Pornhub has said that it will not allow new users from February after previously saying it had lost 77% of its traffic as a result of the Online Safety Act requiring age verification
Brits may lose access to Pornhub with the site saying it will restrict access to its website over tougher age checks.
Only people in the UK who already have a Pornhub account will be able to access the site from February 2. Last October it said that it had already lost 77% of its UK traffic as a result of the Online Safety Act requiring age verification on porn sites to stop children accessing them.
The regulator, Ofcom, said last June that sites containing potentially harmful content, like porn sites, will have to perform age checks on users as part of reforms which apply to both dedicated adult sites and social media, search or gaming services as part of the Online Safety Act (OSA).
READ MORE: Drivers warned breaking ‘5pm’ Highway Code rule ‘could invalidate car insurance’READ MORE: Melania Trump makes rare move addressing horror ICE shootings and Minneapolis
Pornhub has said its decision to stop access for new accounts is due to what it calls the failure of the OSA by making the internet “more dangerous for minors and adults” while also jeopardising people’s personal data.
But while Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, said traffic had dropped 77%, Ofcom stated last autumn that tougher age checks were making a difference in stopping children from accessing unsuitable material
And an Ofcom spokesperson today reportedly said that “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”. While the regulator added it would communicate with Aylo “to understand this change to its position”.
A statement from Aylo read: “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 jeopardizes 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.”
While Alex Kekesi, head of community and brand at Aylo, said in a statement: “Aylo initially participated in the Online Safety Act (OSA) because we wanted to believe that a determined and prepared regulator in Ofcom could take poor legislation and manage to enforce compliance in a meaningful way, while offering more privacy preserving age assurance methods than we’d seen in other jurisdictions.
“Despite the clear intent of the law to restrict minors’ access to adult content and commitment to enforcement, after 6 months of implementation, our experience strongly suggests that the OSA has failed to achieve that objective.
“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 jeopardized the privacy and personal data of UK citizens.”
