Websites like Pornhub are pulling out – and that should worry us all
Pornhub has withdrawn its services from UK users, claiming it is simply unable to comply with age restrictions imposed by the Online Safety Act. The explicit website may not be a cause to champion, but it is a canary in the coalmine, says Tom Harwood
The largest pornography platform in the United Kingdom has shut its doors to new users this week. Few will publicly mourn the passing of Pornhub. But the withdrawal of this business from British shores should worry us – not for the loss of its content, but what it represents about the internet.
It has been six months since the mass online censorship of the Online Safety Act came into effect. When browsing from Britain, people have already found themselves blocked from seeing reporting of war in Gaza, clips of anti-asylum hotel protests and written court transcripts from grooming gang trials. Even a Parliamentary speech had by default been blocked from view.
Unless you are the sort of user willing to hand over credit card details or a webcam-scan of your face, the internet is simply a different place today.
Of course, it was always the big lie of the Online Safety Act that restrictions would only apply to children. Indeed, the only way to ensure no under 18s are able to see ‘harmful’ content is to treat all users as children by default.
The only way to ensure no under 18s are able to see ‘harmful’ content is to treat all users as children by default
And more than that, isn’t it absurd that the government is moving to make 16 and 17 year olds voting citizens at the same time as enthusiastically enforcing a law that prevents them from seeing the open internet.
But it’s not just content on social media that is overzealously blocked. Pornhub is just the latest, largest, website to decide it just can’t comply with the regulatory environment any more.
More innocuous but less well reported sites have long since become casualties of this sweeping censorship law. Smaller websites – everything from The Hamster Forum (“for all things Hamstery”), to cycling forum Bike Radar, to a discussion forum for residents of the small Oxfordshire town of Charlbury – have all now been taken offline. The compliance costs were just too high for small volunteer forums to keep going.
Wikipedia under threat
Even the mighty Wikipedia has raised concerns and is monitoring its position. As it is made up of ‘user generated content’, the largest encyclopedia in the world could fall foul of the harm provisions of the Online Safety Act.
While Pornhub may not be a cause to champion, it is a canary in the coal mine. Businesses are finding it just too difficult to continue operating in the United Kingdom. And many have seen their visitor numbers crash, often simply because visitors from Britain are spoofing their IP addresses through the use of Virtual Private Networks. Britain’s online footprint is shrinking fast.
Of course regulatory costs aren’t just hitting businesses that host legal regulated pornography. So many others risk falling foul of other so called ‘harm’ provisions.
The Act defines harm absurdly broadly, mandating default censorship of anything that poses “a significant risk of psychological harm”. What constitutes a significant risk of psychological harm to children? Good luck guessing. Just remember that if you fall foul of it you could go to prison.
If you run a hamster forum, could discussion of the death of a hamster cause psychological harm? If you run a bike forum, might discussion of a graphic cycling accident fall foul? Maybe? Maybe not. Would you take the risk? Clearly the forum for all things hamstery didn’t want to chance it.
But there is a deeper point here too. While reasonable legal websites are shutting down, it’s those that are utterly unregulated that are easier to access – even for children. The Dark Web is thriving while responsible sites are shutting down.
Britain has a shrinking footprint online. VPN browsing is increasingly becoming normalised. Footfall hasn’t disappeared, it’s just appearing as if it comes from other countries. And all of this added together means, increasingly, businesses would simply rather avoid our risky market. While few tears will be spilled at the passing of Pornhub, we should all be awake to the trend it represents.
Tom Harwood is deputy political editor of GBNews