The French digital authority, ARCOM, has published a study in which it indicates that minors are increasingly exposed to pornographic content online. Even though adult sites are supposed to be forbidden to them.
The Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority must have the impression of going in circles. Guided by the objective of enforcing the law of July 30, 2020 which, it should be remembered, prohibits access by minors to pornographic sites, the regulator has already given notice to many sites to put in place effective barriers to prevent this access. But in vain. To take stock of changes in the exposure of minors to pornographic content, ARCOM commissioned a study from Mediametry, which identified 14,111 sites, including 179 with a significant audience to offer reliable statistics. And the results do not encourage optimism.
More and more minors are visiting porn sites
If each month, more than a third of Internet users (36%) went to adult content sites in 2022, minors are not left out, since they are 2.3 million to frequent them. Moreover, the proportion is not so far apart between young audiences and adults.
Minors are indeed 28% to visit pornographic sites. Over the last five years, this statistic has increased by 9 points. In 2017, fewer than 2 in 5 (19%) visited these platforms. The number of under-18s visiting adult sites has risen by 600,000 in 5 years, to around 2.3 million.
The average daily attendance of miners is also up sharply. It has indeed increased from 4% at the end of 2017 to 9% at the end of 2022. In addition, the majority of visitors are boys. From the age of 12, more than half of them already go on average at least once a month to sites reserved for adults. Nearly two-thirds go there between the ages of 16 and 18.
Boys more interested than girls
So how long do visitors spend on adult sites on average each month? You will find that the gap between over and under 18 is quite significant. The monthly time spent by minors on platforms with pornographic content amounts to 49 minutes, against 1 hour and 54 minutes for adults. If we separate the genres, we reach 2 hours and 12 minutes for boys under 18, and 43 minutes only for girls.
Last September, the Senate published a report in which it makes 23 recommendations with the aim of regulating an industry that the wise consider far too lax and libertine. Among the proposals, we obviously find a whole section supporting a strengthening of the powers of ARCOM in terms of blocking sites that do not respect the laws in force.
Source : ARCOM
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