Banning porn is a problem for everyone For all that content branded as “sensitive” in 2018 we had Tumblr, today we are left with X

Since last Friday, the United Kingdom has officially opened a new front in regulating access to online content: all major pornographic websites are now legally required to implement age verification systems that ask users to upload official documents, such as an ID card, or in some cases even payslips and bank statements, as reported by the BBC. A process that, in many ways, mirrors the bureaucratic hassle of government IDs—but just to access adult content. Unsurprisingly, the measure has sparked a wave of criticism—not so much for the principle of protecting minors, but for the methods being deployed. Because really, who is willing to upload their personal data to third-party platforms just to watch a bit of porn? And more importantly: who actually trusts handing over such sensitive information to private companies that may be vulnerable to data breaches—or eager to monetize every fragment of your digital identity? In practice, the UK’s move doesn’t look like a measure of protection, but rather the first concrete step toward a system of online censorship. Pornography, a long-time driver of internet traffic, is now being gradually pushed out of the public web. It’s not a first: something similar happened to Tumblr a few years ago, when its NSFW ban drained the platform of much of its community. Is this the beginning of a new wave of censorship?

At the same time, the UK’s attempt to clamp down on “explicit” content has already shown signs of failure. As The Verge pointed out, platforms like Reddit, Bluesky, and Discord are introducing similar verification systems to comply with the UK’s new Online Safety laws, as mandated by the communications regulator Ofcom. The issue? These checks can easily be bypassed using VPNs, which allow users to mask their IP address by virtually relocating to another country. In fact, Google searches for the term “VPN” in the UK have spiked by 488% in the last week alone, confirming that the workaround is already spreading fast. And yet, this flawed rollout has triggered a domino effect in several European countries, which, following the UK's lead, are now considering similar restrictions on adult content. According to Politico, Elon Musk’s platform X risks a €500,000 fine for failing to implement age checks required by Ireland’s new online safety code, while France is considering reclassifying platforms like X, Bluesky, and Reddit as pornographic websites—thereby subjecting them to even stricter verification requirements.

Meanwhile, a broader trend is beginning to emerge: users across Europe have started to notice the sudden disappearance of sexually explicit content on X—one of the platforms that, in recent years, had quietly become a kind of alternative porn archive, more accessible and arguably more ethical than traditional adult websites. But the issue isn’t just about porn. As user @darthnoire points out, once you open the door to censorship, the definition of what’s “inappropriate” becomes dangerously elastic. Today it’s porn, but tomorrow it could be posts on sex education, reproductive health, menstruation, gender identity, or LGBTQ+ rights—all topics that, by merely addressing the body or desire, risk being labeled as “adult content” and quietly scrubbed from public view. And that’s where the deeper concern lies. Control, disguised as protection, easily turns into systemic surveillance, where even information becomes contested ground. Because now we’re no longer just talking about porn or NSFW posts—we’re talking about news on wars, police brutality, or social uprisings that can all be filtered or removed under the convenient label of “sensitive content.” In the name of protecting children, we risk building an internet where transparency becomes the exception and silence the rule. While European governments race to tighten regulation and platforms rush to preemptively scrub their feeds, the result may not be greater safety—but rather a growing push toward shadow infrastructures: VPNs, unofficial apps, bots, decentralized servers, encrypted content marketplaces. The paradox of repression is clear: instead of control, it breeds fragmentation.