Pornhub to face EU’s toughest online content regime
Three of Europe’s largest porn websites will have to start cracking down on harmful content in April 2024 or face sweeping fines under new content moderation rules, the European Commission said Wednesday.
The European Commission designated adult content platforms Pornhub, Xvideos and Stripchat as so-called very large online platforms, which are websites visited on average by more than 45 million Europeans every month. The porn websites will have to respect extra obligations in fighting illegal and harmful content under the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA) by April 2024. Fines for violating the rules can go up to 6 percent of global turnover.
Companies like Pornhub have been under growing scrutiny for not doing enough to stop illegal content like videos of child rape and non-consensual sharing of intimate content from being uploaded on their platforms. Regulators and politicians in Europe have also been pressuring them to implement measures to verify the age of users to block minors from accessing their websites.
The decision marks a victory for the Commission. The EU has clashed with some large porn platforms, which had been arguing in the last months that they didn't meet the threshold of monthly visits to face extra content moderation rules. Pornhub said it had 33 million users every month while Stripchat said it was visited by nearly 32 million Europeans each month. XVideos didn’t meet the deadline to publish information about user numbers and later revealed it had more than 160 million users in the EU.
The Commission in April designated 19 very large online platforms including social media networks like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. These companies will have to propose concrete measures to limit major online risks like violence against women and the protection of minors, and will have to go through external audits. The Commission will oversee compliance of these very large online platforms.
Stripchat, Pornhub's parent company Aylo and Xvideos' owner WGCZ did not reply in time to requests for comments. Companies can appeal their designation as a VLOP; Amazon and fashion website Zalando have challenged Commission decisions in past months.
This article has been updated.