The UK’s Online Safety Act: A Path to Digital Authoritarianism?

If you’ve been typing in your browser things like “why can’t I access porn UK age verification?”—I have the answer right here, and it's not pleasant.

The UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 came into full effect on July 25, 2025. The law requires all platforms hosting pornographic content to implement “highly effective” age verification systems to prevent children from accessing adult material.

Passed on October 26, 2023, the Act gives the Secretary of State power to designate and suppress online content deemed illegal or harmful to children, creating a new duty of care for platforms that could result in hefty fines for non-compliance. Seems reasonable, innit? But the devil’s in the details—what exactly do they mean by “harmful,” and will this really protect children?

The “Good Intentions” Trojan Horse

Let’s be clear from the outset: no rational person wants children to be unsafe online. The desire to protect minors from harmful content is understandable and, in principle, admirable. However, history teaches us that the most dangerous erosions of freedom often begin with the most sympathetic justifications.

The Online Safety Act is what I call a “Trojan horse law” – legislation that uses something noble (in this case, child protection) as a vehicle to establish unprecedented government control over our lives. While wrapped in apparent good intentions, the Act's vague definitions and broad enforcement powers create a framework that can be weaponized far beyond its stated purpose.

The term “harmful content” appears throughout the legislation without precise definition, creating dangerous ambiguity. Who defines what's harmful? By what standards? Without clear boundaries, enforcement agencies and platforms will inevitably interpret these terms broadly, erring on the side of over-censorship to avoid penalties.

This vagueness isn't accidental – it's a feature, not a bug. Ambiguous laws allow authorities to expand their reach incrementally, targeting new categories of content as politicians redefine what's “harmful”.

In fact, ARTICLE 19 has repeatedly called for a radical overhaul of the Act due to problematic provisions endangering freedom of expression and privacy, warning that it could make the UK “the first liberal democracy to require routine scanning” of private communications.

Adult Freedom and Parental Responsibility

First, let’s establish our position clearly: there is nothing wrong with legal pornography being enjoyed by adults. We also believe adults should be able to consume such content without the government tracking their preferences or requiring them to surrender personal identification and sensitive data to third-party companies.

Furthermore, we don’t believe it’s the role of private companies or the government to enforce these restrictions. Parents are best equipped to know how, when, and to what extent they need to protect their children. The answer is not government surveillance.

But of course, this represents a perfect opportunity for a government that has been increasingly meddling in people’s private lives and freedom of speech, to expand its reach even further. Let's see what the UK goverment has been up to…

Recent UK Censorship: A Troubling Pattern

The Online Safety Act doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of an escalating pattern of UK government censorship and free speech restrictions:

Communications Act Prosecutions

Police are making over 12,000 arrests annually under communications legislation – over 30 per day – representing a 58% increase since before the pandemic, rising from 7,734 arrests in 2019. These arrests often target social media posts deemed “grossly offensive” or “menacing.”

False Communications Offenses

A new false communications offense introduced in January 2024 targets those who “knowingly spread false information with intent to cause significant harm,” adding another subjective standard for prosecuting online speech.

Draconian Enforcement

Now UK speech laws impose jail time for social media posts deemed offensive, e.g., Julie Sweeney (15 months for inciting violence) and Lee Dunn (8 weeks for offensive memes) in 2024, raising concerns about heavy-handed policing and free speech.

Ineffectiveness and Easy Circumvention

Beyond the freedom concerns, the Act faces fundamental effectiveness problems:

VPN Surge

The law has already sparked a massive VPN surge, with the sustained nature of signups suggesting this represents a permanent shift in user behavior. When enforcement began, VPN providers reported unprecedented demand as users sought to bypass the restrictions.

Technical Workarounds

Determined users – including tech-savvy teenagers – can easily circumvent age verification through:

• Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
• Tor browsers
• Foreign proxy servers
• Good old asking your big bro for their ID (or using it without their permission)

Platform Exodus

Some platforms may simply block UK users entirely rather than implement costly compliance measures, reducing choice and potentially driving users to less regulated, potentially more dangerous sites.

Consequences for Users and Adult Companies

For End Users:

• Privacy Erosion: Age verification requires sharing sensitive personal data with third parties
• Security Risks: Personal identification documents and biometric data become vulnerable to breaches
• Reduced Access: Legal adult content becomes harder to access through legitimate channels
• Surveillance Concerns: Government and corporate tracking of adult content consumption

For Adult Companies:

• Compliance Costs: Expensive age verification systems and legal compliance
• Market Barriers: Smaller companies may be unable to afford compliance, reducing competition
• Innovation Stifling: Focus shifts from product development to regulatory compliance
• Geographic Fragmentation: Different rules in different countries complicate global operations

Global Expansion: The Authoritarian Trend Spreads

The UK isn’t alone in this authoritarian drift. France has implemented similar age verification requirements for pornography sites, while Australia is planning to ban social media for under-16s entirely. These measures represent a coordinated global movement toward state control of digital communications.

This trend coincides with other concerning developments, such as Visa and Mastercard’s recent censorship of adult gaming content – effectively using financial infrastructure to control legal expression. You can read our article about that controversy here.

Sex and Fantasy Aren’t the Enemy

Sex is not bad. Pornography, when legal and involving consenting adults, is not unethical or illegal. Sexual expression is a healthy part of the human experience, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with indulging in some sexy fantasy. Millions of people create adult content, and billions enjoy consuming it.

These are legal activities engaged in by consenting adults. In a supposedly free society, the government has no business tracking, monitoring, or gatekeeping these private choices.

A Call to Resistance

As citizens of what was once considered a free country, those in the UK should be deeply concerned about a government that is systematically eroding their freedoms. The Online Safety Act represents just the latest step in this authoritarian march – but it doesn’t have to be accepted passively.

People who want to consume legal adult content will find ways to do so, but we should use our remaining freedom of speech to express how utterly unacceptable this overreach is. This isn’t just about pornography – it’s about the fundamental principle that free adults should be able to make their own choices about legal content without government supervision.

Resistance can take many forms:

• Speak Out: Use your voice while you still can to criticize these authoritarian measures
• Spread Awareness: Help others understand the broader implications beyond the “think of the children” rhetoric
• Support Organizations: Back free speech and civil liberties groups fighting these restrictions
• Vote: Support candidates who genuinely believe in limited government and individual freedom
• Vote with Your Feet: Consider whether the UK’s trajectory toward digital authoritarianism makes other countries more attractive

The unfortunate reality is that governments with a history of grabbing power never voluntarily stop at reasonable boundaries. The UK has been proving this principle correct with each new restriction on speech, privacy, and personal autonomy.

The country's trajectory from a nation that prided itself on free speech to one that jails citizens for social media posts represents a cautionary tale for the entire democratic world.

Stand up for your freedoms while you still can. Speak out against digital authoritarianism. And yes – in defiance of those who would control your most private choices – fap proudly, as is your right as a consenting adult in what should be a free society.

There's a Petition to Repeal the Online Safety Act that you can sign here

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