The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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I was on the lookout for something to write about. “I know,” I thought, “I’ll see what the latest news is to come out of OfCom, the UK’s regulatory authority for broadcast, internet, telecommunications and postal services!”
In the old days, days I remember with great fondness, I could have just typed Ofcom.org.uk into the nav bar on my browser and I’d be there, reading the latest from Ofcom. Not anymore – because now, even to read a drab, dull, regulatory agency’s website, first I must satisfy a machine’s demand that I prove I’m human, first.
No big deal. Just a simple captcha test (one probably easily defeated by a sophisticated enough bot, tbh) and I’m on my way… sort of. Which is to say I would be on my way, except now I must read a disclosure about cookies, perhaps adjust some settings and then “accept” or “save” or “surrender to” those preferences, or whatever the verbiage might be.
This is using the internet now, apparently. Instead of “surfing” and the freedom of movement that term suggests, it’s more like navigating a joyless obstacle course, in which I’m required to verify my age and/or my very humanity as I hop from step to step.
I’m sure this seems to many people like an overstated complaint. “So what?” they might say. Why is it a big deal to verify minor details like your age, or to have your internet path blocked in one way or another, based largely on where I live and where the site I’m accessing is located?
People used to call the internet the “information superhighway.” While this was an admittedly irritating buzz phrase, the term did at least capture the sense that the internet was something largely unfettered, where data, entertainment, information, misinformation and all manner of expressive content was available to all those able to access it.
Now, despite the fact I’ve been an adult for nearly 40 years, every time I turn around while online, I’m being asked to verify the fact of my adulthood anew. (Yes, I do visit a lot of porn sites; it sort of comes with the territory of – you know – working in and writing about the online porn industry.)
I understand a lot of people are hot to make the internet “safer,” but to me, this desire betrays an ignorance of what the internet is – or if not an ignorance of its nature, a stubborn desire to transform the internet to something else. But the internet, whatever else it might be, is a massive computer network about which the best thing has always been the worst thing, as well: Virtually anyone can publish virtually anything on it.
Slap as many age gates and regulations as you’d like on a massive, global, computer network; you’re still just engaging in an endless game of whack-a-mole. OfCom themselves reported that after the requirement that adult sites employ “Highly Effective Age Assurance” (HEAA) methods, VPN usage in the UK more than doubled, “rising from about 650k daily users before 25 July 2025 and peaking at over 1.4m in mid-August 2025.”
OfCom is undeterred by numbers like these, of course. Their inevitable answer will be to impose restrictions on VPN use. Because like any government regulatory agency, if there’s one thing OfCom will not be able to tolerate, it will be the sense they can’t control that which is in their remit to tame.
Speaking of OfCom, when I did finally satisfy their system that I’m a human who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time deciding which cookies he does and doesn’t want attaching to his browser, what I found was an explanation of – and almost an apology for – the upper limit of the agency’s regulatory reach with respect to AI chatbots.
After stating with apparent pride that OfCom was “one of the first regulators in the world to act on concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share demeaning sexual deepfakes of real people,” OfCom goes on to explain that “not all AI chatbots are regulated” by the agency.
“Broadly, the Online Safety Act regulates user-to-user services, search services and services that publish pornographic content,” OfCom explained. (They don’t say so, but just for your edification, this limited scope is due to sexually explicit depictions being awful, youth-corrupting and inherently sinister, while depictions of people getting shot in the head or beaten bloody with lead pipes are fine.)
On the other hand, “AI chatbots are not subject to regulation if they… only allow people to interact with the chatbot itself and no other users (i.e. they are not user-to-user services);
do not search multiple websites or databases when giving responses to users (i.e. are not search services); and cannot generate pornographic content.”
OfCom ends its notice with a how-to guide on reporting anything you find online “that you think might be harmful or illegal.”
I’d try reporting OfCom’s website itself for harmful content, because I sure feel like I’m getting dumber just by reading it… but I suspect to execute this vengeful little practical joke, I’d have to pass at least three captcha tests, verify my age seven times and produce some manner of HCPN (“Highly Compelling Proof of Netizenship”).
You know what? I think I’ll just read a book. So far as I’m aware, I’m not required to present ID to grab an old tome off the shelves in my study… yet.
