PARIS — WGCZ, the parent company of tube site XVideos and several other international adult companies, has reportedly hired a prestigious international law firm, as well as a powerful communications and marketing conglomerate, to lobby government regulators to limit the scope of proposed sweeping regulations on adult content.
According to a report this week by French business news site La Lettre A, the conglomerate has hired top international business law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, as well as a subsidiary of French media management giant Havas.
The high-profile move comes as the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel, a regulatory body similar to the American FCC, is due to make a decision regarding a complaint by French nonprofits purporting to advocate for “children’s welfare.”
The organizations e-Enfance (“e-Childhood”) and La Voix de l’Enfant (“The Voice of the Child”) assert that sites such as Pornhub, TuKif, XNXX, xHamster, XVideos, Redtube and YouPorn “make pornographic content accessible to minors and do not verify the age of those browsing or they merely make them check a box stating they are over 18,” as the groups' lawyer, Laurent Bayon, told newspaper Le Figaro in September, when announcing a lawsuit trying to compel ISPs to block those sites in France.
The lawsuit was rejected in October in favor of the defendants, the French ISPs Orange, SFR, Bouygues Télécom, Free, Colt Technologies Services and Outre mer Télécomare.
A Controversial AV Law
Back in March, WGCZ began circulating a survey gathering public opinion about privacy concerns surrounding a new age verification requirement imposed by the French parliament in 2020.
“Last summer,” the introduction to the survey began, “a law about domestic violence was amended with two articles concerning the distribution of pornography online. It imposes age verification on the users.”
The document also pointed out that fewer than 10% of representatives were present during the vote and that 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 WGCZ-sponsored statement noted.
Top Legal and Lobbying Guns
Back in April, according to public records, WGCZ also engaged the lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and U.S. lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs to lobby on unspecified matters of "online speech and communications" and "internet compliance."
That announcement was made in the wake of a media-ballyhooed lawsuit filed against XVideos and WGCZ by the religiously inspired anti-porn crusading group NCOSE, formerly known as Morality in Media.
The French media and marketing conglomerate Havas, a subsidiary of which WGCZ has reportedly engaged for its lobbying efforts in Paris, is controlled by the powerful Bolloré conglomerate. Bolloré media properties currently openly back right-wing candidates, much like a French Fox News, but the conglomerate also controls Canal+, the last large broadcaster in France which is still offering explicit adult content.