UK government to ban three types of extreme pornography

The measures, announced by the United Kingdom government, will take force on 6 November, after cross-party pressure about the negative impact of the material on women and girls.

It means pornography that depicts strangulation or suffocation, sex between people who are related or pretending to be related, or when somebody is pretending to be a child under 16, will be illegal.

UK MPs previously told Sky News that the new measures mean the UK could have some of the strongest regulations of online pornography in the world.

Sky's multi-platform reporter Phoebe Southworth has investigated disturbing clips showing women wearing chains as necklaces and being pulled around, with captions poking fun at them for not being able to breathe. 

Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said that the government "has a commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade," and that "for many people, it is still easy to access harmful pornography online"

"This isn't about criminalising harmless sexual preferences," she added. "But porn can shape what people think a healthy relationship looks like, especially young people.

"Content that normalises, or even glorifies, violence against women is dangerous and can blur the line with what is acceptable in real life."  

Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin, who recommended the measure in her 2025 review into pornography regulation, said the announcement comes "not a moment too soon". 

Lady Bertin's report found pornography which shows women being choked can have "devastating" real-world consequences, and highlighted "disturbing" role-play, including incest and adults portraying children.

She said: "This change in law alongside better enforcement and stronger regulation will send the unequivocal signal not only to the companies that host and facilitate porn but also to wider society that extreme and violent content that encourages real-life harm is not acceptable."

A study by the Institute for Addressing Strangulation in 2024 found more than a third of 16 to 34-year-old adults had reported being strangled or choked at least once during consensual sex.

A survey by the same group last year found 43% of 16 to 17-year-olds, who are sexually active, said they had been subjected to it.