The UK not too long ago began imposing the On-line Security Act’s age-check guidelines, and The Washington Put up experiences 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 via means resembling face scans and driver’s licenses; it additionally requires that on-line platforms forestall kids from being uncovered to grownup content material (which is why websites like Bluesky and Reddit have begun checking some customers’ ages).
To check the regulation’s impact, the Put up says it examined the highest 90 porn websites primarily based on U.Okay. customer information from Similarweb, discovering 14 websites that also don’t carry out an age test. 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 Put up 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.”
