The United Kingdom recently started enforcing the Online Safety Act’s age-check rules, and reports indicate it is already having a significant effect on web traffic.
UK law now requires pornography websites to verify their users’ ages through means such as face scans and driver’s licenses. It also requires that online platforms prevent children from being exposed to adult content, which is why sites like Bluesky and Reddit have begun checking some users’ ages.
To study the law’s effect, an analysis examined the top 90 adult sites based on UK visitor data. The research found 14 sites that still do not perform an age check. All 14 of them appear to have experienced a dramatic increase in traffic, with one seeing its traffic double year-over-year.
Meanwhile, many websites that ostensibly complied with the law also criticized it. Some linked to a petition urging its repeal, and others even offered instructions for getting around the verification process.
A researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab described the situation as a textbook illustration of the law of unintended consequences. He added that the law suppresses traffic to compliant platforms while driving users to sites without any age verification.