Beginning July 25, popular adult websites in the UK - including Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube - will roll out strict age verification checks to prevent children from accessing explicit content online.

The move is part of the Online Safety Act, a sweeping set of regulations aimed at protecting minors from harmful material on the internet, the BBC reports. Enforced by UK regulator Ofcom, the law applies not only to adult content platforms but also to social media, search engines, and gaming services that host or link to pornographic content.

Websites that fail to implement adequate age assurance systems could face heavy fines or even be blocked in the UK.

At least 14 major adult sites have confirmed they will adopt what are described as "highly effective" age checks. These may include credit card verification, open banking authentication, and facial age estimation technology

The full list of platforms that have agreed to be publicly named includes:

• Pornhub
• YouPorn
• RedTube
• Tube8
• Stripchat
• Cam4
• MyDirtyHobby
• Jerkmate
• Streamate
• FrolicMe
• BoyfriendTV
• LiveHDCams
• inxxx

“Society has long safeguarded children from age-restricted products like alcohol, tobacco, and gambling,” said Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s Group Director for Online Safety, via ITV. “It’s time the internet followed suit.”

“For too long, children have been just a click away from harmful online pornography,” Griffiths continued. “These new measures will align digital protections with real-world standards, while ensuring that adult users still maintain access and privacy.”

Under the new rules, platforms are also required to ensure their systems don’t violate user privacy or block legal access for adults. Many adult content publishers have already adopted similar safeguards, but the upcoming deadline ensures uniform compliance across the industry.

Recent Ofcom research found that 8% of UK children aged 8 to 14 visited an online porn site or app in a single month, with 3% of those children aged just 8 or 9, per Sky News.

The alarming statistics have accelerated calls for stronger protections, with the Online Safety Act now seen as a critical step in minimizing early exposure to explicit material online.

Featured image credit: Leon Neal / Getty Images.

Adult star Lily Phillips has sparked outrage once again with her X-rated act in public.

You may have heard of the name Lily Philips by now.

The 23-year-old, from the UK, first grabbed attention by setting a bizarre record: sleeping with 101 men over 14 hours.

She filmed each sexual interaction for her OnlyFans page, and even showed "proof" of the challenge completion by sharing a clip of her lying in bed while declaring that the room was a "state".

She spoke about the sex marathon in an interview with Metro, saying: "When you’re in sex positions for hours, my actual body, like my limbs, were aching."

"I felt like I’d been hit by a bus... But I enjoy it and I’m passionate about it. I don’t think I’d do these crazy things if I wasn’t," she added.

Now, the adult star is making headlines once again with another audacious stunt, this time for recording herself leaving a hotel with male bodily fluids covering her face.

In the video, Philips proudly steps out on the busy streets of London while giggling and smiling. “I don’t think anyone will notice. I think it looks a bit like a face mask!” she quipped.

Many users were disgusted by the act and took to social media to share their opinions. "That's enough internet for the day," one disgruntled person wrote, while another user called her "gross".

A third said the act should be "illegal" while a fourth slammed: "Attention is a hell of a drug".

Phillips was hoping to become the first woman to sleep with 1000 men in 24 hours but the record was snatched by fellow OnlyFans star Bonnie Blue.

In case you missed it, Blue, whose real name is Tia Billinger, is claiming to have engaged in sexual activity with 1,057 men within 12 hours.

The adult star hosted the event in London two weeks ago and took to social media to thank the participants. “Over 1,000 men in a day! Thank you to all the barely legal, barely breathing & the husbands,” she wrote on Instagram.

Despite being surpassed by Blue, Phillips expresses admiration and respect for the 25-year-old. “I respect it, that's hard work, so congratulations to her,” she said. “I don't think there's competition and I don’t feel I now have to do 1058. I feel like there's enough men in this world to f*** us both,” per The Sun.

Featured image credit: Instagram / Lily Phillips

Porn is a part of modern life. Virtuous it is not, but this is possibly only because millions of years of biology have taught us that sexual experiences should be shared. Yet even this sense that it is a guilty pleasure to be enjoyed in isolation is something of an outdated idea.

Regardless, it is a part of modern life which is going to get more difficult to access. Soon, adult websites will be blocked from users who cannot - or choose not to - prove that they are 18 years of age or over.

An unprecedented move, the aim of the “porn ban” is to protect vulnerable children from adult content. There will be a number of ways in which an internet user can verify their identity, including age-estimating facial recognition technology, SMS verification, providing credit card details to a third-party gateway or even obtaining a “porn pass” from a local shop.

However, there are plenty of problems with the new measures. Firstly, for anyone who finds buying condoms weirdly embarrassing, the option of picking up a “porn pass” from the same shopkeeper your parents buy bread and milk from probably isn’t too appealing. That leaves the online verification options of which, luckily, there are a few.

In conjunction with a third-party gateway, it is thought that you will be able to use your phone, credit card, driving licence or passport. One such third party gateway is AgeChecked. "The internet has never been more accessible, so protecting our children has become of the highest priority to shield them from viewing inappropriate material online," AgeChecked's CEO Alastair Graham explained to VT.

Graham continues: "The new laws around online age verification, which fall under the Digital Economy Act, were brought in due to concerns over how the adult content sector has been marketing its services, and the lax attitude it has had towards safeguarding minors from being able to view content. The primary area of concern has been young children stumbling across content that has disturbed them."

Unluckily, though, there are vast opportunities here for this information to be misused. When extramarital affair website Ashley Madison was hacked and its users’ information made public, they had to pay out $11 million of compensation to 33 million people.

By comparison, Pornhub - the world’s most-visited porn website - has been known to average close to 100 million daily visits. However, perhaps even more interesting is that one of the systems which may well be taking our personal information is called AgeID, which is owned by MindGeek, who also own RedTube, YouPorn and Pornhub.

Add to this creepy carnival of conspiracy the idea of a porn website asking to guess your age via your webcam and it might be enough to send you to a seedy sex shop for discount DVDs of weird porn you don’t even enjoy. That said, it is only the UK who so far have decided to go ahead with the measures.

But what’s the most likely outcome when trying to watch porn turns into an episode of Black Mirror? “Adults (and some children) may be pushed towards using Tor [a type of virtual private network] and related systems to avoid age verification, where they could be exposed to illegal and extreme material that they otherwise would never have come into contact with,” predicted the government’s own impact assessment.

Furthermore, while there are a number of age-verification gateways with which websites can partner, the actual regulator is the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). After a lot of deliberating, it was finally decided at the beginning of last year that the regulator for online adult content would be the same organisation responsible for determining whether that James Bond movie is a 12A or a 15.

With ancient roots in assessing lewdness and dangerous political ideas, it seemed that the BBFC might not be the most suited to the job. However, it is just another step towards what many might call British prudishness. In 2014, for instance, the British government banned certain porn from being produced in the UK including “female ejaculation”, “fisting” and “facesitting”. The last of these two, it determined, represented a threat to life.

However, as much as the lack of measure makes for an easy target, that the new law isn’t far-reaching enough makes for another interesting argument. It does not, for instance, cover any form of social media. Platforms such as Twitter, Reddit and, until recently, Tumblr made for a goldmine of pornography for children who would might otherwise not have access to it. However, the porn ban doesn’t impact social media sites or search engines, both of which provide easy access to adult material.

The action comes off the back of a report which found that more than half of children and teenagers who accessed porn “stumbled across” it. Not only is this incredibly ambiguous, the study, commissioned by the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), was carried out by OnePoll.

OnePoll is a “creative market research” company - similar to organisations such as YouGov (unrelated to the government). Some of their findings are questionable and, like YouGov, their data more often fuels tabloid headlines rather than policymaking.

However, the NSPCC has also highlighted some pertinent statistics. "A study from the NSPCC supports the idea that children are greatly influenced by the content they see," AgedChecked's Alastair Graham continues. "It found that a third of child sex abuse cases are carried out by other children, and the problem is being driven by access to adult-content by the underaged. This just goes to show how vulnerable and impressionable children really are, and why safeguarding them from harmful material is absolutely vital."

In all likelihood, when the new law comes into effect on 1 April, it will not beckon in some sort of porn apocalypse. "AgeChecked never stores personal information on its users and credentials are anonymised - so personal data cannot be passed on to adult websites, or indeed anyone," explains Graham. "The technology works by age-verifying customers through - for example - a driving licence or credit card and allowing users to access age-restricted sites and products via a unique username and password. Customers only have to go to through age verification once, from then on an AgeChecked login provides the necessary age check for website operators."

"When a customer tries to access an age-restricted website or service, the site will only receive a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ message from AgeChecked - nothing more," Graham adds, soothing our concerns. "Users that do not meet the age requirements will be denied entry."

However, the most simple workaround for those unwilling to relinquish their personal details would be a VPN (virtual private network). This will tell websites you’re visiting that you’re not from the UK - but from a country of your choosing. Just don’t say I told you.

OnlyFans has announced new guidelines that will forbid its users from sharing "sexually explicit" content.

As reported by BBC News, the subscription site - which was founded in 2016 - has continued to grow throughout the pandemic, and now boasts 130 million users.

The site is primarily known these days for its adult content, and allows its creators to earn money from other users (aka "fans") who subscribe to their content. Creators can earn money from monthly subscriptions, cash tips, or PPV-like services - with OnlyFans taking a 20% cut for "referral payments, payment processing, hosting, support, and all other services".

However, despite the growing popularity of x-rated content being shared on the site, OnlyFans will be blocking any sexually explicit photos and videos from October 1.

The BBC reports that the change has come as a result of pressure from its banking partners. In a further statement, the subscription site said:

"In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of our platform, and continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines."

Reports say that creators will still be able to share nude content, but it must be in line with the site's new rules and regulations. "Creators will continue to be allowed to post content containing nudity as long as it is consistent with our Acceptable Use Policy," the statement added.

As shared by Variety, the statement continued: "We will be sharing more details in the coming days, and we will actively support and guide our creators through this change in content guidelines.

"OnlyFans remains committed to the highest levels of safety and content moderation of any social platform. All creators are verified prior to being able to upload any content to OnlyFans, and all uploaded content is checked by automated systems and human moderators."

Per the Daily Mail, OnlyFans announced earlier this week that it will be launching a new "suitable for work" streaming platform called OFTV. The new app will allow creators to share video content on topics like "fitness, wellness, and cooking".

The site currently features non-nude content from stars such as Mia Khalifa, Holly Madison, and Bella Thorne.

Featured image credit: True Images / Alamy

A British secondary school student has gone viral after telling a reporter that when the new social media ban for under-16s goes into effect next spring, she will simply “stare at a wall” instead of using her phone.

This week, the UK government announced that all apps, including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X, will be banned for all users under 16 in a bid to protect children from the dangers posed by social media.

YouTube Kids and messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal will still be available.

The UK government has faced criticism over the new law. Credit: Pool / Getty Images

A student has gone viral for her brutal honesty about the ban

One teenager who was interviewed by BBC News told a journalist that her biggest concern over the ban was not being able to contact her loved ones.

Isabella said, “Not being able to contact my friends. I don't know what will happen and how it will happen, or whether there are any technicalities to what apps are restricted, but I use most of my social media to contact my parents and family.”

When the student was asked what her total screen time was over the weekend, she answered with a shocking, but standard, “nine hours”.

Then, after being asked what she would do with her time instead once the ban comes into place, Isabella stared at the camera and, with a completely deadpan expression, said, “Stare at a wall.”

The clip has since gone viral for the teenager’s hilarious and relatable reaction.

Apps including Instagram will not be accessible to under-16s. Credit: NurPhoto / Getty Images

The legislation aims to protect children against the dangers of social media

UK Prime Minister and father of two teenage children, Kier Starmer, told a news conference that he has put the legislation through Parliament because he is “not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children.”

He continued, “Every parent can see it with their own eyes. Social media is making children unhappy.

“I've heard firsthand from families crying out for change, and we will do right by them.”

The new legislation has been widely endorsed by parents across the UK, as the campaign was backed by a group of parents who believe social media played a serious part in the deaths of their children.

Beginning next spring, the restriction will follow similar laws already in place in Australia, Canada, Brazil, and Indonesia.

Featured image credit: Matt Cardy / Getty Images