French porn sites on Wednesday on black in protest against new law on age control

From Wednesday, porn is a break in France. At least, that applies to the French looking for their content on the popular porn websites Youporn and Pornhub. Instead of the homepage trusted for them with teasers to erotic images, a less exciting image will be shown; the painting La Liberté Guidant Le Peuple (The freedom leads the people) of the painter Eugène Delacroix.

There will also be information about the new French legislation with regard to the new « symbolic, dangerous, useless » age controls on pornographic websites, says Salomon Friedman, the owner of the Canadian parent company Aylo, in Tuesday Le Parisien.

By depriving the 7 million daily visitors their erotic content, the porn platforms hope to draw attention to their displeasure about new legislation in France. Since April, users of pornplatforms have to have their age verified using credit cards or identity papers. An external party is then involved to check the documents. The new legislation is intended to keep minors from the platforms referred to for adults.

Privacy

The anonymity of the users would be guaranteed with the porn sites, and the controlling party would not know which website would have been visited. Nevertheless, parent company Aylo believes that the stricter regulations around age controls are a danger to the privacy of visitors to the porn sites. According to the company, the data could come into the hands of hackers. The company therefore argues for checks via smartphone, PC or tablet that they think are often offered by large tech companies.

The French State Secretary for Digital Technologies, Clara Chappaz, responds via X to the protest: « It is free to watch porn, but not at the expense of the protection of our children, » she writes. « If Aylo prefers to leave France than adheres to our law, it must know for itself. »

The protest comes after the European Commission has recently opened an investigation into the extent to which porn site Pornhub invests in protecting children against images intended for adults.

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