The European Comission has announced that online pornography platforms Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideosthey must undergo their recent Digital Services Act (DSA); through which it seeks to control the abusive practices of virtual service companies. In this way, the three adult sites will be required to have tools to detect and remove illegal content, in addition to guaranteeing the protection and restriction of underage users.
In Europe, for a digital platform to become subject to regulations, it must be considered by the responsible EU body as large platforms. This name implies that it exceeds the threshold of 45 million average monthly users in the European Union. Currently, the list is made up of 19 websites, most of them are social networks, such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or YouTubebut there are also shops like amazon or the ‘app’ stores of Google and Apple.
For this reason, it is to be expected that as time goes by, more digital platforms will become subject to the regulations. “Creating a safer online environment for our children is a compliance priority, according to DSA,” stated Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services; In his personal X account, in the publication he announced the inclusion of the three platforms within the scope of action of the DSA.
For its part, Margrethe Vestagervice president of the European Comission Head of Competition, has celebrated in a statement that this decision will allow greater scrutiny and responsibility of the selected platforms over their algorithms and processes. According to officials, the new community regulations are considered an essential tool to ensure that “technology respects the fundamental rights of Europeans.”
Considered one of the most ambitious regulations and ahead of its time, along with others such as the Digital Markets Law or the future AI Lawwith it the DSA seeks to put under control the potential danger of technology for users who are part of the European Union. The aim is to achieve this regulatory objective by imposing obligations on large Internet sites or those that are most used by European citizens.
The Digital Services Law, forces to implement PornHub, XVideos and Striptchat ways to prevent and remove posts that may be illegal, and at the same time, provide users with the means to report illegal content. Likewise, it forces companies to be more transparent about the operation of their algorithms and to collaborate with researchers by granting access to information. In addition, platforms are now prohibited from directing advertising to users based on their sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity or political beliefs.
The three online porn platforms will, from now on, have a period of four months to adapt to new European legislation by which they must assess their systemic risks and provide robust content moderation tools. If they do not comply with the regulations, they may be fined up to 6 percent of their income totals at a global level. And in case of recurrence, the process of closing the platforms on European soil can be triggered.
Image gallery
