PARIS — Months after the French Parliament passed an Age Verification (AV) requirement for online adult content, the site Pornbiz.com — owned by tube site XVideos, a WGCZ company — began circulating a survey gathering public opinion about privacy concerns surrounding the requirement and its implementation.
The survey — available in French and shared around the country’s adult community as a link within XVideos’ little-used Pornbiz.com domain — includes an introduction and several multiple-choice questions, both drafted with the intention to challenge the legislation and sway public opinion.
The intro states that the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA, France’s version of the FCC) has given XVideos two weeks to submit observations, after which it would demand a tribunal to block the site — and eight others — if they do not implement some form of age verification.
A Macron-Backed Measure
The survey's full title is “Large Survey About Age Verification in France to Access Adult Content.”
“Last summer,” the introduction begins, “a law about domestic violence was amended with two articles concerning the distribution of pornography online. It imposes age verification on the users.”
That law, the survey intro continues, was adopted by “an accelerated procedure” after an initiative by Emmanuel Macron’s government.
In July 2020, as XBIZ reported, the French Parliament unanimously agreed to introduce an Age Verification requirement aimed at preventing minors from accessing pornographic websites.
President Macron had made a commitment in January 2020 to implement such a system.
According to news site Politico, “Macron made the protection of children against adult content online a high-profile issue well before the coronavirus crisis hit. In January, tech companies, internet service providers and the adult movie industry signed a voluntary charter, pledging to roll out tools to help ensure minors don’t have access to pornographic content.”
France’s Le Figaro newspaper reported at the time that the group signing the “voluntary charter” included ISP organization Fédération Française des Télécoms, Snapchat, Google, search engine Qwant, Samsung and even the Marc Dorcel studio.
A Dubious Link Between Porn and 'Domestic Violence'
The XVideos survey represents a significant challenge to that AV agreement from Europe’s top tube site and Pornhub’s leading competitor worldwide.
The intro to the survey points out that less than 10% of “députés” (Representatives) were present during the vote and none of the legislators were asked about the law’s consequences or the method of age verification to be employed.
“If you ask yourself, as we do, what does pornography have to do with domestic violence, you’d be given this explanation: people can be induced to see and then reproduce ‘violent’ sexual practices seen online,” the intro states.
To view the survey (in French), click here.