forms.
• In the U.S., the article argues the First Amendment complicates attempts to regulate purely synthetic imagery, while CSAM involving real children is broadly illegal.
• The TAKE IT DOWN Act is discussed as a notice-and-takedown style remedy that can remove reported NCII, but does not automatically prevent the same input image from being reused to generate new variants.

How X/xAI responded (as described)

The piece contrasts Musk’s public “free speech” framing with the fact that platforms still have discretion—and in many places, legal obligations—to moderate harmful content. It says X eventually introduced guardrails and moved Grok image generation behind a paid tier, but some users reported they could still produce problematic outputs.

If you paste the exact excerpt/source you’re using (or tell me the outlet), I can rewrite it in a cleaner, tighter “news brief” style while keeping the meaning and key dates.

Italy has formally named 45 porn and porn-adjacent websites that must introduce stricter age verification from November 12, 2025, as the country becomes the latest to tighten access to adult content.

The Italian communications regulator AGCOM has published a list of services it classifies as providing pornographic material in Italy. The roster includes Aylo-owned platforms Pornhub, Redtube, and YouPorn, along with xHamster, camming site Chaturbate, and subscription giant OnlyFans, among others.

Under the new framework, all sites on the list will be required to verify that users connecting from Italy are 18 or older through certified third-party providers. These verification partners may include dedicated age-check services, banks, or mobile operators that already hold verified customer data. Crucially, the process is expected to be repeated each time a user visits one of the listed platforms, rather than operating as a one-time verification per site, as is the case in some other markets, such as the UK.

Italy’s legal basis for porn age verification came into force in May, but platforms were granted a grace period until November 12. Only now has the full list of affected services been disclosed, and it features many of the industry’s largest brands. The move comes as critics of age verification argue that strict regimes tend to push traffic away from the biggest, more heavily scrutinized platforms and toward smaller sites that may be less compliant or less transparent.

In the UK, where tougher age checks for porn access were introduced in July, Pornhub has claimed that traffic from the country fell by 77 percent after the new rules took effect. According to parent company Aylo, users are not abandoning adult content altogether but are instead gravitating toward platforms that have not yet implemented – or are not yet being forced to implement – comparable verification systems.

Subsequent traffic data has indicated that, as visits to major porn brands decreased, some smaller adult sites experienced a corresponding rise in UK user numbers. At the same time, the UK regulator Ofcom has opened investigations into a range of pornography services, including lesser-known sites it alleges are not complying with the updated rules.

In Italy, platforms that appear on AGCOM’s list and fail to adopt compliant age verification procedures by November 12 risk facing penalties of up to 250,000 euros (around 290,000 US dollars). Observers expect that the regulator will add more services to the list over time as enforcement develops and new sites are identified.

Italy is also one of five EU member states that have piloted an age verification application developed by the European Commission. The tool is intended to provide a privacy-preserving way to prove that a user is over 18, with potential future use in porn age verification systems across the bloc.