Around 6,000 sites allowing porn in the UK will start checking if users are over 18 on Friday, according to the media regulator Ofcom. Dame Melanie Dawes, its chief executive, told the BBC “we are starting to see not just words but action from the technology industry” to improve child safety online. She told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme that “no other country had pulled off” such measures, nor gained commitments from so many platforms, including Elon Musk’s X, around age verification.
But the BBC understands at least one major porn site operating in the UK does not seem to be requiring age checks as of Friday morning. And experts remain sceptical about the effectiveness of Ofcom’s age checks and how easy it may be for people, particularly children, to circumvent them.
Ofcom said on Thursday that more platforms, including Discord, X (formerly Twitter), social media app Bluesky and dating app Grindr, had agreed to bring in age checks. The regulator had already received commitments from sites such as Pornhub – the UK’s most visited porn website – and social media platform Reddit.
The Technology Secretary Peter Kyle told BBC Newsbeat the UK’s new rules apply “common sense” to regulating the internet. “We’re very used to proving our age in lots of different areas of life at the moment, and it makes sense that we do so more assertively when it comes to online activity,” he said.
Chris Sherwood, chief executive of children’s charity the NSPCC, said Friday’s new rules mean services “can no longer evade their duty for protecting children”. He added it was “high time for tech companies to step up” and prevent children encountering harmful content on their platforms.
Not all believe Ofcom’s rules go far enough to protect children as intended, however. The Molly Rose Foundation, a charity founded by the family of Molly Russell – who took her own life at the age of 14 after seeing harmful content online – has said stronger legislation is needed to better protect children.
Others have expressed concern that people may seek ways to circumvent so-called age gates on porn sites – potentially pushing them towards less regulated spaces with more dangerous and explicit sexual material. Many of the sites which operate age verification services say they do not retain ID, videos or images required for them to carry out age checks for any longer than necessary.
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