The EU Commission has preliminarily found Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos in breach of EU internet rules by failing to protect minors from being exposed to pornographic content on their services.
The preliminary findings indicate that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos did not diligently identify and assess the risks that their platforms pose to minors accessing their services – which they are bound to do under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Even where risks were identified, the EU executive says Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos did not conduct a thorough assessment, as they did not use objective and thorough methodologies. For example, the assessment disproportionately emphasised business-centric concerns, such as reputational damage, rather than focusing on the societal risks to minors, as required under the DSA.
Moreover, the findings show that in their risk assessments Stripchat, Xvideos, and XNXX misrepresented or did not consider their meetings with civil society organisations specialising in children’s rights and age assurance tools.
The Commission also preliminarily found that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos failed to implement effective measures to prevent minors from accessing their services, therefore, failing to protect minors’ rights and wellbeing.
Despite stating in their Terms of Services that their services are for adults only, all four platforms allow minors to access their platforms by a simple click confirming they are over 18.
The Commission finds that ‘self-declaration’ is not an effective measure, and it also considers that additional mitigation measures, such as page blurring, content warnings and ‘Restricted to adults’ labels, deployed by all of these platforms, do not effectively prevent minors from accessing harmful content.
At this stage, the Commission considers that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos need to implement privacy preserving age verification measures to protect children from harmful content.
The Commission stresses that these findings do not prejudge the final outcome of the investigation.
The platformds now have an opportunity to examine the documents in the Commission’s investigation files and reply in writing to the preliminary findings. The platforms can take measures to remedy the breaches.
