PARIS — France’s media regulator ARCOM has gone to court to demand that the country’s ISPs enforce a total block of five specific adult tube sites — Pornhub, Tukif, xHamster, Xvideos and Xnxx — over their alleged lack of enforcement of a controversial age verification mandate.
The ARCOM decision to block the tube sites comes only days after the German government ordered that country’s ISPs to block xHamster.
Reliable sources in France had reported that the ARCOM — a brand-new agency that very recently superseded former regulatory agency CSA, an analog of the American FCC — drafted the porn block more than a week ago, and only delayed when forced to switch priorities to targeting Russian propaganda sources following the invasion of Ukraine.
ARCOM’s decision was first reported this morning by Agence France-Presse via Twitter.
“In other words, adult sites — which are not illegal in and of themselves — must find another method other than [a “Press here” button stating] ‘I swear I’m 18 [or over],” tweeted Marc Rees of French tech news site Next Inpact, which for months has been tracking ongoing threats by the Macron government to censor many of the most popular adult tube sites.
“But which solution?” Rees added, pointing out that the June 2020 amendment to a domestic violence law, which triggered this enforcement action, did not offer anything beyond a rhetorical “pirouette” to dance around the complex issue of mandatory age verification.
This is a developing news item and XBIZ will continue updating this report.
