Now Pornhub ban spreads to EUROPE in row over under-18 access – and it includes two other major X-rated sites
The website is blocked in France as the company that owns it objects to a new age verification rule
BLEU MOVIES Now Pornhub ban spreads to EUROPE in row over under-18 access – and it includes two other major X-rated sites
PORNHUB has pulled out of France as a stringent clampdown on adult sites makes its way to Europe.
A furious backlash over the country's new age verification rules has prompted the site to block access.
Advertisement
6
French minister Aurore Berge said the decision meant there would be "less violent, degrading and humiliating content accessible to minors in France"
Credit: Getty
6
Pornhub is the world's most visited porn site, with France being one of its biggest markets
Credit: Getty
6
Aurore Berge added: "Pornhub, Youporn, and RedTube refuse to comply with our legal framework and decide to leave. Good!"
Credit: Getty
It comes over objections to a new law requiring porn sites to verify the age of users.
Aylo, the adult entertainment company that owns Pornhub, has announced it will block access to the site in France as a result.
The company claims the French law poses a privacy risk to users.
The law could see users required to enter credit card details or other forms of official ID to verify their age.
Advertisement
Aylo also runs other popular porn sites such as Youporn and RedTube - which will also now be unavailable in France.
The company argues that device-based age verification is a better solution than requiring porn sites to police the age of users.
Aylo's VP 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."
Advertisement
Pornhub is the world's most visited porn site, with France being one of its biggest markets.
The website claims that France was its second biggest audience in 2024 after the United States.
Kekesi added: "We've made the difficult decision to suspend access to our sites in France and instead use our platforms to speak directly to the French people.
"French citizens deserve a government and a regulator who are serious about preventing children from accessing adult content.
Advertisement
"They also deserve laws which protect their privacy and safeguard their sensitive data."
Greenpeace activists swipe Emmanuel Macron waxwork from Paris's Grevin Museum before using it in anti-Russia protest-
6
The company argues that device-based age verification is a better solution
Credit: Alamy
French Gender Equality Minister Aurore Bergé posted on X that Aylo's decision meant there would be "less violent, degrading and humiliating content accessible to minors in France".
She added: "Pornhub, Youporn, and RedTube refuse to comply with our legal framework and decide to leave. Good!"
Advertisement
It comes after Aylo made similar moves to block access to its porn sites in several US states over age verification laws.
So far, 19 US states have passed laws requiring porn sites to verify users's age.
6
The European Commission has also launched an investigation into several adult websites
Credit: AFP
The bans cover around one third of the US population.
Advertisement
Methods of checking under these laws can include providing a government-issued ID or even scanning a user's face.
It has seen many porn sites opt to block access to their pages rather than implement such verification systems.
States that have implemented these laws include Texas, Florida, Arizona and Virginia.
The European Commission has also launched an investigation into several adult websites - including Pornhub - over accusations they had not complied with regulations aimed at stopping minors accessing porn.
Advertisement
The UK also has a law requiring platforms to have "robust" age checks in place by July.
It is currently unclear whether the same porn platforms will also block access to their sites in Britain when this comes into force.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Donald Trump was wrong – Ukraine still holds some cards
Donald Trump has been shown to be wrong, wrong and wrong again about Vladimir Putin. He was wrong again when he was asked if Ukraine's ' Spiderweb ' drone strikes against Russian bombers had changed his view of the cards the Ukrainians have: 'They gave Putin a reason to go and bomb the hell out of them,' he said. This is the same logic to which President Trump has cleaved from the start: that the Ukrainian people provoked the full-scale invasion of their country by wanting to be an independent nation facing to the west. It seemed that Mr Trump had been briefly disabused of the notion that Mr Putin wanted peace when the Russian president ignored several long telephone conversations with him and continued to bombard Ukraine, causing significant civilian casualties. ' He has gone absolutely crazy,' Mr Trump said last month. ' Needlessly killing a lot of people.' But Mr Trump responded to this month's Russian bombardment, described by the mayor of Kharkiv as the ' most powerful attack since the start of the full-scale war', by blaming the Ukrainians for giving Mr Putin a reason for intensifying the summer offensive. Any other United States president would have recognised that Mr Putin is gearing up for the summer fighting season, as Sam Kiley, our world affairs editor, reports, and would be doing so even if he had not been humiliated by Ukraine's audacious remote-control attacks on airfields thousands of miles away in different parts of Russia. Any other US president would have congratulated Volodymyr Zelensky on the attacks, which will go down in the history of special operations warfare as a brilliantly executed surprise. It turns out that when Mr Trump shamefully told Mr Zelensky in the Oval Office, ' You don't have the cards,' he was mistaken. Mr Zelensky still has the support of most of the free world. European leaders have signalled their willingness to step up whether or not Mr Trump goes through with his threat to step back from America's responsibility as a defender of freedom. The Ukrainian people remain united in their determination to defend themselves. Operation Spiderweb proved that they can take the fight deep into Russian territory, while having no territorial ambitions beyond seeking to preserve their own borders. Mr Zelensky has also exposed Mr Putin for what he really is. The Ukrainian president has given the Russian leader every chance for peace. He has been prepared to compromise on territory and alliances in a way that no leader of a sovereign nation should be asked to do. And yet Mr Putin presses on, making it abundantly clear, even to Mr Trump, that it is the Kremlin that is the obstacle to peace. Even if Mr Trump's apparent taking of sides with Mr Putin against the Ukrainian people were a cunning plan to soothe the paranoid mystical nationalism of Mr Putin and his cronies, it has not worked. Mr Putin has made it clear that he will be satisfied by nothing less than the subjugation of the whole of Ukraine by force of arms. In which case, he must be resisted. Mr Trump is right about one thing: that war is a terrible thing. But a peace built on surrender to an imperialist dictator would be no peace at all. The Ukrainian people must continue to fight, and all the nations of the world that believe in freedom, democracy and national self-determination must continue to help to defend them.
Glasgow Times
2 hours ago
- Glasgow Times
Dawn French apologises after ‘mocking tone' in video about Israel-Hamas conflict
The Vicar Of Dibley actress posted a video on social media this week in which she switched between her normal voice and a higher pitched voice. In the video about the conflict, she said: 'Complicated, no, but nuanced', adding: 'Bottom line is, no.' Then at one point she said in the higher pitched voice: 'Yeah, but you know they did a bad thing to us.' French has now posted a statement on X saying she has taken down the video and apologised, saying her intention was never 'to mock, or dismiss, or diminish the horror of what happened' on October 7 2023. The statement, posted on Saturday, says: 'Ok, it's important to address this. 'I posted a video in the style I've been using for social media in an effort to convey an important point. I clumsily used a mocking tone. 'My intention was NEVER to mock, or dismiss, or diminish the horror of what happened on 7 October 2023 and what continues to unfold from that brutal unthinkable, unforgivable, savage attack. 'My heart broke for the many innocent people and their families that were killed, tortured, r@ped and kidnapped. The fact that hostages are still held is utterly appalling. 'My intention was to mock and point the finger of shame at the behaviour of the cruel leaders on ALL sides of this atrocious war, who have continued to behave like the worst, dangerous, sickening bullies and seem to relish the tyrannical and childish oneupmanship of the violence. THEY were my target, but clearly I failed to do that, and that's on me. I apologise unreservedly. I'm particularly sorry that my disgust at Hamas didn't figure. It appeared one-sided, and that is wrong. 'I am a person, who like many others, is feeling increasingly helpless and hopeless as we witness the carnage and destruction worsen. The images of starving and wounded children have haunted me day and night. History has taught us never to stand by and allow this kind of inhumane violence to be wrought on anyone, especially innocent children. 'I have felt my silence is complicit or even somehow sanctioning. So in my small way I wanted to voice my desire to say NO – to BOTH sides – to any further violence. 'I hope you will understand my intention was not to offend, but clearly I have. For which I'm sorry and I have removed the video.'
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Kyrgyzstan takes down Central Asia's tallest Lenin statue
Kyrgyzstan has taken down a huge statue of the revolutionary Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, which was thought to be the tallest in Central erected when Kyrgyzstan was part of the Soviet Union, the 23m-tall monument towered over the city of Osh for 50 years before it was quietly removed this week. Photos emerged on Saturday showing the communist revolutionary - who features prominently in Soviet iconography - lying on his back on the ground, having been lowered by crane. Many former Soviet republics have recently sought to recast their national identities with less emphasis on their previous ties to Russia, though local officials downplayed the decision to move the statue. Authorities in Kyrgyzstan will be aware of the risk of offending its ally, Russia, a week after the latter unveiled a brand new statue of another Soviet figurehead, Josef Stalin, in Moscow.A statement from City Hall in Osh - the landlocked nation's second-largest city after the capital, Bishkek - said the figure would be relocated as part of "common practice" aimed at improving the "architectural and aesthetic appearance" of the pointed to examples of Lenin statues previously being taken down in statue will be replaced by a flagpole, as was the case when a different Lenin statue was relocated in Bishek, according to local gained its independence 34 years ago when the Soviet Union collapsed. But reminders of its Soviet history can be found across the country, even where there are no statues. For instance, its second-tallest mountain is named Lenin Peak.
