Porn: pornhub and 4 other sites threatened with blocking by the CSA

The Superior Council of Audiovisual (CSA) has summoned the pornographic sites Pornhub, Tukif, Xhamster, XVIDEOS and XNXX to prevent their access to minors, under penalty of being completely blocked in France.

Pornhub and other porn sites could be blocked in France

“The regulator ensures, in accordance with the law, its mission to protect minors.(…) With these decisions, we call on the responsibility of operators who must set up the necessary systems to prevent minors from the access to their content, "the CSA told AFP.In the event of non-compliance with this obligation within 15 days, the sites are exposed to a blockage of their access.

"A minor, and in particular a child who finds himself in front of unsuitable content, such as pornographic content, can be permanently, and at least shocked," argued the regulator.Pornhub and other pornographic sites must therefore do the necessary to avoid blocking in France.

New rights for the CSA

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 be exempt from their responsibilities by just asking a user if heis major.Since the entry into force of this law, the president of the CSA may seize the president of the judicial court to request the blocking of the offender sites to the Internet access providers.

The CSA made this decision after being seized at the end of November 2020 by three associations, the Observatory of Parenting and Digital Education (OPEN), the National Union of Family Associations (UNAF) and the French Council for Associations forthe rights of the child (Cofrade).These organizations initially aimed at eight pornographic sites.They were, according to them, in violation because they only have a warning message allowing the Internet user to declare that they are of age.

Among the five sites put in notice, Pornhub and Xhamster, established in Cyprus, belong to the Mindgeek porn giant, also owner of Youporn, who is legally domiciled in Luxembourg.XVIDEOS and XNXX are installed in the Czech Republic and Tukif in Portugal.