404 Media

2026-05-05 14:11:49

UK iPhone and iPad Users Can Watch Porn Again

Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub and other major porn sites, announced today that in the UK, iPhone and iPad users will be able to access its sites again, ending an over three month ban that Aylo initially enacted because of the region’s age verification law.

As of Tuesday, following the iOS 26.4 rollout in the UK, users on the new operating system can visit Pornhub and Aylo’s other sites from their iPhones.

On April 29, Apple announced that it would start requiring mobile users to confirm ages on their devices to check if they’re 18 or older: “You can confirm your age with a credit card that belongs to you, or by scanning your passport, driving licence, or one of the following PASS-accredited Proof of Age cards: CitizenCard, My ID Card, TOTUM ID card or Young Scot National Entitlement Card. Debit cards and gift cards aren't supported,” according to Apple. Web content filters and communication safety tools are turned on automatically for children, as well as adults who haven’t confirmed their age, Apple wrote.

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In January, Aylo announced that starting February 2 it would restrict people visiting the site from the UK. Leadership at Aylo and Ethical Capital Partners (ECP), which acquired Aylo in 2023, said at the time that the UK’s Online Safety Act was a failure. Before January, UK-based visitors to Aylo sites—which include RedTube, YouPorn, Brazzers, and many more—had to verify their ages by entering a credit card or uploading a government ID or other identification to an age estimation system called All Pass Trust. After February, anyone in the UK not already verified was locked out of those sites.

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Experts say site-based age verification is both ineffective at stopping minors from viewing harmful content as it drives them from lawful sites to harmful, unregulated ones, and also chills adults’ abilities to work online as adult performers and consume legal adult entertainment online. The adult industry has been lobbying for device-based verification and parental controls, which often already exists as an optional feature on most devices children might have access to, as an alternative. Device-level age verification remains controversial among free speech and internet access groups.

In the UK, the Online Safety Act, which went into effect in 2025, requires sites to implement age verification or face millions of dollars in fines and jail—or up to 10 percent of global revenues, whichever is higher. In the US, more than half of states have strict age verification laws in place, and in many of those states, Aylo blocks access and directs users to contact their representatives.

This is the first time Aylo has come back to a market after restricting access to its sites in response to age verification laws.

“As of about 30 minutes ago, we're now live again in the UK, accessible to Apple users who have updated to the most recent version of the iOS,” Alex Kekesi, VP Brand and Community at Aylo, said in a 9:30 a.m. EST call on Tuesday.

Visitors to the sites who are using a Windows PC, Android device, or other non-iPhone or other mobile Apple devices such as iPads that use iOS in the UK will still not have access.

“We have been reaching out to the operating system providers to emphasize the need for a highly effective device based solution, that includes Google, that includes Microsoft and Apple,” Solomon Friedman, partner and vice president of compliance at ECP, said on the call. “And on behalf of ownership, we're obviously delighted to see that Apple has instituted UK wide, effective device based age assurance.”

In November 2025, Pornhub’s parent company Aylo sent letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft urging them to support device-based age verification in their app stores and operating systems.

Pornhub Is Urging Tech Giants to Enact Device-Based Age Verification

The company sent letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft pushing for an alternative way to keep minors from viewing porn, as US and UK laws have caused its traffic to plummet.

^{Jason Parham (WIRED)}

404 Media

2026-04-16 16:34:12

App Stores Push Users Toward Nudify Apps, New Research Shows

A new report from the nonprofit research group Tech Transparency Project (TTP) claims that Google and Apple’s app stores go beyond simply hosting harmful “nudify” and “undress” apps that remove women’s clothing in images, and actually encourage users to download those apps.

In January, TTP published research that showed how the app stores host dozens of “nudify” and undressing apps. This new research, released on Wednesday and first reported by Bloomberg, shows how the stores don’t just passively host those apps, but push them toward users through search and advertising.

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Do you have experience to share about nudify or undress apps being used in schools, or by teens? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at sam.404. Otherwise, send me an email at sam@404media.co.

TTP conducted a series of searches in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, according to their writeup of the research, using terms like “nudify,” “undress,” and “deepnude.”

After testing the apps that appeared in the top 10 search results, they found that “roughly 40 percent of the apps that came up in both the Apple and Google Play search results could render women nude or scantily clad,” and that “Apple and Google ran ads for nudify apps in some of the search results—including, in Google’s case, a carousel of ads for some of the most sexually explicit apps encountered in the investigation.” They also found that the stores can lead users to more and different nudify apps through autocomplete search queries.

“TTP found that ads for nudify apps came up as the top result in three of the Apple searches. Apple, which controls all of the advertising in its app store, is selling and placing these ads,” the researchers wrote. “Apple says it prohibits ad content that ‘promotes adult-oriented themes or graphic content.’ But TTP’s findings suggest Apple is not always enforcing that policy.” The first result for an App Store search for “deepfake,” they found, was for an app that easily replaces women’s clothed images with nude versions.

In 2024, 404 Media covered how Google surfaced apps through searches for “undress apps,” “best deepfake nudes,” and similar terms with promoted results, despite Google’s ad policies against this type of content.

Nudify apps became a popular market for years, but today, they’re extremely easy to access and are advertised on social media. In schools, children use nudify apps to bully classmates with disastrous results for both the bullies and the victims, and school administrators are often unprepared for how to deal with students using these wildly popular apps.

Google spokesperson Dan Jackson told TTP many of the apps identified by TTP have been suspended. "When violations of our policies are reported to us, we investigate and take appropriate action," he said.

Jackson gave a similar response to 404 Media when reached for comment on this story. "Google Play does not allow apps that contain sexual content," he said. "Our investigation and enforcement process is ongoing."

Update with comment from Google.

Schools Are Failing to Protect Students From Non-Consensual Deepfakes, Report Shows

A survey of teachers, students and parents showed that schools are unprepared for non-consensual imagery, AI generated or otherwise, spreading throughout communities of young people.

^{Samantha Cole (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-03-26 19:38:04

Apple Gives FBI a User’s Real Name Hidden Behind ’Hide My Email’ Feature

This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. Subscribe to them here.

Apple provided the FBI with the real iCloud email address hidden behind Apple’s ‘Hide My Email’ feature, which lets paying iCloud+ users generate anonymous email addresses, according to a recently filed court record.

The move isn’t surprising but still provides uncommon insight into what data is available to authorities regarding the Apple feature. The data was turned over during an investigation into a man who allegedly sent a threatening email to ​​Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI director Kash Patel.

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Apple Gives FBI a User’s Real Name Hidden Behind ’Hide My Email’ Feature

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