The UK not too long ago began implementing the On-line Security Act’s age-check guidelines, and The Washington Submit reviews that it’s already having a major impact on net site visitors.
U.Okay. regulation now requires pornography web sites to confirm their customers’ ages by means of means akin to face scans and driver’s licenses; it additionally requires that on-line platforms forestall youngsters from being uncovered to grownup content material (which is why websites like Bluesky and Reddit have begun checking some customers’ ages).
To review the regulation’s impact, the Submit says it examined the highest 90 porn websites primarily based on U.Okay. customer knowledge from Similarweb, discovering 14 websites that also don’t carry out an age examine. All 14 of them seem to have skilled a dramatic improve in site visitors, with certainly one of them seeing site visitors double year-over-year.
In the meantime, many web sites ostensibly complied with the regulation whereas criticizing it, linking to a petition urging repeal, and even provided directions for getting round it.
John Scott-Railton, a researcher on the College of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, instructed the Submit that that is “a textbook illustration of the regulation of unintended penalties,” including that the regulation “suppresses site visitors to compliant platforms whereas driving customers to websites with out age verification.”
