BERLIN — Germany’s Berlin Administrative Court has upheld a “network ban” on adult sites Pornhub and YouPorn for failing to comply with that country’s age verification regulations.
The order was issued by Germany’s federal media regulator, which in 2023 instructed telecom providers Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica and 1&1 to initiate the blocking process.
That action came in response to a campaign by the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia (LfM), which has targeted adult sites as part of a crusade to enforce certain provisions of Germany’s Youth Media Protection Interstate Treaty (JMStV). Those provisions require that pornographic sites accessible in Germany meticulously verify visitors’ ages via methods such as ID or biometric facial scans.
Spearheaded by agency director Tobias Schmid, an energetic anti-porn campaigner, those efforts previously led to a network ban blocking access to xHamster in 2022.
German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine has called a network ban “the harshest sanction provided by the German Telemedia Act,” terming it “unpopular” and noting that the measure is viewed as censorship. According to Netzpolitik’s Sebastian Meineck, however, xHamster, Pornhub and YouPorn have all circumvented network bans by altering their domains.
Pornhub and YouPorn are both owned by Aylo, which is legally based in Cyprus.
This new decision may be appealed to a higher court — or the matter could ultimately be decided via a separate case in which access provider Vodafone is the plaintiff before the Administrative Court in Düsseldorf. According to Netzpolitik, the telecom provider has contended that the European Union’s Digital Services Act shifts responsibility for matters such as age assurance compliance to the EU Commission.
Vodafone told Netzpolitik, “Because the DSA also regulates the protection of minors on the Internet, the provisions of the JMStV become inapplicable.”
An EU Commission spokesperson agreed, telling Netzpolitik, “We firmly believe that action at EU level is more effective in protecting minors from harmful content on online platforms, given the cross-border nature of these services and the need to offer users a consistent level of protection across the EU.”
A meeting of the European Board for Digital Services on Tuesday included discussions on the protection of minors, including the prospective EU age verification solution that incorporated a digital wallet-based AV app. The technical specifications of that app are available on GitHub.
Other countries, such as France, have said that their own AV measures are placeholders until that EU-wide plan can take effect.