After EU regulators determined that three of the largest pornography websites in the world fell under the scope of an important law designed to police online content, they will now be subjected to new regulations including more stringent requirements for age verification.
Three people with knowledge of the decision say that Xvideos Pornhub, and Stripchat are subject from April to the Digital Services Act’s obligations for “very large platforms”.
This designation is only applicable to platforms that have more than 45mn active users. It has been used to date to describe Facebook, Wikipedia, and TikTok.
According to sources familiar with the plan, adult websites that are caught up in the law will have to adhere to a number of strict measures. This includes being required to implement systems which can verify the user’s age.
Other measures include a new responsibility to remove illegal content, such as non-consensual video, and being subject to an external audit to ensure that they comply with the rules. The EU is expected to announce its decision on Wednesday.
Three online porn sites are among the most popular in the world. According to EU regulators, Xvideos has around 160mn visitors per month in the EU. This is about a third.
If companies fail to comply with the new EU digital regulations, they could face fines up to 6% of their global revenue.
Pornhub, a Canadian company, said that it only had 33mn EU users and didn’t meet the DSA threshold. Stripchat and Xvideos in Prague did not respond when asked for comments.
The DSA is a major overhaul of digital rules in the EU. The DSA sets new standards to police hate speech, misinformation and counterfeits on large digital platforms. The European Commission assigned special obligations to 19 companies in April.
EU regulators used the law to launch an official investigation into Elon Musk’s X for its record in policing the content related to Israel-Hamas conflicts. They also sent requests to TikTok, YouTube and other social media platforms to provide additional information about their methods of policing the content.
Thierry Breton is the EU commissioner responsible for implementing the DSA. He said: “I’ve been very clear about the fact that creating a safe online environment for children is a priority enforcement under the DSA.”
Regulators around the world struggle to monitor so-called “user-generated” sites. These sites rely on individual users to upload content, and are often criticized for hosting harmful and illegal materials.
Porn sites are particularly hard to control, since most of the largest so-called “tube” sites, like Pornhub and Xvideos for example, are owned by a small group of mysterious companies.
This year, the company behind Pornhub changed its name to Aylo from MindGeek. It was purchased by Ethical capital Partners to distance themselves from scandals. Pornhub and Visa are accused in a US lawsuit of profiting from a video with a sexual theme featuring a child.
Visa said at the time that it “strongly disagreed” with the court’s decision dismissing its argument that the allegations under test were “based entirely on independent actions by parties other than Visa”. Pornhub also denied any wrongdoing.
According to three sources close to the EU process, no adult websites responded to the EU’s initial request that companies with 45mn or more users come forward. Three people close to the EU’s process say that no adult sites responded to the initial request for companies with more than 45mn users.
France and Germany have taken measures to enforce adult sites to verify users’ age.