UK Age-Check Law Boosts Traffic on Non-Compliant Porn Sites, Sparking Concerns Over Unintended Consequences

The implementation of age-verification rules under the Online Safety Act in the United Kingdom has reportedly triggered a notable shift in web traffic patterns, according to recent findings.

Under the new legislation, pornography websites are mandated to authenticate users’ ages through methods such as facial recognition and driver’s license checks. Additionally, online platforms are expected to safeguard children from accessing adult content, leading sites like Bluesky and Reddit to verify certain users’ ages.

To evaluate the impact of this law, The Washington Post analyzed data from Similarweb, ranking the top 90 porn sites based on U.K. visitor statistics. Fourteen sites were found to still lack age-verification mechanisms, experiencing a substantial surge in traffic as a result. One site even reported a doubling of yearly traffic.

In response to the law, several websites appear to have complied while expressing criticism, providing links to petitions advocating for its repeal, or offering guidance on bypassing the age checks.

John Scott-Railton, a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, commented that this situation serves as “a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences,” stating that the legislation is driving traffic towards sites without age verification while suppressing traffic to compliant platforms.