Age verification for pornography is just the start – the tech sector must do more to tackle VAWG

Refuge welcomes the obligation for tech companies to introduce age verification procedures for online pornography under the Online Safety Act. 

To ensure these new rules mark a meaningful step towards protecting young people, it is critical that they are robustly enforced by tech companies and regulators alike. We have already seen reports of non-compliance since the rules came into effect on Friday 25 July, and we urge Ofcom to take urgent action to hold companies accountable. 

Tech companies must be required to actively monitor and address attempts to circumvent age checks – including through tools that allow users to mask their location or identity. Simply introducing verification mechanisms is not enough; strong enforcement and the closing of loopholes are essential to ensuring young people are genuinely protected from harmful online content. 

Violent and misogynistic pornography, including depictions of strangulation, is all too common. Not only is this distorting how young people understand sex and relationships, but it also contributes to a culture in which violence against women and girls (VAWG) is normalised – and even eroticised. 

Not just an ‘online issue’ 

This is not just an ‘online issue’. Misogynistic pornography has real-world consequences for the safety of women and girls by directly influencing what behaviours young people come to believe are acceptable. No one should grow up thinking that violence against women is a normal or expected part of sexual behaviour. 

Far too often, the violent content found in online pornography mirrors the lived experiences of domestic abuse survivors. Depictions of strangulation, for example, are shockingly commonplace and this is something many survivors we work with have experienced at the hands of a partner or ex-partner. 

Strangulation is not only a despicable and dangerous form of abuse. It can have permanent effects and is a strong predictor of future domestic homicide. The application of force to the neck can cause loss of consciousness in as little as four seconds, with devastating long-term consequences, including memory loss and cognitive impairments that persist long after visible signs of abuse have faded. Alarming new research suggests that strangulation is now thought to be the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40. 

While preventing young people from accessing this sort of violent pornographic content is of the upmost importance, the success of new age-verification measures will depend on meaningful enforcement.  Without it, these protections risk falling flat.  

We also know that the harms of online pornography are not experienced equally. Research shows that Black and marginalised women experience disproportionate and compounded harms, often through racialised and fetishistic content. An intersectional approach to regulation is not optional – it is essential.

A turning point? 

While age-verification is a step in the direction, it cannot be the only line of defence. To tackle the broader issue of misogynistic, violent pornography, the Government must go further by implementing the full set of recommendations made in Baroness Bertin’s Independent Pornography Review, including swiftly legislating to ban depictions of strangulation. 

This ban must apply to all forms of strangulation, including content presented as consensual, with tech companies that breach the ban being held accountable if they fail to prevent this material from circulating. 

We will not end VAWG without confronting the digital ecosystems that allow it to thrive. Tech platforms must adopt safety-by-design principles, embedding protections into products from the outset, including effective mechanisms for users to report harmful content. 

This also means ensuring that AI tools cannot be misused to generate non-consensual deepfake pornography, through the development of robust safeguards to prevent and detect abuse. 

We also need significant investment in education around sex, relationships and pornography. Young people must be empowered to recognise abuse and understand what healthy, respectful, consensual relationships really look like. That’s how we stop the cycle of violence before it starts. 

What Refuge is calling for: 

• Swift legislation to ban depictions of strangulation in pornography – backed by robust enforcement 

• Full implementation of the Independent Pornography Review recommendations 

• Mandatory safety-by-design standards for tech platforms – including robust measures for assessing, mitigating and proportionately responding to any risk of harm

• Intersectional approaches to regulation, recognising the disproportionate harm experienced by marginalised women 

• Criminalisation of ‘taking’ and ‘making’ intimate images without consent – whether real or deepfake 

• Comprehensive education for young people on consent, domestic abuse, digital harm and healthy relationships 

The Government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade. But that target will remain out of reach unless we effectively tackle the online spaces where abuse is being both normalised and monetised.