There are valid criticisms of the Online Safety Act — but age verification for porn sites is good
Some things shouldn’t need saying — like don’t let kids watch porn. You’d think this was a moral baseline broad enough to unite everyone from Germaine Greer to the Pope. But BBC articles have framed the new requirement for age verification on porn sites as a profound ethical dilemma. The state broadcaster strained to find nuance — and ended up platforming pornographers and privacy bores with predictable objections.
Like most legislation, the Online Safety Act is far from perfect. It’s clunky, overreaching, and the way platforms like X/Twitter have implemented its requirement for age verification has already led to unjustifiable censorship — including reports that footage of protests in the UK has been blocked. Meanwhile, some pornography sites are offering risible age checks that a monkey could bypass. But one thing is clear: this law will mean that kids are less likely to simply stumble across porn on social media. And that is unequivocally a Good Thing.
There are no upsides to children viewing scenes of (real or simulated) rape, incest or sexual torture — yet this is the bulk of mainstream porn. The average age of first exposure is just 13. And studies from the British Board of Film Classification and the Children’s Commissioner show that typically minors don’t seek porn out; it finds them. In fact, 41 per cent first encountered porn on X/Twitter, more than on dedicated porn sites.
The real question isn’t why age checks have been introduced — it’s why they weren’t there in the first place.
Porn is now so normalised, it’s a given we’ve all seen it. But normal doesn’t mean harmless
The BBC itself inadvertently highlighted the issue in its reporting. When twentysomething Newsbeat presenter Jordan Kenny asked technology minister Peter Kyle, “How old were you when you first saw porn?” the 54-year-old wisely refused to answer. But the question itself was revealing. Not if, but when. Porn is now so normalised, it’s a given we’ve all seen it. But normal doesn’t mean harmless.
In a longer BBC feature, James Baker of the Open Rights Group claimed age verification would “teach young people deception” and encourage them to get around restrictions rather than talk to adults. As though the problem is children being dishonest about their porn habits — not the fact they have them in the first place.
Baker also wondered why sex scenes are treated as more harmful than violence. But porn isn’t like other media. It’s not just watched — it’s used. Reinforced by orgasm, driven by hyper-personalised algorithms, it rewires the brain in exactly the same way as addictive substances. And predators know it.
Child abusers don’t need convincing of porn’s power — they depend on it. While researching our forthcoming book Pornocracy, my co-author Robert Jessel and I spoke to criminologists who described how predators use porn to erode children’s boundaries and warp their sense of normal. The absence of age checks hasn’t just enabled isolated grooming — it has replicated the paedophile’s method on a societal scale. Since the advent of tube sites, we’ve raised entire generations shaped by the tactics abusers use to exploit them.
The results are now in, and they make grim reading. A 2023 survey by the Children’s Commissioner found nearly half of teens believe girls expect physical aggression during sex — 42 per cent believe they enjoy it. The 2025 Bertin Review showed how this belief turns into behaviour: 38 per cent of young women reported being strangled during sex, 34 per cent gagged, and 59 per cent slapped. What previous generations called sexual violence is now routine.
There has also been a collapse in the age of perpetrators who commit the most heinous acts. In January 2024, the National Police Chiefs’ Council reported a 7.6 per cent rise in child sexual abuse offences — and for the first time on record, most offenders were under 18.
It also matters when kids are first exposed. That 2023 survey found that nearly half (49 per cent) of those who saw porn before age 11 went on to seek out violent material — compared to 30 per cent of those first exposed after 12. The younger the exposure, it seems likely, the deeper the damage.
Take two of Britain’s highest-profile porn performers, Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips. Both have said they consumed porn as pre-teens. Until this law came into force, they were using explicit content on social media to drive traffic to paid porn sites. That pipeline is now — thankfully — less accessible to children.
Not every boy who seeks out or stumbles across porn will become an addict, and not every girl will follow in the footsteps of Blue and Phillips. But some, who otherwise would be healthy and functioning adults, will.
There are legitimate concerns about how the Online Safety Act might be used to enforce censorship. And more widely, whether its moves to criminalise speech or abolish trial by jury, the government seems suspiciously eager to rob citizens of our rights. But pornography is not just another liberty issue — it’s a public health and child protection crisis. We’re heading towards a hellscape where boys grow up to be rapists and girls grow up to be targets. Faced with this dystopia, fretting over blocked protest clips or being asked for your date of birth is ludicrous.
Age verification isn’t a panacea. It won’t stop all harm. But it might protect some children — and that’s more than enough reason to back it. Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the blindingly obvious.
Pornocracy by Jo Bartosch and Robert Jessel will be released in November.
