Ofcom just released its Use of Age Assurance Report for 2026, and the picture it paints is instructive. The adult content industry followed the rules, while the major social media platforms largely have not. It’s the perfect example of how compliance burdens get distributed in practice, and adult content creators are the ones absorbing the cost on both sides. 

The headline numbers from the report are overall encouraging, at least. All of the UK’s top ten adult content sites now have age checks in place, and the majority of the top 100 do as well. The percentage of children who encountered highly effective age checks increased from 25 percent to 43 percent between July 2025 and January 2026, and Ofcom credits this as “significant progress” since the Online Safety Act’s rules for online porn operators took effect last July. The porn industry seems to be doing what it is told. 

Big Social is not. Meta, Google, and major platforms have internally developed machine learning systems they describe as “age inference” that supposedly monitor account activity and behavior to estimate whether a user might be a child. The UK’s privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, classifies these systems as “profiling,” not verification. And Ofcom is even more direct, stating point blank that inference “cannot be appropriate for the purposes of the ban or minimum age enforcement because it can only be used after the child has signed up and used the service for enough time for the inference to be made.”

In other words, the system only identifies a child as a child after they have already been on the platform. That’s not an age check; it’s a retroactive detection mechanism. Ofcom has now said explicitly that platforms using age inference to claim compliance should “switch to other methods listed in our guidance as highly effective without delay” or prove with reliable and compelling evidence that their current method actually works. 

TikTok is the first platform to face a formal investigation under the pressure, launched just last week. It won’t be the last. Ofcom currently has 23 open investigations covering 88 adult services. The social media investigations are escalating alongside those. 

For adult creators with UK audiences, the report describes a compliance landscape that is deeply asymmetric in its practical effects. Adult platforms that have implemented proper age verification like biometric checks, government ID matching, and third-party verification services have absorbed the real costs and real traffic losses during the process. The platforms followed the law and the creators took the hit. 

Meanwhile, the mainstream social media platforms where those same creators build audiences, promote content, and funnel potential subscribers have spent the same period deploying systems that regulators clearly say don’t work – systems that also punish these creators by shadowbanning and throttling reach. The compliance gap means adult content creators face stricter enforcement on all platforms, while social media platforms seem to get away with few repercussions. 

The next major date for anyone earning in the UK market is October when Ofcom delivers its assessment of what “highly effective age checks” for the over-16 social media restrictions should look like to Parliament. This report will inform parliamentary debate ahead of potential age restrictions that would come into play in 2027. The standards being set for adult platforms now could be the baseline of what’s required of social media platforms next. The real question is if they will comply.