Exposure to pornography has increased mind the introduction of uk rules to protect the public online, with children as young as SIX Seeing it by accident, Research by the Children’s Commissioner For England has found.
Dame rachel de souza said a survey found that more young people said they had been exposed to pornography before the age of 18 than in 2023, when the only safety act is the person.
More than a Quarter (27%) Now said they had seen porn online by 11, with some saying they were “aged Six or younger” when asked about their first experience.
The Findings Follow on from a similar survey carried out by the child’s commissioner in 2023, and de souzza said they showed that Little Had Improved Despite The New Law and Promieses from Ministers from Ministers and Tech Forms.
She Said: “Violent pornography is easily accessible to Children, Exposure is often Accidental and Often Via the Most Common Social Media sites, and it is impacting child Deeply Concerning Ways.
“This report must be a line in the sand. New protectives introduced in July by ofcom, part of the online safety act, provide a real options to make child child Everyone: Policymakers, Big Tech Giants and Smaller Tech Developers. “
The Findings are from a nationally represent survey of 1,010 children and young people aged 16-21 carried out in May, shortly before the introduction ofcom’s children’s codes in July.
The rules Introduced by ofcom have introduced significant changes to make it tougher for under-2018-YOLS to access porn websites. Using the same methodology and questions as the 2023 survey to ensure consistency, it found:
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More Young People said they had seen porn before the age of 18 in 2025 (70%) Compared with 2023 (64%).
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More than a Quarter (27%) said they had seen porn online by 11. The average age a child first sees pornography remained 13.
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More Vulnerable Children Had Seen Pornography Earlier. Children who received free school meals, those with a social worker, that with special educational needs and thats with disabilities – both physical and mental – was more likely to always to have a likely to have sold only on first on Than their peers.
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Nearly Half of Respondents (44%) Agreed with the statement “Girls may say no at first but then can be persuaded to have sex”. Further analysis showed that 54% of girls and 41% of boys who had seen porn online agreed with the statement, compared with 46% of girls and 30% of boys with not seen porn – INDICATIN Exposure and Attitudes.
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More Respondents said they had seen pornography online by accident (59%) than said they had deliberately sought it out (35%). The proportion of children accidentally seeing porn was 21 points higher than in 2023 (59% v 38%).
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Networking and Social Media Sites Accounted for 80% of the main sources by which children accessed porn. X was the most common source of pornography for child, outstripping dedicated porn sites.
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The number of children seeing pornography on x and that iting it on dedicated porn sites have widened (45% v 35% in 2025, compared with 41% v 37% in 2023).
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Most Respondents Had Seen Depictions of Acts that are illgal under existing pornography laws or will become ill difficult thought the crime and political.
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More than Half (58%) Had Seen Porn Depicting Strangulation, 44% Reported Having Seen Depictions of Sex While Asleep, and 36% Had Seen Someone Not Consenting to Or refusing a Sex Act, Before Thei Turned 18.
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Further Analysis Found low numbers of Children Sought Out Violent or Extreme content, meaning it was being served up to children, not that they were actively seeking it
The report expresses concern that even under the new rules, children will be able to circumvent restrictions by downloading a virtual private network (vpn), which remains legal Software in the UK.
The report recommends that online pornography should meet the same requirements as offline pornography; That the depiction of non-fatal strangulation should be outlawed; And that department for education should provide schools with the support needed to implement the new relationships, health and sex education curriculum.
It emerged last week that number of people in the most popular pornography sites had decreased sharply Since enhanced age verification Rules Rules Came Into Force. The data analytics firm simlarweb said the leading adult site pornhub loss more than 1 Million visitors in just two weeks.
Pornhub and other Major adult websites introduced advanced age checks on 25 July after
Similarweb compared the daily average user finals of popular pornography sites from 1 to 9 august with the daily average figures for July. Pornhub is the uk’s most visited website for adult content and it has a 47% decrease in traffic in the country between 24 july, one day before the new rule place, and 8 aug Similarweb’s data.
A government specksperson said: “Children have been left to grow up in a laws online world for too long, bombarded with pornography and harmful content tham for Life for Life for Life. Safety act is changing that.
“Let’s be clear: vpns are legal tools for adults and there are no plans to ban them. But if platforms deliberately push works likes like vpns to child, they are facing touthon enforcement. will not allow corporate interesting to come before child safety.
