‘We’re here to help’: how Ofcom is urging porn sites to follow the Online Safety Act

‘We appreciate that Ofcom has invited us to have a seat at the table. We’re often not included in conversations that have to do with regulating our industry,’ Pornhub’s vice-president said. Photograph: Photographer: Bjoern Steinz/Björn Steinz/Panos Pictures

Three Ofcom regulators with clipboards spent the weekend making their way around the exhibition floor of an international adult industry conference in Prague, trying to encourage the 1,700 delegates to comply with the UK’s new Online Safety Act.

“Don’t lie to us,” one of the regulators told a room full of pornography site owners and employees during a lunchtime presentation explaining the new age verification requirements introduced in July as part of the act’s measures to stop children seeing pornography. “Be honest and open. If your measures are not good enough yet, put that on your risk assessment.”