PornHub’s parent company, Canada-based Aylo, removed Australian access to its platforms, including PornHub, Redtube, YouPorn. and Tube8 just days before the eSafety Commissioner’s Age-Restricted Material Codes came into effect on Monday this week (9 March), which requires platforms with content deemed inappropriate to children to verify the age of their users.
Content that eSafety has applied the restrictions to includes high-impact violence, self-harm and suicide, disordered eating and pornography, among others.
Prior to this, platforms only had to ask users if they were only 18, which could be answered with a yes or no button on the site.
On the Friday before the restrictions came into effect, Aylo introduced its own restrictions.
Australian users attempting to access PornHub still can, but will only find interviews, unboxing videos and other safe-for-work content rather than the platform’s usual database.
Another of its platforms, RedTube, instead has just restricted account registrations.
“RedTube is not currently accepting new account registrations in your region,” the page said.
“RedTube is an adult website. It contains age-restricted materials including nudity and explicit depictions of sexual activity.”
eSafety said that Aylo, alongside other porn sites, had suggested that they intended to comply with the new age-restriction measures when consulted, but the commission was unaware that the platforms would block users entirely.
Aylo argues that age verification should be the responsibility of app stores and device manufacturers, rather than platforms and websites.
“Australia is following a similar approach to the UK, which all our evidence shows does not effectively protect minors, and instead creates harms relating to data privacy and exposure to illegal content on non-compliant platforms,” said a spokesman for Aylo speaking with The Australian Financial Review.
One Australian OnlyFans creator has warned that restricting legitimate pornography platforms will push users, including minors, to illegal sites.
Nikki Justice, top 0.2 per cent global OnlyFans creator and Australian comedian, told The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) that she actually agrees with the idea of age verification, but that there are fundamental issues with it, including regarding data privacy.
“I work in the adult industry, so I’m probably the last person some people expect to say this, but I actually agree with the goal of the new age verification laws,” she said.
“None of us got into this industry thinking, ‘Great, I hope teenagers are watching this.’ That’s a completely reasonable objective, and most adult creators I know agree with it.”
“Major corporations and even governments get hacked all the time. Many creators support age verification being handled at the device or operating-system level instead, through phone providers or app stores. That allows age to be verified once without requiring people to upload sensitive documents to dozens of different websites.”
Mish Pony, CEO of Scarlet Alliance, Australia’s national sex worker association, also spoke with SMH, stating that the restrictions placed on legitimate sites also kill income streams for sex workers.
“That leaves sex workers not earning income from their content,” she said, “with obvious flow-on effects to lower earnings and being pushed into working in ways that are less safe”.
Pony also pointed out that the age-restriction laws in the UK last year led to a 47 per cent decrease in PornHub traffic, but that smaller platforms without regulation and more limited content checks saw significant audience increases.
These platforms are more likely to host illegal content, including content that features underage individuals.
Likely outside of the context of Aylo, a spokesperson for eSafety told SMH that the regulations do not limit access for Australian users and that small sites will be monitored.
“The codes do not prevent adults from accessing, viewing, and paying for material such as online pornography,” the spokesperson said, adding that PornHub traffic is three times as high as the closest Australian competitor by month, and almost 10 times as much as the 10th largest provider.
