This is a final warning before the sanctions. The Superior Audiovisual Council raised its tone on Monday towards five pornographic sites, summoned to prevent minors from accessing their content within 15 days, under penalty of being blocked by judicial decision.
Pornhub, Tukif, Xhamster, Xvideos and Xnxx are concerned by the formal notices of the CSA. “We appeal to the responsibility of operators,” said the regulator. “A minor, and in particular a child who finds himself in front of unsuitable content, such as pornographic content, can be durably, and at least, shocked”.
Do more than just ask for age
The Penal Code prohibits exposing minors to pornographic photos and videos and the law on domestic violence of July 30, 2020 specifies that the companies concerned cannot exonerate themselves from their responsibilities by simply asking an Internet user if he is major. Since the entry into force of this law, the CSA can seize the president of the judicial court who can ask Internet service providers to block offending sites.
The CSA made this decision after being informed at the end of November 2020 by three associations: the Observatory for parenthood and digital education (Open), the National Union of Family Associations (Unaf) and the French Council of Associations for children’s rights (Cofrade). “We are very happy with this initiative of the CSA and confident that it will succeed”, reacted Justine Atlan, director of the association e-Enfance, which had brought with another association, La Voix de l’Enfant, an action. in court to demand the blocking of pornographic sites by the French providers of access to the Internet. The request was, however, rejected in early October.
Highly visited sites
“We adults must protect children and measure the consequences of these images on [leur] spirit ”, reacted Martine Brousse, president of the Voice of the child. LREM deputy Bruno Studer, president of the Cultural Affairs Commission, who will bring in a bill in January on parental control systems, stressed to him that France is determined “to protect children in an unprecedented way from inappropriate content and shocking ”.
Among the five sites put on notice, Pornhub and Xhamster, established in Cyprus, belong to the porn giant MindGeek. Xvideos and Xnxx are installed in the Czech Republic and Tukif in Portugal. Four of these platforms (Pornhub, Xhamster, Xvideos, Xnxx) are among the 50 most visited sites in France, according to data from the digital audience site SimilarWeb. The webmaster of the Tukif site explained for his part to the publication Next INpact that France represented “60% of accesses to the TuKif.com site, ie between 12 and 18 million unique users per month for a total of more than 20 million monthly visits from France”.