The website OnlyFans is under investigation by Britain’s media regulator Ofcom, accused of not doing enough to prevent children under 18 from accessing pornography.

The site, which allows creators to provide content to users for a subscription, is widely known for hosting sexual content.

For its part, OnlyFans claims it is experiencing a technical problem and insisted it is “working closely” with her Ofcom to “implement and develop best practices for internet security.”

A spokeswoman for the company told the BBC the site had experienced a “coding configuration issue”, which had affected some “age limits”. However, he said these thresholds are always set above 18.

“OnlyFans discovered the error and proactively amended the report to Ofcom,” she added.

In its announcement Ofcom states that the platform had not adequately implemented methods to verify the age of users to prevent access to “restricted material”, including pornography, by under-18s.

The same statement added that its investigation will also assess whether OnlyFans failed to provide complete and accurate information in response to the regulator’s requests.

The UK media regulator has been overseeing video sharing platforms with a UK presence such as OnlyFans, Twitch, TikTok, Snapchat and Vimeo since November 2020.

Monitors their compliance with national laws and regulations. These include taking measures to prevent children from accessing content that could harm their physical, mental or moral development.