The video makes the case that it was private interests that pushed for this in the UK - specifically the Carnegie 'charity'. They apparently defined the problem (i.e. what 'online harms' are), lobbied for it to be addressed, and then largely authored the policy/solution.
Edit: The claim is also made that Carnegie operates parallel influence and alignment campaigns globally. That may reveal the link you are looking for.
Before this I was only aware of a few instances of ID checks, like Utah and pornhub, or something?
Now laws are getting passed all over the place. Is this something that people really want? I guess I’m just out of loop?
The OSA has actually already been law for about two years!
It was just awaiting secondary legislation (statutory instruments) that Ofcom has been developing, in conjunction with industry.
The web industry either knew or really if it was responsible and serious should have known this legislation was coming in 2025. Ofcom have not kept secrets.
So if there is a co-ordinating entity, it's likely the porn industry itself and in particular Aylo/Mindgeek, who would very much like a situation where governments let them show porn to people they can sell things to, and who therefore stop using Visa and Mastercard as proxies.
And, again, for clarity: the OSA does not require you give "ID" to any porn sites. Just that you verify your age via mechanisms that might include making a small credit card payment or visiting a link on your phone (since your phone will need to have been unblocked to view adult material, which is an industry standard parental control since on-device controls are often either non-existent, easily-circumvented or utterly confounding)
It didn't come out of nowhere -- it literally came out of the previous government and a Queen's Speech.
Plenty of these groups pushing these laws are already publicly linked via $ and staffer revolving door: DonorsTrust -> SPN -> ALEC -> CLI -> Heritage -> $ from Dunn & Wilks and other christian millionaires -> continue the circle etc. [6, 7]
Their playbook - which is sadly working:
- far right christian anti-porn, anti-lgbtq crusaders use 'child safety' or revenge porn to organize public outrage and direct that pressure on the choke point of payment processing. For example the writer of the viral pornhub article worked for anti-porn christian group that also helped pass extreme anti lgbtq laws in africa, such as Uganda's gays “should be castrated” insanity [1] - Recent Australian version of this same story. Again, the buried lede is going after queer content (not by accident) [2] - Same in the UK: ADF creates UK branch. CARE, Christin Concern, etc. Same anti-porn, anti-lgbt. Same tactics and messaging. Also throw in anti-abortion. [3, 4] - Groups like Heritage & ALEC & SPN put out the blueprint and write the actual laws. Copy paste across red states. For instance Project 2025 advocates sending porn producers to jail & again backdoors targeting of Trans and queer people [8]. Another example in Tennessee [5]: define drag as adult only. impose narrow worldview that any gender expression not assigned at birth is wrong and adult only (pornagraphic). Just throw away 1a and dare scotus to blink on law 'loopholes' with private right of action b.s.
It's all just to inflict their christian worldview and 'morals' on the rest of us.
You know the porn thing is just a b.s. excuse to get their foot in the door because only a couple of large companies like Aylo (formerly Mindgeek) comply. They are the only porn sites with the $ and morals to actually moderate in the first place.
Whilst the other 99% of the internet is just an open stream of content with no care & no humans in the loop.
Therefore it's all just virtue signaling at best, and personally I see a very organized sinister plot to impose christian rule. Could you imagine if it was a muslim group organizing at this scale? Sharia anyone?
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1 https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/us-far...
2 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/steam-itch-takedowns-credit-ca...
3 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/02/us-anti-abor...
4 https://care.org.uk/cause/online-safety
5 https://time.com/6267962/tennessee-drag-bill-law-hold-friend...
6 https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/donorstrust/
7 https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Ties_to_ALEC
8 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/project-2025-por...
The same payment processor chokepoints and platform pressure tactics you're describing have been gleefully wielded by progressive activists to deplatform "dangerous misinformation," "hate speech," and "extremist content."
Remember when everyone cheered Mastercard and Visa cutting off WikiLeaks? Or Cloudflare and Kiwifarm? Or celebrated when payment processors started dropping anyone deemed "problematic"? The infrastructure for financial censorship didn't materialize overnight when Christian groups discovered it existed.
The left pioneered the modern "advertiser pressure" playbook - organizing campaigns to get platforms to ban everything from "Russian disinformation" to "COVID misinformation" to whatever qualified as this week's "stochastic terrorism." The same NGO-to-government pipeline exists there too: activist groups coordinate with sympathetic staffers, push model legislation, and pressure companies through ESG scores and brand safety concerns.
Both sides have their "think of the children" trump cards. One side waves "grooming" and "pornography," the other waves "radicalization" and "harmful content." Both genuinely believe they're saving society from moral decay, they just disagree violently on what that decay looks like.
The real tragedy is that both camps are so busy fighting their culture war that they've handed unprecedented censorship power to payment processors and tech platforms who answer to no one. Congratulations to both teams - you've successfully created the infrastructure for whoever wins to impose their vision of morality on everyone else.