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Featured Image Credit: Photo Illustration by Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Topics: News, Technology
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Madison Burgess
Topics: News, Technology
The company that runs Pornhub has completely suspended the site in one European country, amid the ongoing age restrictions for anyone wanting access it.
Aylo, the parent company which also owns two other pornographic websites, Youporn and RedTube, pulled out the major move in retaliation to the major rule changes in France, blocking all users in the country.
Like other porn platforms, the company was under legal obligation to implement the correct age verification by 7 June.
But instead, they opted to cut off access completely.
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Aurore Bergé, the French minister for equality, reacted to the news that Pornhub was pulling out of the country with a stern message on X.
In French, she wrote: “Protecting minors is our commitment, our responsibility.
“Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube refuse to comply with our legal framework and have decided to leave. So much the better!
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“There will be less violent, degrading, and humiliating content accessible to minors in France. Goodbye!”
According to The Sun, Aylo's Vice President for Brand and Community Alex Kekesi said: "All it requires is that the government enforce regulations on three companies – Apple, Google and Microsoft – the three operating system manufacturers requiring age verification at the device level prior to accessing adult content.
"The French government refuses to take this simple step and instead are focused on futile and entirely symbolic regulatory actions which are unenforceable, do not protect children and expose your private data."
The UK is set to introduce similar age verification laws to France soon, and Pornhub has not yet made clear how it plans to respond.
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It was announced earlier this year that Pornhub, along with any other website on which pornographic material can be found, now have to introduce 'robust' age-checking techniques in the UK.
The new age restriction checks, made under the Online Safety Act (OSA), have been issued by regulator Ofcom and are intended to prevent children from easily accessing pornography online.
However, according to the BBC, a spokesperson for Aylo said the law was a privacy risk and assessing people's ages should instead be done ‘at a device level’.
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Earlier this year, Aylo told Tyla: "Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.
“Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy.
“Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.”
Meanwhile, Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom's chief executive, said: "For too long, many online services which allow porn and other harmful material have ignored the fact that children are accessing their services.
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"Either they don't ask or, when they do, the checks are minimal and easy to avoid."
She went on to explain: "That means companies have effectively been treating all users as if they're adults, leaving children potentially exposed to porn and other types of harmful content.
"Today, this starts to change."