The ‘industry’ takes on the age verification war

When they decided take charge age verification in their final season, Industry co-creators Konrad Kay and Mickey Down I didn’t think this issue would become such a political issue.

“It was in the ether of British politics, but it wasn’t at the forefront when we started writing the scripts or shooting it, and then it became sort of a talking point on the front page of the BBC,” Kay says.

Season 4 of HBO’s sexy, darkly funny financial drama, premiering Sunday, continues IndustryExpanding beyond the cutthroat world of investment banking into technology, pornography, age verification and politics. As the season begins, fights break out among the top brass at Tender, a recently IPO fintech company, over whether or not to continue processing payments for Siren, an adult platform similar to Only fans. While Siren and other gambling and porn companies account for a good portion of Tender’s revenue, some Tender executives are spooked by threats of sweeping new age verification laws and anti-porn rhetoric coming from the British Labor Party and believe there is more to be gained by cleaning up their act.

In fact, the United Kingdom Online Safety Act requiring people to verify their age before they can view pornography and other restricted content, took effect in July 2025, long after Kay and Down proposed the scenario of Industrythe most recent season. Yet it had impacts similar to those felt by Siren. Pornhub’s traffic in the UK has fallen by almost 80% in light of the regulation and faces similar challenges in the US, where half of states have enacted age verification laws. In December, members of Congress considered 19 invoices aimed at protecting children and teenagers online, although critics have said some of them unconstitutional.

“It kind of shows how fragile free speech absolutism is,” Down says, describing the “wildly different” views on the issue, from puritanism even within liberal enclaves to a censorious “shut everything down” approach on the part of conservatives.

While Industry was a bit of a sleeper hit for HBO, it finally seemed to break through during season 3, with its audience premiering up 60 percent compared to the Season 2 premiere. Season 4 builds on this momentum very effectively and feels more prescient than ever.

“We have the OnlyFans element, then the fintech element, then the fraud element,” says Kay. But then, “in the second half of the season, we were confronted with the ascending face of authoritarianism in the UK and the US.”

The new season spends more time with junior banker and part-time OnlyFans model Sweetpea Golightly, who keeps her face out of her adult content, but nonetheless has her identity exposed without her consent. It’s a more nuanced look at what happens to modern online sex workers, who are often portrayed on television in much more black-and-white terms.

“She started season 3 by saying: I am an independent woman. I have this OnlyFans account. I never leave money on the table. In season 4, we’re looking at what that would look like when that starts to change,” says Down. “It can be empowering and exploitative.”

In fact, almost every character in Industry is both empowering and exploitative, depending on the circumstances. And while the final season is particularly topical, the most enjoyable part of the show may be seeing them peel back those complicated and often unsavory layers.

Last season followed publishing heiress Yasmin, played by Marisa Abela, as she dealt with the aftermath of her Epstein-like father’s disappearance – for which she was arguably partly responsible – and faced the extent of his abuse. Although she has been subjected to his predatory nature since childhood, Yasmin also uses other women around her, a pattern that continues in season 4, as she navigates her new marriage to an old money aristocrat turned failed tech brother, Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington).