The government wants to combine laws to block at all costs pornographic sites that still let minors access their content.
It is a real battle waged by the government and the digital regulator to make adult sites listen to reason, which still do not erect a barrier aimed at preventing minors from accessing porn platforms. A law to this effect should soon see the light of day, to extend the powers of ARCOM. However, there is already one, but its application is… in fact, let’s call a spade a spade: it is not applied. And that’s the whole problem.
The government’s endless journey to block porn sites that break the law
The law of July 30, 2020 prohibits, in principle, the access of minors to pornographic sites. Except that today, no site respects this provision, some contenting themselves only with asking the user to confirm, by clicking on a banal “Yes” or “No” button, that he is indeed an adult.
And meanwhile, more and more minors are visiting porn sites, with the number of under-18s viewing adult content jumping by 600,000 in the space of 5 years, to reach the 2.3 million.
Justice, for its part, has in the past been seized of multiple requests to block sites from ARCOM, the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication. But the procedures are long, tedious and do not lead to much positive results. Even Twitter, called to order, does not move one iota. The government therefore wants to speed things up. Is the will of the latter alone enough?
A new law that would zap the justice box, to save time
There is still hope. The procedure initiated by ARCOM against Pornhub, xHamster, Xnxx, Xvideos and Tukif will end on July 7, with a long-awaited decision from the Paris court, which must order – or not – the blocking of these locations in France. But there is no guarantee that the outcome will be favorable to the regulator, and above all, we can deplore the slowness of the procedure.
The government is therefore working on a new law which would make it possible to skip the obstacle of the court, and avoid making these procedures interminable. It is the ARCOM which would obtain in a way full powers, with this text which aims to secure and regulate the digital space.
With this law, the authority could directly ask Internet access providers (Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free) to block sites that are not in compliance after being warned and given formal notice. Even if it is always possible to circumvent such a prohibition, it would already be a first step.
Sources: Clubic, The world
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