Ofcom Watch

Ofcom writes in a press release:

Ofcom has opened new investigations into the providers of pimpbunny.com and kemono.cr. Our investigations will examine whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that the providers have failed, or are failing, to comply with these duties under the Online Safety Act.

We have prioritised action against these providers based on the risk of harm posed by the services they operate. We have taken particular account of their user numbers, including where we have seen significant increases in their user traffic since age-check laws came into force last summer.

Separately, we have published our provisional decision into fapello.com, setting out that we have reasonable grounds to believe the provider of the service is in breach of their duties under the Online Safety Act. Fapello now has the opportunity to make representations to Ofcom, which will be carefully considered before we reach a final decision.

And finally, we are announcing an expansion to our ongoing investigation into the provider of xgroovy to determine whether they have also failed to adequately respond to Ofcom's formal requests for information.

Kemono.cr seems more of an archive of adult graphic art than porn but it does carry porn advertising.

pimpbunny.com is a not particularly expensive tube site but maybe it has particularly wound up the censors as it includes a nudify service

Ofcom has published a notional fine of £1.4 million to a company running 4 porn tubes sites

Ofcom notes the following sites which are all still available in the UK without ID/age verification:

• crazyporn.xxx
• hoes.tube
• love4porn.com.
• justpornflix.com,
• 4kporn.xxx

It seems likely that these fines will be simply ignored. A recent question in the House of Lords suggest that only one Ofcom fine has actually been paid so far.

Also the websites have been transferred from 8579 LLC to Reply Buzzer Ltd. Maybe this is somehow connected to the Ofcom censorship efforts.

Ofcom writes:

Ofcom has determined that 8579 LLC failed to comply with section 12 of the Act, and this failure is ongoing in relation to one of the services it operates. Section 12 imposes a duty on providers of Part 3 services that allow pornographic content, and that are likely to be accessed by children, to ensure that children are prevented from encountering pornographic content through the use of highly effective age assurance.

From 25 July 2025 until at least 19 November 2025, 8579 LLC failed to implement highly effective age assurance on its services crazyporn.xxx, hoes.tube, and love4porn.com. For justpornflix.com, this failure is ongoing.

The scope of our investigation originally also included the services 4kporn.xxx and 429.xxx. However, following a possible change in provider prior to Ofcom issuing its Provisional Decision 203 from 8579 LLC to Reply Buzzer Ltd - we have not made findings in relation to either site in our final decision.

We are imposing a penalty on 8579 LLC of £1,350,000 in respect of the contravention of section 12.

In addition, 8579 LLC is now required to comply with section 12 by taking steps to implement highly effective age assurance on justpornflix.com, of which it is still the provider, by 5pm GMT on 23 February 2026.

Should 8579 LLC fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £1,000 per day will be imposed starting from 23 February 2026 until the section 12 duty is complied with, or 3 June 2026, whichever is sooner.

Ofcom has also determined that 8579 LLC has failed to comply with section 102(8) of the Act by failing to respond to a statutory request for information, issued as part of the investigation, within the specified time frame. We are imposing a penalty on 8579 LLC of £50,000 in respect of the contravention of section 102(8).

In addition, 8579 LLC is now required to take immediate steps to provide Ofcom with a complete list of all sites operated by 8579 LLC.

Should 8579 LLC fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £250 per day will be imposed starting from 21 February 2026 until the section 102(8) duty is complied with or 22 April 2026, whichever is sooner.

 

See article from ofcom.org.uk

A little earlier Ofcom also notionally fined Kick Online Entertainment S.A a total of £830,000 for its motherless.com porn tube website. Ofcom writes:

From 25 July until 29 December 2025, Kick Online failed to implement highly effective age assurance on its service, motherless.com. After Ofcom issued a Provisional Decision to Kick Online, it implemented a method of age assurance that is capable of being highly effective.

We are imposing a penalty on Kick Online of £800,000 in respect of its contravention of section 12 (lack of ID/age verification). We are imposing a penalty on Kick Online of £30,000 in respect of the contravention of section 102(8) (failure to provide information demanded by Ofcom).

In addition, Kick Online is now required to take immediate steps to provide Ofcom with a complete list of all pornographic sites that it operates.

Should Kick Online fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £200 will be imposed starting from 12 February 2026 until the section 102(8) duty is complied with or 13 April 2026, whichever is sooner.

Ofcom writes:

Ofcom has set out the next steps in its investigation into X, and the limitations of the UKs Online Safety Act in relation to AI chatbots.

Ofcom was one of the first regulators in the world to act on concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share demeaning sexual deepfakes of real people, including children, which may amount to criminal offences.

After contacting X on 5 January , giving it a chance to explain how these images had been shared at such scale, we moved quickly to launch a formal investigation on 12 January into whether the company had done enough to assess and mitigate the risk of this imagery spreading on its social media platform, and to take it down quickly where it was identified.

Since then, X has said it has implemented measures to try and address the issue. We have been in close contact with the Information Commissioners Office, which is launching its own investigation. Other jurisdictions have also launched investigations in the weeks since we opened ours, including the European Commission on 26 January.

Our investigation remains ongoing and we continue to work closely with the ICO and others to ensure tech firms keep users safe and protect their privacy.

Not all AI chatbots are regulated

Broadly, the Online Safety Act regulates user-to-user services, search services and services that publish pornographic content.

Chatbots are not subject to regulation at all if they:

• only allow people to interact with the chatbot itself and no other users (i.e. they are not user-to-user services);

• do not search multiple websites or databases when giving responses to users (i.e. are not search services); and

• cannot generate pornographic content.

We are not investigating xAI at this time.

When we opened our investigation into X, we said we were assessing whether we should also investigate xAI, as the provider of the standalone Grok service. We continue to demand answers from xAI about the risks it poses. We are examining whether to launch an investigation into its compliance with the rules requiring services that publish pornographic material to use highly effective age checks to prevent children from accessing that content.

Because of the way the Act relates to chatbots, as explained above, we are currently unable to investigate the creation of illegal images by the standalone Grok service in this case.

Where we are in our X investigation

In our investigation into X, we are currently gathering and analysing evidence to determine whether X has broken the law, including using our formal information-gathering powers. The week after we launched our investigation, we sent legally binding information requests to X, to make sure we have the information we need from the company, and further requests continue to be sent.

Firms are required, by law, to respond to all such requests from Ofcom in an accurate, complete and timely way, and they can expect to face fines if they fail to do so.

We must give any company we investigate a full opportunity to make representations on our case. If, based on the evidence, we consider that the company has failed to comply with its legal duties, we will issue a provisional decision setting out our views and the evidence upon which we are relying. The company will then have an opportunity to respond to our findings in full, as required by the Act, before we make our final decision.

We know there is significant public interest in our investigation into X. We are progressing the investigation as a matter of urgency. We will provide updates and will be as open as possible during this process. It is important to note that enforcement investigations such as these take time -- typically months.

We must follow strict rules about how and when we can share information publicly, as is the case for any enforcement agency, and it would not be appropriate to provide a running commentary about the substantive details of a live investigation. Running a fair process is essential to ensuring that any final decisions are robust, effective, and that they stick.

While in the most serious cases of ongoing non-compliance we can apply for a court order requiring broadband providers to block access to a site in the UK, the law sets a high bar for such applications, and a specific process must be followed before we can do this. It would be a significant regulatory intervention and is not one we are likely to make routinely, given the impact it could have on freedom of expression in the UK.

Ofcom writes:

Since the age check rules came into force, there has been considerable public debate about children bypassing the protections, including by using virtual private networks (VPNs). VPN use is common in the UK and can offer privacy and security benefits. However, because VPNs allow internet users to change their virtual location and IP address to another country, they can be used to try and get around the protections of the Online Safety Act, including its age check requirements.

 Following the introduction of the age check requirement in July we saw an initial spike in the use of VPNs in the UK – with UK daily active users of VPN apps doubling to around 1.5 million. However, by the end of October usage had fallen back to under 1 million daily active users.21 This early spike in VPN usage was expected and has happened in other countries and US states that have introduced age check requirements. There is currently no reliable up-to-date data on how far the increased use of VPNs is due to children or to adults who wish to avoid having to complete age checks.

Data from Internet Matters, collected before the rules came into force, suggests that around one in ten under-18s used VPNs, with use skewing towards older teenagers. This would suggest the new age checks will already be offering significant protections to children. However, further evaluation is needed.

We continue to build our evidence base to help us understand children’s level of usage and familiarity with VPNs. This month we are launching a children’s advisory panel with the Children’s Commissioner for England to hear directly from children about their online experiences and how they are changing, including VPN usage. We have introduced questions on VPNs to our Children and Parents Media Literacy Tracker and we plan to publish data and analysis on this in May 2026. These questions focus on the awareness and use of VPNs among children aged 13-17. We also ask parents of 3-17s who use parental controls, whether they use tools to block VPN usage. Finally, we will continue to collect information about VPN adoption in the UK, as we have done since age assurance measures came into force, as part of our work to understand how people in the UK use the internet. This evidence base will help guide thinking and decisions about whether there is a need for further action in this area, and what would be proportionate.

There has also been concern from some stakeholders about whether age checks are being implemented in a way that preserves privacy and protects users’ data. Ofcom has been clear that all age assurance methods involve processing of some personal data and therefore platforms and vendors implementing age checks must comply with UK data protection laws. We have worked closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office, which oversees and enforces these laws, in developing our approach and guidance for highly effective age checks.

Finally, we have observed instances of over-moderation where content not harmful to children was inaccessible to them, especially soon after age checks were more broadly introduced. We have provided clear, detailed guidance on what kinds of content we consider to be illegal content or content harmful to children – and therefore consider to be in-scope of safety measures. Where we are concerned that content which does not meet these definitions is inaccessible, we are discussing these issues with the providers involved through our Supervision teams.