Ofcom, the UK’s Office of Communications, has published a draft of age-restriction guidelines for online services that host explicit sexual content. The (not yet finalized) recommendations are a step toward cementing enforcement for the recently passed Online Safety Act, which requires platforms displaying or publishing pornography in the UK to ensure children are “not normally able to encounter” adult content on their sites or apps. It’s the UK’s latest attempt to enforce age verification after it bailed on a similar plan in 2019. As before, not everyone is convinced the measures will adequately protect user privacy.
The agency cites studies showing the average age children are introduced to online porn is 13, with 27 percent viewing it by age 11 and 10 percent by age nine. In addition, it says 79 percent of children have seen violent pornography (defined as content “depicting coercive, degrading or pain-inducing sex acts”) before their 18th birthday. Ofcom shared a
