Europe puts Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos in the spotlight

The European Commission confirmed this Wednesday that the three most important porn sites in the world, pornhub, XVideo And Stripteasethey will have to comply Digital Services Act. This is because the aforementioned portals meet the requirements set by the regulation to be considered “very large online platforms” (VLOP).

As the agency clarified, the Digital Services Act applies to Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat, since they all exceed the threshold 45 million average monthly users in the European Union who sets the rules.

Interestingly, the porn sites will be in the same category as Amazon, Google search engine, Bing, Facebook, YouTube, Google Maps, AliExpress, Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok and the Apple App Store. Such services were already classified as very large online platforms in April last year.

This means that from February 17, 2024, PornHub, Stripchat and XVideos will have to comply with the general rules established by the Digital Services Act. But the story doesn’t end there. Once recognized as VLOPs, platforms will have four months to comply with additional measures set by European regulators.

Major porn sites will have to comply with the Digital Services Act

By being subject to the Digital Services Act, the additional measures that Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos will have to comply with are aimed at making their operations more transparent and auditable. But they also protect minors and strengthen content moderation mechanisms.

In this sense, the European Commission has set some guidelines that promise to get people talking. First of all, sites with pornographic materials must implement age verification system to prevent children from accessing this content.

Likewise, they will have to conduct risk management analyzes and submit reports to authorities. In addition to taking measures to prevent the spread of illegal content. This includes changes to their algorithms, terms, GUIs, and moderation processes.

In this way we try to avoid, for example, the dissemination of material about child sexual abuse. or deepfakes for not. It will be important to closely monitor the approach of these platforms to comply with the provisions of the Digital Services Act. Moreover, some of them have been involved in catastrophic episodes in the past.

Europe puts Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos in the spotlight

At the end of 2020, Pornhub became the subject of a major scandal after it became known that the site did not take adequate measures to prevent child pornography. A problem that had several consequences. Firstly, VISA and Mastercard banned card payments on the specified portal, and the site itself had to make serious changes to its work. It even led to the removal of more than half of the posted videos because they did not meet his new parameters.

In terms of transparency, the Digital Services Act will force XVideos, Stripchat and Pornhub to allow their risk management systems and compliance measures to be used. undergo external and independent audit. They will also have to provide semi-annual transparency reports informing them of their content moderation efforts. And they, among other things, must publish repositories of all advertising placed on their sites.

Margrethe VestagerThe European Commissioner for Competition welcomed the inclusion of the aforementioned porn portals within the scope of the Digital Services Act. “I welcome the recognition of Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat as very large online platforms. This will allow for greater oversight and accountability of their algorithms and processes,” he said.