Au revoir: Pornhub says goodbye to France due to verification law

France passed a new law on 21 May this year requiring pornographic websites to verify that users trying to gain access are 18 or older. Of the six companies that the country’s communications regulator, Arcom, has had to intervene in so far, five have complied.

However, Aylo, the firm behind three adult entertainment platforms with user-uploaded content including Pornhub, has chosen to protest the new regulation and pulled the plug on its pornographic websites. In a statement, the French regulator said of the move that the company decided to “shirk the imperative of protecting minors by suspending access to its content in France, even for adults.”

Arcom said that Aylo did this “despite the fact that numerous technical solutions exist on the market that allow users to verify their age while ensuring the protection of their personal data.” The regulator took the opportunity to point out that more than a third of teenagers aged 12 to 17 visit the company’s most popular site, Pornhub, each month.

“Au revoir Pornhub”

Aylo also blocked users from accessing content on its other two adult entertainment sites, YouPorn and RedTube, on Wednesday. In protest of the new law, Aylo said that it would be posting the famous French painting ‘Liberty Leading the People’ by Eugène Delacroix on its website.

Aylo is owned by Ethical Capital Partners, a Canadian private equity firm. Its vice president for compliance, Solomon Friedman, has said that age verification should take place on the user’s device and not on the website reports AFP.

“Google, Apple and Microsoft all have the capability built into their operating system,” he said. The company argues that this would ensure users’ privacy is protected.

Aurore Bergé, French gender equality minister, in a post on X said of the Aylo’s three sites deciding not complying and going dark instead: “So much the better!”

“There will be less violent, degrading, and humiliating content accessible to minors in France,” she added, finishing with, “Au revoir.”

France is not alone: Pornhub blocked in most of the US South

Arizona became the 24th state in the US to require age verification to access pornographic websites on 13 May. While Pornhub hasn’t blocked access to it sites in all of those states, as of 1 January this year residents in at least 17 of them cannot view material on Pornhub from inside their state according to 404 Media.

They include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia.

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