The bill aimed at protecting young Internet users from pornographic content will only be applicable on French platforms. European or foreign players will not have to impose verification.
For many months, the government and parliamentarians have been working on a bill aimed at regulating the digital space, and Internet users’ access to pornographic content is one of the most important, but also the most thorny, subjects. The authorities wanted, in a first version of their text, to impose an age control on all adult video platforms available on the web. However, the European Commission went through this, and the deputies and senators had to lower their demands so that the final text could be adopted and applied in the coming months.
A verification measure only applicable on French porn sites
Meeting in a joint committee, several deputies and senators found a compromise on this bill, which should be debated by parliamentarians at the beginning of April. In this final version, the desire to apply age control on European platforms has disappeared. Only French platforms, like Jacquie and Michel, will be required to ask for the age of users, as well as websites hosted abroad, outside the borders of the European area.
The European Commission judges that the verification measure envisaged by the French authorities contravenes the directive on electronic commerce of 2000. To summarize the content of the latter, a European country cannot impose additional regulatory measures on other countries. of the Union than those provided for by the Commission.
European platforms protected by law
If Arcom, which will be responsible for ensuring proper compliance with this law and any sanctions applied, wants to act with regard to a platform hosted in Europe, it must first contact the local authorities. Suffice it to say that the procedure has very little chance of being successful, or within a delay that could represent several years.
The largest platforms operating from abroad, such as PornHub or Xvideos, are also not affected. The latter, representing more than 45 million users each, are subject to the rules of the European Digital Services Act (DSA), and only the European Commission can impose sanctions and blocking measures on them.
If the text were to be definitively adopted by Parliament in the coming weeks, it will then be submitted to the Constitutional Council, then to the European Commission, both of which could express their reservations.
Source : BFMTV
10