Musk ordered to block children from viewing porn on X
New rules come into force on Friday requiring all companies that host pornography to introduce robust and 'highly effective' age checks to prevent any child under 18 accessing the content.
Failure to do so will mean they will face enforcement action by the online regulator Ofcom. This can include barring a social media company from operating in the UK or fines worth up to 10 per cent of their global revenue. For X, formerly Twitter, this would mean a penalty of up to £200m.
Mr Musk's X site is understood to be under scrutiny because of the amount of porn available on its platform, which has a 13-plus age limit. Online safety campaigners say it is one of the most commonly cited by adults and children where they stumble across X-rated adult content.
Research by Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children's Commissioner, found that many children were more likely to see porn on X than on established adult sites.
Some 41 per cent of young people aged 16 to 21 reported having seen pornography on Twitter compared with 37 per cent for dedicated adult sites. It was followed by Instagram (33 per cent), Snapchat (32 per cent) and search engines (30 per cent).
To enforce age restrictions, social media companies have been recommended by Ofcom to use open banking, photo ID matching, facial age estimation, mobile network operator age checks, credit card checks and digital ID services.
Industry sources say Mr Musk's X has three options: to bar all children aged under 18 from his site, remove all porn from the platform or introduce age checks for those accounts or parts of the site where there is adult content.
'If X or any other company that hosts pornography has not introduced highly effective age assurance by this Friday deadline, Ofcom has been clear that they will face enforcement action,' a government source said.
It is understood that nearly all of the biggest porn sites worldwide have agreed publicly or privately to introduce age checks to stop children accessing their content.
Aylo, the parent company of Porn Hub, is among those to have said that they will bring in 'government-approved age assurance methods'. Ofcom said the changes would 'bring pornography into line with how we treat adult services in the real world'.
They are part of a raft of measures that take effect this week under the Online Safety Act, which was introduced following The Telegraph's Duty of Care campaign to protect children from online harms.
Social media giants such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp will also be expected to enforce age checks at 13 to prevent children accessing content inappropriate to their ages.
The tech companies have been told they must either ensure their minimum age limits of 13 are properly enforced or radically overhaul their sites to make content safe enough for the thousands of under-aged children currently using them.
Ofcom research has suggested as many as six in 10 children aged eight to 12 have a social media profile even though access is supposed to have been restricted to over 13.
The measures are part of new children's codes set by the regulator Ofcom, which require companies to block their access to harmful content, including suicide, self-harm, violence or misogyny, from July 25. Those that fail to do so also will face fines of up to 10 per cent of global turnover or bans on operating in the UK.
Ofcom believes there is technology such as facial estimation, photo ID matching and emerging social ID cards for younger teenagers that could be used to provide 'rigorous' age restrictions.
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