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The UK's new porn offences: what changes November 6 for creators

Starting November 6, 2026, three kinds of porn become a crime to hold or share in England and Wales, old uploads included. I read the government guidance so you can see what it says, and why a US creator can't treat this as someone else's problem.

Sly Panorama

Creator-life notes

6 min read

I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. I'm a US-based creator who reads the source documents before I react to a headline. Where I describe the law, I quote the UK government's own guidance, and where I say what something means for creators, that's my read. Anyone living in England or Wales, or deliberately selling into it, should be talking to a UK solicitor now.

On November 6, 2026, three kinds of porn become a crime to hold or share in England and Wales: realistic choking or smothering, sex between people shown as family, and sex involving anyone who looks under 16. There's no grandfather clause for old uploads. The government expects anything already in your files or on your page to be gone by the start date.

What becomes illegal on November 6?

The offences come from the Crime and Policing Act 2026. The Ministry of Justice guidance, published October 16, 2026, says it will be an offence "to possess or publish pornographic images" that "explicitly and realistically depict":

  • "strangulation or suffocation"
  • "penetrative sexual activity between people who a reasonable person would think are related" or "pretending to be related, in a certain way"
  • "sexual activity between at least 2 people where a reasonable person would think at least one person is, or is pretending to be, under 16"

The whole thing turns on realism. The guidance says the offences "only capture pornography that shows people which appear, to a reasonable person, to be real." The government's factsheet adds that this "would therefore include realistic AI generated images," so generated content isn't a way around it.

Does step content count?

Only when someone is presented as a minor. The guidance covers "certain step and foster relationships where one person is, or is pretending to be, under 18." A stepmom scene where both characters are grown adults falls outside that wording.

The part I'd read twice is "pretending to be related." My read is that two adult performers playing blood relatives in a realistic scene fall inside the offence, even though nobody on set is related. If a scene's title or script casts two adults as a parent and child or as siblings, I wouldn't count on "it's just roleplay" helping you. The guidance doesn't offer it as a defence.

What about content I posted years ago?

It counts. The guidance says "Possession is a continuing act" and "Publication can also be a continuing act." If you have any of this material, you "will need to permanently delete it or otherwise get rid of it before 6 November 2026." If you're publishing it, you "will need to remove it and stop making it available to others before 6 November 2026."

For a creator, possession covers more than the clip on your page: the raw files on your drive, the cloud backup, and the copy in your editing project.

What are the penalties?

From the guidance:

  • Holding choking or family-sex material: a maximum of 2 years
  • Holding material where someone looks or plays under 16: a maximum of 3 years
  • Putting any of it out there: "The maximum penalty for publication for all offences is 5 years' imprisonment."

Is there a defence if you're in the scene yourself?

There's one, and it's narrower than it sounds. The guidance lists a defence where "the person who possesses or publishes the image directly participated in the act shown in the image" and "other criteria are met." The page doesn't spell out those other criteria.

My read: being on camera gives you a possible argument the downloader doesn't have, but the guidance never says what the rest of that test is, so I wouldn't treat it as cover. The other defences cover images you hadn't seen and didn't suspect, images sent to you unasked and not kept for an unreasonable time, and a "legitimate reason."

Does this apply to creators in the US?

I'm not a lawyer, so I can only tell you what the text says: the guidance says the offences apply "in England and Wales" and is silent on creators and sites based anywhere else. Could a creator in Ohio who sells clips to buyers in Leeds be prosecuted? The guidance doesn't say, and I'm not aware of any court ruling on it under this law.

What I'd plan around is the platform side, because that reaches you whether or not the criminal law does. The factsheet says "These new offences will be listed as priority offences under the Online Safety Act 2023," which puts proactive duties on platforms, with Ofcom able to fine up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue.

Then there's where OnlyFans lives. Its Terms of Service say Fenix International Limited, its operator, is "a limited company registered in England and Wales." My read is that a company registered in England and Wales, facing criminal publication offences and Ofcom fines, has every reason to moderate this content for everyone, not only for UK viewers. (OnlyFans' new November 1 terms are a separate change.) As of October 16, 2026, I haven't seen OnlyFans announce anything specific, so treat that as my prediction. If your page leans on choking content, I'd plan for it getting flagged or pulled.

What does it mean for creators in England and Wales?

Everything above, with no ambiguity about whether it applies. You hold your own archive, so the possession offence reaches your hard drives and cloud storage as well as anything you've published. The guidance is clear that the deadline for deleting or taking down covered content is before November 6, not after a warning.

If you're unsure whether a specific scene is caught, that's the question to put to a UK solicitor now, while there's still time to act on the answer. The UK already changed how fans reach creators once, through age checks, which I covered in age verification laws in 2026.

Who's going to check?

The platforms first, because the Online Safety Act duties land on them. After that, maybe the BBFC. In October 2026, Sky News reported that the government had asked the board, which already rates offline porn in the UK, to pilot an "Audit of Internet Services." The point of the pilot is to find out whether checking online porn is workable given how much of it there is. Per the same report, nothing is decided yet.

The idea isn't new. Baroness Bertin's Independent Pornography Review, published February 27, 2025, found that "pornography depicting strangulation is rife online," according to the government's factsheet, and Sky News reported that the review recommended the BBFC for the auditing job.

What would I do before November 6?

I'm not a lawyer, and this is the list I'd work through, not advice to rely on:

  1. Search your own catalogue for the three categories, by title, tag, description and thumbnail as well as by what's on screen. Titles and tags are how a scene says who the characters are pretending to be.
  2. Take down anything that clearly fits, on every platform it's on, and delete the source files if you live there.
  3. For anything borderline, get advice instead of guessing.
  4. Keep records of what you removed and when.

Where I land: I'd rather work under a rule I can read than under moderation that shifts without warning. What worries me is scope creep. An auditor with a budget tends to find more to audit. If you've already had content flagged for any of this, on any platform, I'd like to hear how it went.

Sources

— Sly

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