MONTREAL — Technology and media company Aylo, which operates adult sites including Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube, has released a public statement regarding its decision to block access to its sites in France.
As XBIZ reported Tuesday, the company opted to block access rather than comply with age verification requirements under the country’s Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN) law. Wednesday's statement is addressed to the people of France.
Meanwhile, news organization MLex is reporting that SREN is under scrutiny by the European Commission. The report cites a letter from Roberto Viola, the director of the commission’s digital department, expressing concern about whether the French law is in compliance with existing European laws such as the Digital Services Act.
The statement on behalf of Aylo by VP Alex Kekesi follows:
We’ve made the difficult decision to suspend access to our sites (user-uploaded content platforms, including Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube) in France and instead use our platforms to speak directly to the French people.
French citizens deserve a government and a regulator who are serious about preventing children from accessing adult content. They also deserve laws that protect their privacy and safeguard their sensitive data.
For years, we have attempted to collaborate with the government through consultation, data sharing, and offering pilot project participation. The results of all of this have been clear – site-based age verification does not work. It does not protect children, and it exposes the data of millions of French people to privacy breaches and hacks.
Your government won’t tell you the truth about this, but we will.
There is a simple, easy-to-implement, and immediately available solution to this issue – device-based age verification*. All it requires is that the government enforce regulations on three companies – Apple, Google, and Microsoft – the three operating system manufacturers requiring age verification at the device level prior to accessing adult content. The French government refuses to take this simple step and instead is focused on futile and entirely symbolic regulatory actions that are unenforceable, do not protect children, and expose your private data.
As of June 4, 2025, millions of consenting adults in France will no longer be able to access our library of thoroughly moderated and consensual adult entertainment on one of the most trusted adult sites in the world – a site that, we believe, is better at safeguarding its community than any other user-generated content platform, including mainstream social media platforms. Sites like ours, which host legal and regulated porn, will no longer be available in France, but thousands of irresponsible porn sites will still be easy to access.
We know people will not stop looking for porn. They just migrate to hundreds of thousands of unsafe platforms that have not only chosen to be non-compliant but also have far fewer, if any, Trust and Safety policies in place. In effect, all data indicates that these laws have just diverted traffic to dangerous websites that have made the conscious decision to act illegally. The way France has chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.
You deserve real solutions to stop minors from accessing adult content. We want to be part of that solution. But this symbolic law will do nothing to protect children. Demand that your government have the courage to get this right.
