Latest news with #XVideos
The Verge
5 days ago
- The Verge
UK porn site traffic tumbles following age gating rules
Figures reported by BBC News show that popular pornography websites are seeing far fewer visitors from the UK since the country enforced mandatory age verification requirements for online platforms. Pornhub saw a 47 percent decrease in UK traffic between July 24th (a day before the age-gating rules came into effect) and August 8th, according to data from analytics firm Similarweb, losing more than a million visitors in two weeks. XVideos also saw a 47 percent drop during the same period, while UK traffic to OnlyFans declined by 10 percent. Similarweb data also found that visits to some smaller and less well-regulated pornography sites had increased by comparison. Most of the age verification systems implemented by online platforms are easy to bypass using VPNs, however, which mask the user's location using overseas IP addresses. Proton VPN told The Verge that it saw a 1,800 percent increase in daily sign-ups from UK-based users in the three days following the UK's age-gating rules taking effect, and at the time of writing, three out of the top ten iOS apps in the UK are currently for VPN services. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Jess Weatherbed Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech
The Guardian
6 days ago
- The Guardian
UK traffic to popular porn sites slumps after age checks introduced
British visits to popular pornography sites have slumped following the introduction of strict age checks last month, data shows. Daily visits to Pornhub, the UK's most used porn site, fell from 3.6m on 24 July, the day before age-gating was introduced, to 1.9m on 8 August, a drop of 47%. At the next most popular sites, XVideos and xHamster, visits fell 47% and 39% over the same period, according to the data from Similarweb, a digital market intelligence company. The data, first reported by the Financial Times, appears to show the impact of strict age-checking rules from 25 July under the Online Safety Act. However, social media sites that also introduced age checks for material barred to under-18s, such as X and Reddit, did not experience dips in traffic over the same timeframe. A spokesperson for Pornhub said: 'As we've seen in many jurisdictions around the world, there is often a drop in traffic for compliant sites and an increase in traffic for non-compliant sites.' The Online Safety Act contains rules on protecting children from harmful content that require sites or apps showing pornography to prevent children from seeing it. Ofcom, the UK watchdog overseeing the act, has backed age assurance measures including: facial age estimation, which assesses a person's likely age through a live photo or video; checking a person's age via their credit card provider, bank or mobile phone network operator; photo ID matching, where a passport or similar ID is checked against a selfie; or a 'digital identity wallet' that contains proof of age. However, the act also requires online platforms to prevent children from viewing content including material that encourages suicide or self-harm, and to suppress the spread of content such as dangerous challenges, showing serious violence or inciting hatred against people. This has led to the age-gating of content such as an alcoholic recovery forum on Reddit and footage of an anti-migrant protest, which led to warnings that the new law was already over-regulating. Ofcom maintains that the act does not suppress freedom of expression and has pointed to provisions that protect free speech. Breaches of the act carry a range of punishments, from formal warnings to a fine of up to £18m or 10% of global turnover or, in extreme cases, the site being blocked in the UK. Nigel Farage's Reform UK party pledged to repeal the act after the introduction of age checks, sparking a war of words in which the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, accused Farage of siding with 'people like Jimmy Savile'. Farage described Kyle's comments as 'so below the belt'. The introduction of age-checking has also led to a surge in the downloading of virtual private networks, which allow people to circumvent a country's restrictions on viewing certain websites. The top five of Apple's app store have been regularly dominated by VPN apps.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- The Guardian
UK traffic to popular porn sites slumps after age checks introduced
British visits to popular pornography sites have slumped following the introduction of strict age checks last month, according to new data. Daily visits to Pornhub, the UK's most used porn site fell from 3.6m on 24 July, the day before age gating was introduced, to 1.9m on 8 August – a fall of 47%. The next most popular sites, XVideos and xHamster, saw visits fall 47% and 39% respectively over the same period, according to data from Similarweb, a digital market intelligence company. The data, first reported by the Financial Times, appears to show the impact of strict age-checking rules from 25 July under the Online Safety Act. However, social media sites that also introduced age checks for material barred to under-18s, such as X and Reddit, did not experience dips in traffic over the same timeframe. A spokesperson for Pornhub said: 'As we've seen in many jurisdictions around the world, there is often a drop in traffic for compliant sites and an increase in traffic for non-compliant sites.' The Online Safety Act contains rules on protecting children from harmful content that require sites or apps showing pornography to prevent children from seeing it. Ofcom, the UK watchdog overseeing the act, has backed age assurance measures including: facial age estimation, which assesses a person's likely age through a live photo or video; checking a person's age via their credit card provider, bank or mobile phone network operator; photo ID matching, where a passport or similar ID is checked against a selfie; or a 'digital identity wallet' that contains proof of age. However, the act also requires tech platforms to prevent children from viewing content including material that encourages suicide or self-harm, and to suppress the spread of content such as dangerous challenges, showing serious violence or inciting hatred against people. This has led to the age-gating of content such as an alcoholic recovery forum on Reddit and footage of an anti-migrant protest, which led to warnings that the new law was already over-regulating. Ofcom maintains that the act does not suppress freedom of expression and has pointed to provisions that protect free speech. Breaches of the act carry a range of punishments, from formal warnings to a fine of up to £18m or 10% of global turnover or, in extreme cases, the site being blocked in the UK. Nigel Farage's Reform party pledged to repeal the act in the wake of age-checks being introduced, sparking a war of words in which the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, accused Farage of siding with 'people like Jimmy Savile'. Farage described Kyle's comments as 'so below the belt'. The introduction of age-checking has also led to a surge in the downloading of virtual private networks, which allow people to circumvent a country's restrictions on viewing certain websites. Downloads of VPNs soared as a consequence, with the top five of Apple's app store regularly dominated by VPN apps.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Over a million gone! Pornhub sees UK visitors vanish after age checks kick in
When the UK's age verification law for adult sites came into force on July 25, 2025 , the impact was immediate and brutal. Within days, Britain's biggest porn platforms lost almost half their traffic — a collapse so sharp it has stunned both the adult industry and privacy campaigners. This isn't just about one country tightening its grip on explicit content. It's a live experiment the world is watching closely, from lawmakers in Brussels to state legislatures in the US. And the early numbers tell a story of drastic behavioural shifts, unexpected winners, and growing privacy fears. Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 4 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Artificial Intelligence AI For Business Professionals Batch 2 By Ansh Mehra View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 3 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Artificial Intelligence AI For Business Professionals By Vaibhav Sisinity View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 2 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass Batch-1 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program What the data reveals about the post-verification crash Figures from analytics firm Similarweb show that Pornhub's UK visits dropped 47% in the first fortnight of enforcement — down from about 3.2 million visits per day in July to 2 million in early August . XVideos saw an identical 47% fall, while xHamster traffic declined 39% . Across the top 90 adult sites , monthly visits from the UK fell 23% . In raw numbers, that's tens of millions of pageviews gone in under three weeks. Some industry insiders told that their analytics dashboards 'looked like a heart attack on a graph' the morning after the law kicked in. 'We knew there would be a drop,' said one operator of a mid-sized UK platform. 'We just didn't expect it to be this savage.' Live Events How the age verification law works — and why it's controversial Under the Online Safety Act , any site where more than a third of content is pornographic must verify that UK visitors are over 18. Methods include uploading a passport or driving licence, using facial recognition, or entering credit card details. The government argues this protects children from harmful content. But digital rights advocates, including the Open Rights Group, warn that creating a database linking people's identities to their porn habits is a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Past attempts — notably in 2019 — failed partly because of these concerns. This time, Ofcom has regulatory teeth and is already investigating over 30 sites for potential non-compliance. The VPN surge — and how it's rewriting the traffic map If site visits in the UK are tanking, that traffic isn't just vanishing into the ether. VPN providers are reporting a marked rise in UK sign-ups since late July, with some spikes as high as 60% week-on-week , according to industry tracker Top10VPN . This shift creates a murkier data picture. A British user tunnelling through a Paris server now looks, to analytics tools, like a French visitor. That means real UK consumption could be higher than the official data shows — but hidden from regulators. Several high-traffic IP ranges previously dominant in London now appear to 'originate' from Amsterdam, Dublin, and Frankfurt. The law may have reduced visibility, not necessarily demand. Winners, losers, and the shadow economy of adult content Interestingly, some smaller sites have seen a traffic bump since enforcement began. These tend to be foreign-based platforms that have chosen not to comply with the UK rules, betting that enforcement will be slow or selective. This creates a two-tier market: large, mainstream adult sites that follow the law and lose traffic, and nimble operators that skirt the rules and pick up fleeing users. The irony? In some cases, viewers are leaving safer, regulated sites for ones with fewer content controls, poorer security, and less oversight. What happens if other countries follow the UK's lead The UK's model is already being studied in Australia , France , and several US states . Lawmakers are watching both the political optics and the technical results: does traffic stay down, or do workarounds win? If VPN adoption remains high and non-compliant sites gain market share, other countries may hesitate to adopt copycat laws — or may try harsher enforcement, such as ISP-level blocking tied to identity verification. In private conversations with European Commission staffers, I've heard a mix of fascination and caution. One policymaker told me, 'We need to know if this is protecting children or just driving traffic underground.' The bigger question: privacy vs. protection For now, the UK is a real-time test case of whether state-mandated age checks can survive the collision between privacy rights and child protection goals. What's clear is that the debate has shifted. This isn't just a tech policy fight — it's a cultural and political flashpoint. The sites, the regulators, and the users are all adapting in real time. And as one adult industry veteran put it to me this week: 'Governments keep thinking they can fix this with a law. The internet has never worked that way.' FAQs: Q1: What caused UK porn site traffic to drop? A: New age verification rules under the Online Safety Act. Q2: How are UK users bypassing the porn site ban? A: Many are using VPN services to avoid verification.
Engadget
05-08-2025
- Business
- Engadget
Florida is suing several porn companies over age verification
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has sued multiple pornography platforms on allegations that they fall afoul of age verification laws. The state passed HB 3 in March 2024 and the law took effect in January 2025. HB 3 placed new requirements on services to confirm the ages of their users if they contain "material harmful to minors" and to ensure nobody younger than 18 accesses their content. The lawsuit today targets the companies behind several porn sites, including XVideos, XNXX, BangBros and Girls Gone Wild, as well as adult advertising network Traffic Factory. "We are taking legal action against these online pornographers who are willfully preying on the innocence of children for their financial gain," Uthmeier said. Although today's lawsuit focuses on pornography providers, many of the provisions in HB 3 also center on teen use of social media. In June, a judge temporarily blocked the law after NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association — groups representing several social media platforms — sought a preliminary injunction. Uthmeier has appealed that injunction to the Eleventh Circuit. Yahoo, the parent company of Engadget, is a member of NetChoice.
