Pornhub says its UK traffic has plunged by 77% since stricter age checks for adult sites were introduced under the Online Safety Act (OSA) in July. The platform claims that websites avoiding the new rules are now benefiting instead.
While the BBC could not verify Pornhub’s data, Google Trends shows searches for the site have dropped by nearly half since the law took effect. Analysts say the fall could be due to users cutting back on adult content — or using VPNs to bypass the new restrictions.
The OSA now requires UK users to prove they are over 18, often using facial or ID verification. According to Ofcom, visits to porn sites across the UK have fallen by around one-third since July, with the law’s goal of protecting minors already taking effect.
Ofcom also estimates about one million Britons use VPNs daily — down from 1.5 million when the law began — while data from Cybernews shows 10.7 million VPN app downloads this year alone.
Pornhub’s parent company Aylo says enforcing the new age rules across an estimated 240,000 adult websites is “an insurmountable task” and that some non-compliant sites are now seeing “exponential growth.”
Aylo has urged the UK to consider device-level age checks instead of site-based verification. However, regulators maintain that non-compliant sites will face action and that the law has already made the internet safer for children.
