Pornhub blocks UK users following spat over Online Safety Act

Pornhub will block new users in the UK starting in February over an ongoing feud surrounding the Online Safety Act.

The head of community and brand at Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, has said that its sites, which include Brazzers, RedTube, and YouPorn, will no longer be available in the UK to new users.

The company argues that the Online Safety Act, which forced various platforms like Reddit, X, Instagram, and adult sites to implement age verification to protect vulnerable users, has not helped to shield minors from adult content.

Instead, Aylo argues that this new regulatory practice has circumvented traffic from their “legal and regulated porn” to “darker, unregulated corners of the internet,” according to its statement.

The company behind Pornhub has said that it will “no longer participate in the failed system that has been created in the United Kingdom as a result of the Online Safety Act’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 jeopardize the privacy and personal data of UK citizens,” Aylo said in a statement.

New users will no longer be able to access Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube as of February 2nd, 2026.

Pre-existing users who are age verified will be able to access their accounts, Aylo concluded.

“We are determined to be part of this solution and want to collaborate with government, civil society, and tech partners to arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution,” said Alex Kekesi, vice president of brand and community said on behalf of Aylo.

Users at risk of watching child porn on unregulated sites

Since the Online Safety Act came into effect, new research shows that roughly 45% of UK adults have accessed sites that don’t require age verification.

These unregulated sites could leave people vulnerable to watching child sexual abuse material without even knowing it.

The survey, conducted by the child protection organization Lucy Faithfull Foundation, found that almost half of the 3,700 Brits who participated said they watched content that made them feel uncomfortable.

A large chunk of participants (40%) said that the content they had watched forced them off the websites for good.

Unregulated porn sites could harbor malware and infostealers

Alongside the risk of watching child pornography, unregulated sites could harbor other nasty surprises, such as malware, which could be used to steal your private data.

One case showed an infostealer malware called Stealerium, which could scan users' devices for not-safe-for-work keywords like “porn” and then take screenshots of the user’s desktop, browsers, and even a webcam image capture.

This type of malware is specifically designed for sextortion, the process of capturing sensitive information such as users’ behavior on porn sites and images of the user, which is then used to blackmail the victim.

Sextortionists generally want to extort people financially, meaning that users could be blackmailed into giving these scammers what they want if their porn habits are particularly embarrassing or even illegal.

Porn traffic dropped by 80% after the Online Safety Act

While the porn giant argues that the Online Safety Act hasn’t protected minors, it appears the company has ulterior and self-serving motives in blocking new users in the UK.

Aylo’s porn sites experienced a significant drop in traffic last year, with previous reports stating that traffic had dropped by as much as 80%.

Aylo, responsible for porn sites like Pornhub, Brazzers, Redtube, and YouPorn, sent a letter to tech giants like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, begging them to take a “site-based age assurance approach” to age verification.

The letter claims that approaches adopted by the UK and US are “fundamentally flawed and counterproductive.”

Pornhub’s parent company suggested that Apple, Google, and Microsoft should implement device-based verification systems across their app stores and operating systems.

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