Pornhub and four other sites offering pornographic content may be blocked in France after the country’s media regulator announced on Tuesday that it had filed a complaint against them.
At the end of 2021, the sites were informed that they should introduce a system that prevents children from watching their videos.
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Under a new French law passed in July 2020, site operators cannot simply ask a user if he has reached the age of 18. The head of the French media regulator Arcom Rock Olivier Mestre said that the lawsuit was filed in a Paris court after the operators ignored previous warnings.
“If justice decides in our favor, these sites will no longer be accessible from France or from addresses registered in France,” the regulator said in a statement.
Among the sites targeted are Pornhub, the world’s largest porn site by number of users, as well as Tukif, Xhamster, Xnxx and Xvideos.
In late December, Portugal-based Tukif launched a lawsuit against the crackdown, arguing that it was discriminatory because it did not extend to other sites.
If the ban is approved by the court, Internet operators in France will be ordered to ban users from accessing content on these sites, Arcom said. Instead, a page will appear explaining the restrictions.