How To Remove Choking or Incest Content From Your Website Before the UK Ban
A quick beginner's guide to ensuring compliance and avoiding legal trouble ahead of the 1 November deadline.
The UK government has set a hard deadline of 1 November to ban porn depicting choking or incest. Non‑compliance could lead to fines, site shutdowns, or legal action. This guide shows you how to audit, edit, and secure your site in under two weeks.
Step 1: Identify Problem Content
Start by running a full crawl of your site with Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free for up to 500 URLs) or Sitechecker to locate any videos or images that could be flagged. Filter results by file type (.mp4, .mov) and review titles for keywords like "choking" or "incest". Once you have a list, export it to Excel to keep track. This initial audit saves you time when you move to automated scanning.
Step 2: Apply Automated Moderation
Upload the flagged files to an AI‑driven moderation platform such as Clarifai or Microsoft Azure Content Moderator. These services return a confidence score and highlight any disallowed content frames. Set the threshold to 0.8 to catch near‑misses, and download the report for your records. Automating this step ensures consistency across thousands of files.
Step 3: Edit or Remove Content
If a clip contains disallowed content, use free editing software Shotcut or the built‑in trim tool in Adobe Premiere Pro to blur or cut the offending frames. Keep the original file in a backup folder before making changes. After editing, re‑upload to your CDN and run the AI scan again to confirm the content is now compliant. Document each edit in a changelog to satisfy future audits.
Step 4: Update Metadata and Policies
Remove any metadata or tags that reference the banned content, and update your Terms of Service to reflect the new policy. Add a clear warning banner on the page if the content was previously flagged but now censored. Use WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO to ensure all on‑page metadata is clean. Updating these elements prevents search engines from linking your site to disallowed content.
Step 5: Notify Users and Authorities
Send a compliance notice to your user base via email and update your privacy policy to explain the changes. If you are registered for the UK Digital Services Tax, file a compliance report by 15 November. This proactive communication shows regulators you’re following the law. Keep a copy of all correspondence in your compliance folder.
Many sites overlook the need to re‑scan after editing, leading to residual flagged frames.
By following these five steps you’ll bring your site into compliance before the deadline, protect your business from penalties, and demonstrate responsibility to regulators. The process is straightforward and can be completed within a week. Start today and secure your site’s future.
