PornHub: 50% of Britons watched porn during pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has made the heyday of porn, as revealed by a study by Ofcom, the British telecommunications regulatory authority. According to the institution, 50% of British adults have consumed online pornography since the start of the epidemic. Thus, in September 2020, the‘Ofcom found that 26 million people watched porn, in September 2020 alone. Nice score.

Unsurprisingly, the most popular site remains the global giant Pornhub, which has accumulated 15 million visitors, a much larger audience than any UK public service TV channel like SkyOne, ITV4 or BBC News. In addition, Ofcom also took the figures published by Pornhub, which argues in particular that each British visitor has spent on average 10 minutes and 20 seconds on the site. As much to say to you that it is about a time of attention that any site would dream of having.

These data can be found in Ofcom’s annual report on online media consumption patterns in the country, which typically focuses on mainstream sites like Facebook and YouTube. But this year, the institution decided to expand its research to include pornography, because many sites for adults are likely to be placed under the responsibility of Ofcom very soon. Indeed, the British government is soon to vote on new legislation to regulate online video sharing platforms.

In Britain, half of the population viewed pornography online during the Covid crisis, according to the regulator. 50% of men and 16% of women have visited PornHub, which has more audiences than the main British media. https://t.co/YazqRqRQRQ

– Guillaume Champeau (@gchampeau) June 9, 2021

Read also: PornHub, YouPorn…: Child pornography and rape are coming to your home

OnlyFans hit the nail on the head during the pandemic

Another interesting point of this study, Ofcom highlights the incredible growth of the OnlyFans site. Developed by the British Essex family in 2016, this platform allows individuals to sell their homemade pornographic or erotic content online. ” It has been reported that economic factors caused by the lockdowns may have led people to turn to sites such as OnlyFans to generate income, amid rising unemployment, precariousness and financial uncertainty. UK “, Ofcom explains.

Note that if the project is still relevant in France, the UK government has abandoned the idea of ​​introducing compulsory age control visitors who want to access adult sites. For a time, the possibility of having to buy a verification code at his newsagent had been raised by British MPs. In the end, this proposal was not retained.

As a reminder, the scandal of child pornography videos on PornHub motivated the site to completely review its moderation policy. It was presented in detail in April 2021. The system will be visibly automated, and several algorithms will take care of checking the conformity of the videos before their publication on the site. To this must be added a systematic verification of the identity of the user who wishes to share content. In the event of irregularities, a human moderator could therefore intervene to make the final decision.

Source: The Guardian