Pornhub reveals how much its website traffic has dropped since introduction of Online Safety Act

The age verification system has been a right turn off

Last week, the Online Safety Act came into force across all adult content sites, meaning they now need to request age verification from every visitor. This can be achieved in many ways: facial recognition through a camera, account creation, entering credit card details, mobile network access, or open banking.

Per data analytics company Similarweb, it's been revealed that Pornhub has since lost over one million of its regular viewers in the past fortnight.

Between July 24 and August 8, a massive 47% decrease was reported, telling us that perhaps most people simply need a quick fix with no fuss.

A spokesperson for Pornhub told the BBC: "As we've seen in many jurisdictions around the world, there is often a drop in traffic for compliant sites and an increase in traffic for non-compliant sites."

Over the same amount of time, XVideos witnessed an equal percentage loss, while OnlyFans suffered 10% disengagement from its visitors.

XHamster appears to have taken the biggest knock though, losing 85% of its traffic since the legislation emerged.

"After years of operating in good faith, prioritising user safety, and growing our user base, traffic has essentially vanished in a day," read a statement from the adult site.

Ahead of the widespread change, Ofcom's chief executive Melanie Dawes commented: "For too long, many online services which allow porn and other harmful material have ignored the fact that children are accessing their services. Either they don't ask or, when they do, the checks are minimal and easy to avoid. 

"That means companies have effectively been treating all users as if they're adults, leaving children potentially exposed to porn and other types of harmful content. Today, this starts to change."