Immediately after the UK banned a wide range of porn fantasies involving choking, breath-restriction, and relative roleplay, adult creators watched platforms remove hundreds of their videos — even when the creators thought they were in compliance with the law. These creators say they were blindsided by the removals, since the content didn’t seem to violate the law at all.
Creators are reporting one platform in particular, Clips4Sale, is purging content with little notice, “a precautionary measure.”
Some creators who’ve contacted Clips4Sale to appeal these removals have shared screenshots online of the reply the platform sends: “At this time, we have implemented a general restriction on content availability in the UK to ensure compliance with applicable regulatory requirements,” Clips4Sale support replies, according to these screenshots, viewed by 404 Media. “This is a precautionary measure and does not necessarily indicate that your clips contain prohibited content or violate our policies. We are continuing to review affected content, and additional clips will be made available to UK buyers as they are reviewed and cleared.”
Updates to the UK’s Crime and Policing Act went into force on Friday. The law criminalizes a list of sexual acts, including downloading or publishing choking and incest roleplay content. The law is vague and overbroad, criminalizing “strangulation or suffocation” and “certain types” of incest roleplay. There’s a lot of confusion among sex workers and fans about what this encompasses, and seemingly could include various kinds of gagging, face sitting, and roleplay. Violating this law, either as someone in possession of noncompliant content or publishing it, carries a risk of up to five years in prison.
UK-based creator Sophia Truee told me that Clips4Sale removed more than 75 percent of her content — 392 out of 506 videos — with the platform flagging it as requiring edits without noting what needed to change. Truee makes POV content where she’s alone talking to the camera. Many more creators have shared on social media that content that shouldn’t be in violation of the law has been caught in the crossfire on Clips4Sale specifically.
In an email sent to creators on Thursday, the day before the law went into force, Clips4Sale said it would be reviewing “both the video content and its details, including titles, tags, keywords, and descriptions” of content that creators have uploaded to the site. It told creators no action was required. “Affected clips will be hidden automatically starting November 6. If you’d like to make a clip available in the UK again, you can edit the content or its details as needed and submit the changes for compliance review.” Approved content would go back up, the company said.
Another message from Clips4Sale on creators’ dashboards said: “As we gain further clarity on the regulatory requirements, we expect to be able to make additional content available again to UK users, wherever permitted. These restrictions apply only to the UK and will not affect your content’s availability in other markets where it is permitted.” According to the law, however, if creators based in the UK possess that content, they’re still facing jail time.
“Of course, we were all aware of the new Act coming in and prepared accordingly, but not for anything at this scale. We’ve had nothing since and they’ve been tweeting as normal,” Truee said. Clips4Sale launched in 2003 and caters heavily to fetish content. “It’s a huge blow to this area of the industry, and I can only hope things will be communicated soon. We, as creators, understand how difficult it is to be a content site in this current climate, but communication has not been prioritized,” Truee said, noting that this is happening right before the holidays, with Black Friday being one of the most popular times for creators selling content. “For many, this will be devastating, as over 20 years of the work will have just been wiped.”
Madame Caramel, another UK-based creator using Clips4Sale, posted on X that out of 900 clips she had available on the platform, she now has 198 left. Another creator, Goddess Kitty, wrote that the platform restricted 931 of her clips from UK audiences. “All of them [had] utterly NOTHING to do with the UK laws,” she wrote. There are many, many more creators across social media reporting that they’ve woken up to their clip sites gutted with no warning, even though their content wasn’t non-compliant by the letter of the law.
With the speed at which content has been purged en masse, and with some creators reporting instant rejections of content that should actually be compliant with the law, Clips4Sale may be auto-moderating with a very wide net, and sifting through reviews creators are now forced to send for legal content. This is something most social media platforms do to try to comply whenever over-broad laws or payment processor regulations hit.
Clips4Sale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other platforms are also attempting to comply now that the law is in effect. LoyalFans has a notice on its homepage for fans addressing the new law. It says: “These changes may also apply to content you’ve purchased, downloaded, or saved privately on your devices. Non-compliant content in your Loyalfans account will be removed on November 5, with no further action required from your side. We encourage you to understand the new law and review any affected content you have downloaded, or stored privately, whether on your phone, computer, or cloud storage.”
LoyalFans updated its terms of use on Thursday to include strangulation or suffocation, in its unacceptable content list, “including any content, whether real or simulated, that explicitly and realistically depicts a person strangling or suffocating another person, such as applying pressure to the neck or obstructing the nose or mouth,” the terms now say. “This content is prohibited regardless of whether the participants consent, and even if it is fantasy-based, roleplay, or digitally created.” Several creators using LoyalFans have posted on social media saying they’ve had hundreds of videos removed from their accounts on that platform, too.
JustForFans, an LGBTQ and kink content site, posted on X earlier this week that creators should review their content and use its new “restrict this content” option to keep it from being viewed by users in the UK. The platform also said that it would be scanning every new video upload for consent requirements and content restrictions. “If we find content that should be restricted in the UK, we will restrict it and you can review it in a new section of your Media Center called Restricted Content. The page will tell you what we found and give you options right on that page to fix it: re-word a post, replace a video with another video, delete the video, or tell us we are wrong, and why you believe we are wrong. A staff member will review your changes,” it said.
The vagueness of the law, combined with the use of auto-moderation on sites like Clips4Sale, have come together to create a nightmare for creators. “This highlights the lack of protection sex workers and content creators have when laws aren’t properly researched and clearly written. We do our very best to stay compliant and ensure everyone’s safety by following the rules,” Truee said. “This highlights the unprecedented use of AI in moderation and the lack of clear instructions from the government.”
Source: 404 Media · 2026-11-06