UK Porn Site Traffic Drops 47% After Age Verification Rules

UK Porn Site Traffic Drops 47% After Age Verification Rules
Above: The age-verification screen is displayed on the website Pornhub on July 25, 2025 in London, England. Image copyright: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

The Spin

Pro-government narrative

The UK’s porn age-check law is a landmark step in protecting children online. By combining privacy-preserving technology with enforceable safeguards, it ensures adult freedoms while drastically reducing minors’ exposure to explicit material. Just as we ID for alcohol or casinos, applying the same standard online is common sense — and it’s already proving effective.

Opposition narrative

Britain’s porn age-check law is a blunt, invasive tool that hampers its own aims — trampling privacy, inviting bias, and pushing teens toward riskier corners of the internet. Instead of fostering literacy, safety, and diverse, healthy sexual representation, it scapegoats porn, censors expression, and burdens users with surveillance masquerading as protection.

Metaculus Prediction


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© 2025 Improve the News Foundation. All rights reserved.Version 6.14.0

© 2025 Improve the News Foundation.

All rights reserved.

Version 6.14.0