Internet Porn Censorship

Ofcom has fined the AVS Group of porn websites £1,050,000 with an ultimatum to fix its ID/age verification system by 6th December else it will face daily files of £1300 for 3 months or until it fixes its websites.

The AVS Group did in fact implement ID/Age verification for UK visitors which requires a verifiable email and a photo for age estimation. However ths system did not check that this was a selfie and any photo of an any adult seems to suffice.

The AVS Group Ltd sites are:

• pornzog.com
• txxx.com, txxx.tube
• upornia.com
• hdzog.com, hdzog.tube
• thegay.com, thegay.tube
• ooxxx.com
• hotmovs.com
• hclips.com
• vjav.com
• pornl.com
• voyeurhit.com
• manysex.com
• tubepornclassic.com
• shemalez.com, shemalez.tube.

These sites still require for UK viewers a valid email and a photo of an adult but are available using a VPN.

The BBC notes that Ofcom has never received any replies from queries to TubeCorporate, the company behind AVS Group Ltd. TubeCorporate apparently has a registered address in Belize that is shared with many other offshore companies, and it may prove difficult to enforce these fines.

 

Ofcom writes:

Ofcom has determined that AVS Group Ltd has failed to comply with section 12 of the Act and this failure is ongoing. Section 12 imposes a duty on providers of services that fall under Part 3 of the Act, and allow pornographic content, 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 25 November 2025, each of the AVS Group websites either:

• did not implement any age assurance measures; or

• implemented measures that were not highly effective at determining whether a user was a child. In particular, AVS Group Ltd deployed a photo upload check on its services that does not include liveness detection and as such is vulnerable to circumvention by children (for example, by uploading a photo of an adult). Ofcom considers that this method is not capable of being highly effective within the meaning of the Act.

We are imposing a penalty on AVS Group Ltd of £1,000,000 in respect of the contravention of section 12. This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines.

In addition, AVS Group Ltd is now required to comply with section 12 by taking steps to implement highly effective age assurance on all remaining AVS Group websites that do not currently have such measures in place by 5pm GMT on 6 December 2025.

Should AVS Group Ltd fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £1,000 per day will be imposed starting from 6 December 2025 until the section 12 duty is complied with or 16 March 2026, whichever is sooner.

Ofcom has also determined that AVS Group Ltd has failed to comply with section 102(8) of the Act by failing to respond to a statutory request for information within the specified time frame issued as part of the investigation. We are imposing a penalty on AVS Group Ltd of £50,000 in respect of the contravention of section 102(8). This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines.

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

Should AVS Group Ltd fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £300 per day will be imposed starting from 4 December 2025 until the section 102(8) duty is complied with or 1 February 2026 whichever is sooner.

 

 

Ofcom has opend new investigations under its age assurance enforcement programme into five providers which together operate 20 pornography sites.

The companies under investigation are:

• Sun Social Media Inc. These sites are still available without ID/age verification

PlayVids.com
PeekVids.com

• the provider of various xxbrits sites. These sites are still available without ID/age verification

xxbrits.com
xxbrits.co.uk
xxbrits.tube
& many other top level domains

• the provider of a number of porntrex sites. PornTrex has now decided to self block its websites to UK viewers

 

• the provider of fapello.com. Fapello has now added ID/age verification requirements

 

• the provider of hqporner.com. This site is still available without ID/age verification

We have prioritised action against these companies 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 are announcing an expansion to our ongoing investigations into:

• Cyberitic, LLC and the provider of xgroovy.com to determine whether they have also failed to adequately respond to Ofcom's formal requests for information. xgroovy  has now added ID/age verification requirements

These new cases take the number of sites and apps currently under investigation by Ofcom under the Online Safey Act to 76.

There are hardly any adult internet companies stupid enough to be based in Britain, as they have to suffer strangulation by onerous and expensive Ofcom red tape and of course, Ofcom content censorship.

Now Ofcom have yet quite established themselves as worldwide internet censors and any attempt to fine foreign companies is at risk of being ignored and setting this as a precedent for the way to deal with Ofcom international overreach. The first international fine issued by Ofcom is currently being ignored by the US website 4Chan.

So for a British linked company makes for a far easier target for Ofcom. One of the two directors of Itai Tech Ltd which owns undress.cc is registered at Companies House with a UK address. It is reported that company is now in the processing of removing this British connection and has self blocked its website from viewing from UK users.

Ofcom announced the fine as follows:

Ofcom has today issued a £50,000 fine against the provider of a nudification site for failing to use age-checks to protect children from online pornography.

Robust age checks are a cornerstone of the Online Safety Act and must be highly effective at correctly determining whether a particular user is a child.  Regulated services are also required, by law, to respond to Ofcom's requests for information in an accurate, complete and timely way, which is fundamental to our job as a regulator.

Earlier this year, we opened an enforcement programme to determine industry compliance with their age-check duties and, as part of this, issued statutory information requests to a range of companies.

An Ofcom investigation has today concluded that Itai Tech Ltd -- which runs the nudification site Undress.cc -- has failed to use highly effective age assurance to protect children from encountering pornographic content.

As a result, Ofcom has imposed a fine of £50,000 on Itai Tech Ltd, which takes into account the provider's decision to make the site unavailable to users with UK IP addresses shortly after we opened our investigation. An additional £5,000 penalty has been levied on the company on account of its failure to comply with a statutory information request.

Ofcom has explained:

Ofcom has determined that 4chan has breached its duty under section 102(8)(a) of the Act to comply with a statutory request for information, on two separate occasions.

We are imposing a fixed penalty of £20,000 on 4chan in respect of both breaches. This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines.

In addition, 4chan is now required to take immediate steps to comply with section 102(8)(a) by providing the following:

a copy of the written record of its illegal content risk assessment(s) in respect of 4chan.org as required by the first statutory information request; and information specified in the second statutory information request relating to its qualifying worldwide revenue ('QWR').

Should 4chan fail to comply, a daily rate penalty of £100 per day will be imposed starting from the day after the date of the Confirmation Decision for either 60 days or until 4chan provides Ofcom with the information outlined above (whichever is sooner).

See article from x.com

Preston Byrne is defending 4Chan in US law nad has a few interesting reveals into how Ofcom intend to pursue its censorship citing sovereign imunity.

 

Porn websites too

Ofcom has announced that it will take the next steps in the pursuit of porn website provider AVS Limited.

This in relation to the adult sites www.pornzog.com, www.txxx.com, www.txxx.tube, www.upornia.com, www.hdzog.com, www.hdzog.tube, www.thegay.com, www.thegay.tube, www.ooxxx.com, www.hotmovs.com, www.hclips.com, www.vjav.com, www.pornl.com, www.voyeurhit.com, www.manysex.com, www.tubepornclassic.com, www.shemalez.com and www.shemalez.tube .

Ofcom explains

Following an investigation, Ofcom has provisionally determined that there are reasonable grounds to believe AVS Group Ltd has failed, and is failing, to comply with section 12 of the Online Safety Act ('the Act'). Section 12 imposes a duty on providers of services that fall under Part 3 of the Act, and allow pornographic content, to ensure that children are prevented from encountering pornographic content through the use of highly effective age assurance.

Ofcom therefore issued a provisional notice of contravention to AVS Group Ltd on 10 October 2025 under section 130 of the Act. The notice also sets out our provisional view that AVS Group Ltd has infringed its duties under section 102(8) of the Act by failing to respond to a statutory request for information issued as part of the investigation.

Similarly Ofcom is haranging websites from Youngtek Solutions Ltd The websites under consideration are www.imagefap.com, www.empflix.com www.moviefap.com, www.pornrepublic.com and www.TNAflix.com.