How the Online Safety Act is impacting sex work in the UK

After being implemented in July 2025, SimpleMedia by SimpleEscort considers the impact of the Online Safety Act for workers and their clients.

If you are involved in the sex industry in the UK over the past 9 years, whether as a worker or a consumer, you will have been aware of persistent efforts from the government to regulate erotic content online. 

Throughout the late 2010s, the spectre of a so-called ‘porn block’ was persistent headline fodder. Specifically, the Digital Economy Act 2017 sought to implement age checks for online pornography and was due to be put into action in April 2018, then July 2019. In June 2019, the government announced a further six month delay, before scrapping it altogether (after spending £ 2.2 million on the failed scheme) in October 2019. 

On 25 July 2025, the long-promised age restrictions finally manifested, but via a different piece of legislation: the Online Safety Act 2023. Enforced by the regulator Ofcom, the legislation has prompted over 6000 websites (including dating apps like Bumble and Grindr, and social media networks like Reddit) to implement age-verification methods. The penalties for companies who choose the route of non-compliance are huge: fines of 18 million or 10% of worldwide revenue. 

What does the Online Safety Act mean for porn?

The Online Safety Act has hugely impacted the porn scene in the UK. The stated aim of the new measures is to prevent under-18s from accessing porn. In order to do this, various age verification measures were put in place.

For consumers in the UK, that means that clicking anonymously between your favourite free tubesites is not an option. Rather, many popular tubesites will block you from accessing content unless you make an account, for which you are obliged to input your data – whether it be your name, contact details, or payment details. 

Some smaller porn providers, such as the Canadian, feminist-leaning porn platform Bellesa, pulled their free offering from the UK entirely while citing the difficulties of remaining compliant with the new legislation. 

Sites which might host adult content, regardless of whether that is their primary purpose, are also required to have age verification measures in place. This includes Reddit, which have been also known to host pornographic content in the forms of images, gif and short clips, as well as NSFW and sex-related queries. The platform has introduced age estimation software, similar to what has been used by the platform Only Fans, where a user is prompted to take a selfie, which will then be scanned by AI to determine the user’s approximate age. 

Already, there have been privacy concerns due to the fact that platforms, in particular porn providers, will now be forced to hold sensitive data which could be targeted for malicious purposes such as extortion or blackmail. 

As a result, the use of VPNs (virtual private networks, which allow you to browse the internet in a more clandestine way) spiked in the first hours of the Online Safety Act coming into effect, with Proton VPN recording a 1400% increase in this time period. 

What does the Online Safety Act mean for porn consumers?

Naturally, the Online Safety Act has impacted porn consumers: from casual viewers, to experienced fans. In July, I interviewed consumers (as well as individuals working in the industry) to discover more about how they had been impacted by the measures. 

Joe*, a 27-year-old porn user, explained that two of his go-to sites for porn, which are smaller, independent and focus on animated porn, were immediately blocked on 25 July. I didn’t even know that the block was happening, I just coincidentally went to watch porn yesterday and found that I couldn’t access the sites I normally use, he said. 

After seeing that his favourite sites were no longer active in the UK, he then found that the major tubesites required him to input his personal details. I then tried to use PornHub, which was the first alternative I could think of, and it was trying to force me to create an account to validate my age. It’s a form of censorship.

For his part, Joe thought that digitally literate youth would easily find methods to get around the block and it could be by more nefarious means.

While this is only one consumer’s perspective, it’s clear that the Online Safety Act has made porn consumption significantly less easy and frictionless, while also eliminating the UK presence of some smaller and independent sites. 

What does the Online Safety Act mean for sex work? 

The Online Safety Act is far-reaching and spans forms of digital and online sex work including camming, porn accessed via tubsites, and subscription porn services like OnlyFans. 

However, the impacts of the act are even farther-reaching than this. Before age verification reached porn platforms and social media networks, the digital advertising of sex workers was impacted. 

Specifically, as of 17 March 2025, websites were required to prevent or remove content pertaining to various activities, including “causing or inciting prostitution for gain”. This has caused a major impact on how some workers advertise their services and the platforms they advertise on. 

Concerns were already mooted by the sex worker community before the act came into effect. In response to Ofcom’s public consultation on the implementation of the Online Safety Act, various members of the sex worker community shared their concern about how further restrictions on advertising their services would impact their livelihoods and safety in a letter submitted by the Sex Workers Union. 

The feedback on the topic of advertising included the following quotes: 

How else am I supposed to legally and safely advertise my services? It pushes me to dangerous places to gain clients so I can work and keep a roof over my head and dangerous clients lurk in dangerous places looking for people to prey apon [sic]

I will likely have to work in an illegal brothel instead of working independently online and being able to choose who I offer services to. I also won't be able to check their public feedback or secret feedback that has been left about them for safety warnings in case they are violent, abusive or have otherwise harmed other workers

There are also clear parallels to FOSTA/SESTA in the US, legislation which impacted sex workers’ ability to advertise online and encouraged platforms to actively censor the community. Research has shown that these measures stateside negatively impacted sex workers’ safety and exposed them to greater violence. 

UK sex workers are also noting that their privacy is being compromised. In an article written by the founder of UK Sex Worker Pride, Maedb Joy, it’s highlighted that many sex workers are no longer able to advertise with images of their bodies on escort sites, and instead must use images of their face. This risks their identities being revealed, which can have wide-ranging consequences in terms of employment and child custody. 

The Online Safety Act: a sex worker’s response

A lack of warning and information 

In order to find out more about the Online Safety Act, and how it has impacted sex workers after its implementation, the dominatrix Ozziline Mercedes agreed to speak to SimpleMedia about her experiences. 

What’s key to emphasise is that many sex workers, Ozziline included, feel like there was not enough information or advice about the Online Safety Act before it was implemented. She highlights that even platforms in the sex industry seemed unsure of what changes might be in store. 

Before the act came into place I’d barely seen any news media coverage of the act. I could tell that the online adult platforms I use to promote myself as a dominatrix were equally as misinformed — they began sending emails with drabs of information no longer than a month before the act came in, all of which had an underlying tone of uncertainty about what this actually meant for their sites and us as providers, Ozziline shares. 

It also seems like many individuals outside of the industry were taken by surprise, and weren’t made aware of how this would impact sex workers. 

Most friends I know outside of the erotic industry knew nothing about this act at all, many of them only discovering it was a thing after trying to access their usual porn sites or even X. The ones who had heard about it had read how it was about ‘protecting the children’, with no understanding of those behind the act and how it would impact us all, she adds. 

Income loss and burnout

Conversations about limiting or censoring sex work often forget that sex work is work, and that individuals rely on the income they make in the sex industry. We saw this in the pandemic, when many in-person sex workers saw their income plummet. The Online Safety Act is yet another financial blow to sex workers. 

Without the same access to advertising, and with a psychological barrier introduced for potential clients who don’t wish to pass on their details to adult sites, Ozziline has experienced a significant loss of earnings. She tells SimpleMedia that she currently only earns 25% of what she made before the Online Safety Act. 

My income has dropped to a quarter of what it was before the act came into place. I’m extremely fortunate to have other modes of income, but have found myself reaching burn out a few times since it came in because I’m having to push other forms of work whilst simultaneously managing how to keep my business as a dominatrix going, she explains. 

Client changes

For privacy reasons, many potential clients are now concerned about registering with adult sites and engaging with the sex industry. The new measures also remove the impression of privacy, and introduce another layer of stigma. As a result, Ozziline has seen a significant demographic change in her clientele. 

The quality of clients I’m receiving session requests from has also lowered, most likely because [the remaining potential clients] feel they have nothing to lose when entering their details into adult sites, she shares. 

Now, Ozziline is forced to choose between compromising her boundaries and safety or making less money. [The clients I receive session requests from] are mostly time wasters, men who make violent requests and want to cross the boundaries I’ve put in place to keep myself safe. This has overall meant that I either make less money or willingly put my safety at risk.

The future under the Online Safety Act

The first months of the Online Safety Act have introduced major changes for workers in all aspects of the sex industry. However, many hope that these initial difficulties are temporary.

[The Online Safety Act is] still so new that it’s difficult to know how to adapt, and many of my peers in the industry are telling me they hope this is simply a teething problem, Ozziline explains.

In the interim, Ozziline is focussing on nurturing her existing client base. I’m currently taking on extra work wherever I can and am focusing on returning clients that don’t have to go through facial recognition just to find that my services exist.

In the long-term, Ozziline is concerned about how the act will impact the sex worker community as a whole. On a personal level, [the consequences of the Online Safety Act] have made me reassess my future in this industry, she says.

This act is pushing many workers into precarious living situations and forcing those who don’t have other lines of work to do forms of erotic labour they don’t want to do. It’s as if our autonomy was removed overnight.

The response from the sex worker community is clear: the Online Safety Act is harmful to sex workers, undermining their ability to advertise online safely and on their terms – potentially forcing individuals into more risky and precarious situations as a result. 

Uneven implementation, and risks to sex workers

While the Online Safety Act purports to tackle illegal content, and legal content that could be harmful to children, a recent social media trend has highlighted the double standards at play. 

In recent months, as many as 50 teenagers have been filming themselves storming into sex workers’ premises in London’s West End and posting the footage to TikTok. In some videos, phrases like “Close the brothels” can be heard, suggesting an anti-sex work sentiment. 

In response to this harassment, which has seen doors kicked down, windows broken, and at least one incident of a knife being brandished, sex workers in the area have described themselves as living “in fear”. 

Niki Adams, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, has spoken to the press about the incident, saying:

Women are living in fear, trapped in their flats and too scared to go out, and we cannot understand why the police have failed to take effective action or allowed this to continue for over a month.

Given that the incidents amount to harassment and criminal damage, it’s hard to understand why they were allowed to circulate on TikTok in the first place. The Online Safety Act also requires platforms to tackle content that stirs up hatred or provokes violence, but it seems that this has not been enforced in this instance, suggesting a clear oversight and lack of duty of care as it pertains to the sex worker community.