The Canadian owner of the world’s largest pornography websites has begun blocking Australian users in protest at new age verification laws due to take effect on Monday.
Aylo, which operates adult sites Pornhub, RedTube, YouPorn and Tube8, restricted access to several of its platforms for many Australian visitors on Friday and said it was no longer accepting new account registrations.
Getty
Pornhub — ranked as the 15th most-visited website in Australia by analytics firm Similarweb — had not yet been blocked at the time of publication.
In a statement, Aylo said Australia was “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”.
Aylo has a troubled reputation: in 2023, the US Department of Justice found the company had profited from sex-trafficking proceeds, and last year the US Federal Trade Commission charged it with deceiving users about efforts to remove child sexual abuse material and non-consensual content from its platforms.
The company’s is a direct challenge to the eSafety Commissioner’s industry codes, which from March 9 require websites hosting pornography and other age-restricted material to implement age assurance measures including facial age estimation, digital wallets and photo ID. Non-compliance carries penalties of up to $49.5 million per breach.
More to come.
Get news and reviews on technology, gadgets and gaming in our Technology newsletter every Friday. Sign up here.
David Swan is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X or email.
Emily Kowal is an education reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
