Introduction: A Landmark Shift in British Internet Policy
The United Kingdom officially entered a new era of internet regulation on July 25, 2025, with the full implementation of the Online Safety Act. The law introduces one of the world’s strictest digital age-verification regimes, aimed at protecting minors from accessing online pornography. It mandates that all platforms containing adult content accessible in the UK adopt robust, identity-based verification systems. These include facial age-estimation tools, government-issued ID checks, or mobile carrier authentication.
The law has been promoted as a necessary step to safeguard children in an increasingly unregulated online space. However, what sets this effort apart is not just its technical scope or enforcement mechanisms, but its surprising choice of public faces: celebrities and influencers. These online figures are being used to market the verification campaign to the general public particularly young internet users. Among them, one name has already become symbolic of the government's communications strategy: Olivia Bentley.
The Curious Case of Olivia Bentley
Olivia Bentley, known from the reality television series Made in Chelsea, has become one of the visible faces of the UK’s age-verification campaign. In a widely circulated promotional video shared on Instagram, Bentley compared watching pornography to purchasing a can of beer both activities, she noted, now require age verification in the UK. With a calm smile, she encouraged viewers to “just prove your age” before browsing adult websites.
The irony of Bentley fronting a campaign for digital morality and child protection has not gone unnoticed. A quick search online reveals a wealth of sexually suggestive photos of her in intimate poses, often involving lingerie, adult paraphernalia, or overtly provocative scenes. Her online presence is saturated with the very kind of imagery the Online Safety Act aims to shield children from. The fact that she is now promoting age-restricted access to adult content represents not only a paradox but a form of performative morality that critics argue undermines the seriousness of the message.
A Campaign Wrapped in Contradiction
It is difficult to ignore the theatrical element of placing celebrities like Bentley whose public persona has thrived on sexual provocation at the center of a campaign that claims to defend innocence and decency. This move by Ofcom and affiliated communications strategists appears to be an attempt to make the law “relatable” through familiar faces. But it also opens the campaign to accusations of hypocrisy and cynical marketing.
Rather than placing the burden of communication on experts in child protection, digital privacy, or online safety, the government has outsourced its moral message to individuals who have profited from attention economies built on sexualized visibility. The result is a campaign that feels less like a genuine effort to protect youth and more like a public relations maneuver dressed in progressive language but devoid of internal coherence.
Olivia Bentley is not just the glamorous face of the UK’s child protection campaign she's also behind JomoLondon.com, a website openly marketing vibrators and lubricants with playful, sexually suggestive copy. Lines like “Libido booster and sexual wellness for all” and “using lube doesn’t mean you’re not aroused… it enhances sensation regardless of your natural wetness” are standard fare. The brand isn’t subtle. It doesn’t try to be.
When the Law Doesn’t Start at Home
The UK’s Online Safety Act requires websites that promote adult content even without explicit imagery to implement meaningful age verification. This includes tools like ID uploads, credit checks, or verified facial recognition. Simply stating “for adults only” or adding a checkbox saying “I’m over 18” no longer meets the law’s standards.
And yet, JomoLondon.com has no such gate. Visitors can access sexual wellness content immediately. There is no popup, no warning, no verification nothing that would legally restrict access to minors. In fact, any curious teenager could easily scroll through lubricants, libido enhancers, and read enthusiastic prose about summer sex, vaginal pH, and the “wellness moment” of water-based lube without a single legal barrier in sight.
The Poster Girl of Double Standards
If Olivia Bentley is meant to symbolize the UK's commitment to digital child protection, one might expect her own digital footprint to reflect the law she's fronting. But instead, the image is one of hypocrisy: a public campaign promoting youth safety led by someone who operates an erotically branded business that ignores those very safety requirements.
So what exactly is happening here? Is Bentley the spokesperson for a cause she doesn’t personally support with her own platforms? Or worse is the UK government so desperate for influencers that it no longer checks whether its advocates actually comply with the rules they promote?
Either way, it sends a mixed and frankly ridiculous message: we must protect the children just not from our own brand partners.
Age Verification: Enforcement and Evasion
Despite the promotional efforts, the law itself is undeniably strict. Simple age-declaration checkboxes are no longer sufficient. Websites must now verify user age through objective and verifiable means, including biometric data and identification documents. Platforms that fail to comply face severe penalties. According to early reports, over five million additional age checks have been performed daily since the law went into effect. However, data also shows a sharp increase in VPN usage by UK residents, reflecting widespread resistance or distrust toward the new procedures.
While Bentley and others encourage effortless compliance, in reality, users face a web of data requests and opaque technology systems. Concerns over the storage and security of biometric data remain unresolved. Many adult content platforms, particularly those hosted outside the UK, have either geo-blocked UK access or introduced cumbersome verification processes that deter users entirely.
The Spectacle of Influence
Using influencers to promote a campaign focused on restricting access to adult material illustrates the UK government’s increasing reliance on parasocial relationships for public messaging. Olivia Bentley’s involvement offers a case study in modern-day image management, where public figures both embody and contradict the policies they are paid to endorse.
It’s fascinating to see the government trying to reshape public opinion on such a contentious issue, not through experts or evidence-based discourse, but through influencer marketing. Hiring reality TV stars to promote one of the UK’s most invasive internet laws borders on the surreal. It suggests a certain desperation, as if the government now depends on celebrity culture to deliver legal mandates that should be rooted in public trust and ethical consistency.
To suggest that Bentley whose image is emblematic of sexualized consumer culture, is now a steward of online morality is to stretch the boundaries of credibility. Her involvement lends the campaign viral reach but undermines its ethical clarity. It reflects not a genuine commitment to safeguarding children but an appeal to optics, to mass exposure, and to engineered compliance through celebrity familiarity.
Political and Ethical Implications
As the policy continues to roll out, political resistance grows. Civil rights groups, opposition MPs, and privacy watchdogs have raised concerns about the law’s compatibility with free expression and data protection principles. Critics argue that the focus on verification technologies distracts from deeper, more effective educational approaches to online safety.
There is also concern that the use of influencers like Bentley signals a disturbing shift in public governance. Instead of fostering informed civic dialogue, the state now relies on entertainment figures to carry legal messages figures who often embody lifestyles at odds with the values the law is meant to promote. The effect is both dissonant and performative, trading substance for spectacle.
A Strong Start or a Hollow Performance?
Enforcing digital age-verification through state-backed legislation is no small feat. In terms of ambition and scope, the UK’s Online Safety Act marks a bold turn in how internet access is governed. But its early execution, particularly the use of public figures like Olivia Bentley, reveals a disconcerting contradiction between the law’s stated aims and its chosen methods of communication.
Rather than championing child safety through serious, informed public engagement, the campaign risks trivializing its own mission. The presence of influencers who embody and commodify adult aesthetics while urging viewers to verify their age feels less like genuine advocacy and more like carefully curated contradiction.
It is a dramatic start from the British authorities, but one that may ultimately undermine the credibility of the law it seeks to promote. In the end, the juxtaposition of pornographic regulation with promotional glamour highlights not progress, but the performative nature of modern digital policymaking and the hollowness that can lie beneath its polished surface.
Take Action
If you believe that performative campaigns fronted by reality TV stars aren’t the solution to protecting children online, or if you simply oppose the invasive, flawed implementation of the UK’s Online Safety Act, you’re not alone.
The public clearly sees through the façade as well, the petition has already gained 485,135 signatures, reflecting widespread alienation from this performative approach. People aren’t merely concerned about the surveillance; they’re offended by the spectacle itself.
Join the growing public resistance and sign the petition against this newly enacted law: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
