Internet Porn Censorship

XGroovy.com is a porn tube site that is now self blocked to UK users, but unrestricted via VPN.

Ofcom have now fined the website £730,000+ for a now ended period when the website was available without ID/age verification. Ofcom explain:

On 11th September 2025 Ofcom opened its investigation into XGroovy.com.

On 3 September 2026 we issued the provider of X groovy.com with a Confirmation Decision in relation to its failure to comply with section 12 of the Act requiring ID/age verification for pornographic sites and its failure to comply with a statutory information request. 

We are imposing a penalty on the provider of Xgroovy[dot]com of £700,000 in respect of the contravention of section 12.

Ofcom has also determined that the provider of X groovy[dot]com 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 have imposed a penalty of £30,000 in respect of the breach of section 102(8)(a). Should Xgroovy continue to fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £200 per day will be imposed starting from 3 September 2026 until the section 102(8) duty is complied with or 3 November 2026, whichever is sooner.

In addition Ofcom have progressed censorship investigations of two companies. Both are now on notice of enforcement action.

The  Cyberitic LLC is now blocked to all UK viewers.

• www.shesfreaky.com

The  Czech company ZD Media c.r.o. has several adult sites which now require UK viewers to submit to ID/age verification:

• www.hello.porn
• www.homo.xxx
• www.max.porn
• www.ok.porn
• www.ok.xxx
• www.perfectgirls.xxx
• www.pin.porn
• www.pornhat.com
• www.pornhat.one
• www.pornstars.tube

Members of Australia's Parliament are considering a prohibition on pornography depicting strangulation and choking.

Tanya Plibersek, a Labor MP and the social services minister for the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, announced the government's intent over the weekend, with other leaders confirming the move. Plibersek sexplained:

There is something wrong with a situation where 60% of young people say they've experienced strangulation. This is not sex education. It's not real life.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Albanese's office told News.com.au, The Albanese Government is deeply concerned about young people being exposed to sexual strangulation and other harmful behaviours through online content such as pornography.

Other reports indicate that Australian Attorney-General Michelle Rowland is working with Plibersek and other senior Labor and Liberal MPs to outlaw the practice and criminalize it.

Inspiration for the ban has been drawn from the United Kingdom. Parliament in the U.K. adopted amendments to a sweeping Crime and Policing Bill that outlawed depictions of strangulation in online pornographic content, even if the content is produced consensually between parties.

I am not sure that Australia or the UK have worked out the practicalities of such a ban. This material is commonplace and not website is going to trawl through all their videos to cut out such content so the only practical way to stop this on foreign websites is to block them all.

Fapello is an OnlyFans style adult website. It currently self blocks UK users but is available via VPN.

Ofcom provided details of its fine:

From 25 July 2025, section 12 of the Online Safety Act required Fapello to implement age verification and/or age estimation that is highly effective at determining whether a user is a child, in order to prevent children from encountering pornographic content on its service.

Ofcom has determined that Fapello has failed to comply with this requirement. During the period from 25 July 2025 to 26 November 2025 fapello.com did not implement age assurance measures. On 27 November 2025, Fapello implemented age assurance measures on fapello.com. On 13 January 2026, Fapello removed these age assurance methods and implemented a block to prevent UK users accessing the service and informed us of this change.

On 12 December 2025, Ofcom issued a statutory information request to Fapello requiring Fapello to provide information regarding its qualifying worldwide revenue (‘QWR’) and a complete list of all services operated by Fapello. To date, Ofcom has not received a substantive response to the Notice.

As a result of the above breaches, Ofcom is imposing the following:
• A single penalty of £30,000
• A requirement for Fapello to comply by taking immediate steps to provide the full legal name(s) of the entity and/or individual(s) with control.
• In the event of continuing non-compliance, Ofcom will impose a daily penalty at a rate of £200 per day starting from 9 July 2026 for a maximum of 60 days

On 13 January 2026, Fapello responded to Ofcom stating:

i) there is ‘no legal entity, registered company or corporate structure’ behind fapello.com, and that it is operated by the non-UK based author of the email;
ii) the revenue generated from fapello.com is ‘incidental’ as a small-scale operation, and Fapello is therefore unable to provide QWR; and
iii) Fapello had implemented a full geo-block to prevent UK users accessing fapello.com, and therefore Fapello asserted that the site no longer has links to the UK