The European Commission will increase its regulatory efforts on some of the largest pornographic platforms in the world.
Brussels is not relaxing its efforts to regulate the digital space on the territory of the European Union. If we have heard a lot about its quarrels with X, which led to the launch of an official investigation, the European executive is also turning to other major platforms. And this time, it is the actors of pornography who are in his sights.
The DSA attacks pornographic sites
After digital giants like GAFAM, it is the turn of several pornography platforms to be held accountable. Several of them, namely Pornhub, Xvideos and Stripchat, are now considered “very large online platforms”, a category which brings together platforms with more than 45 million monthly users in Europe, and which are therefore subject to particular constraints.
Due to the provisions of the Digital Services Act, effective since last August, these sites will have to submit to new rules from February 2024. They will thus have to meet various transparency requirements, carry out risk assessments and minimize illegal content present, such as child pornography.
The file escapes France
This designation comes later than for giants like Amazon or Google, due in particular to discussions on traffic figures. In fact, Pornhub originally announced that it had only 33 million monthly users in Europe. A figure which then surprised, particularly NGOs, and which finally seems to have been corrected by the European Commission.
The other effect of this designation is to move the issue of potential blocking of these platforms from France to the European Union. As a reminder, the question of blocking these sites like Pornhub and XVideos has been, for several years, a sensitive legal matter, which has still not had a conclusion at this time. Brussels will thus be able to relieve Arcom of a complicated decision to make.
Source : The Verge
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