Those who have already verified their age on the site will be able to keep their accounts, the statement said. The company said updates to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) that require age verification for adult sites had “not achieved its goal of protecting minors” and instead had “diverted traffic to darker, unregulated corners of the internet”. Aylo said it would “no longer participate in the failed system that has been created in the United Kingdom as a result of the OSA’s introduction”.​ Last July, Pornhub and other sites were forced to implement an age verification check that would include facial identification or uploading a piece of government ID under new rules from the OSA. Pornhub saw its site traffic drop by just under a third in the first month of the new regulations because of an “unwillingness or inability” to complete age checks, according to a December report from UK digital regulator Ofcom.

Pornhub is the most-visited adult website in the UK with a market share of roughly 6 percent, the Ofcom report found. Alex Kekesi, Aylo’s vice-president of brand and community, said in a statement that it was a “difficult decision” for the company to make, but that it could not continue to operate under the framework of the OSA.​ “Effective enforcement [of the OSA] is not possible, circumvention is rampant, privacy is compromised, and new, unregulated sites quickly fill any gaps left by responsible operators,” Kekesi said, noting that Aylo will continue to work with the UK government for a solution. ​ Kekesi encouraged developers to instead build safeguards into their iOS stores to limit adult website exposure for children’s devices and accounts.