France is running out of porn

ParisWatching porn videos from France is harder than ever. The French government's fight to prevent minors from accessing pornographic content has ended with a radical decision by three of the largest online pornographic video platforms: Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube. Since Wednesday, their content has been blocked for users connecting from France. It's their peculiar way of protesting a law that requires them to introduce real age verification to prevent minors from accessing it.

Any user trying to access one of the three websites, all owned by the Cyprus-based Aylo group, will encounter the same message accompanied by an image of the famous Delacroix painting. Liberty leading the people, featuring a topless woman holding a French flag symbolizing freedom: "Your government is proposing to verify your age every time you visit our website. That's crazy, isn't it?"

This Saturday, the French law requiring websites with adult content to verify that the user is of legal age comes into force. "These are simple obligations that consist of saying that we can no longer be satisfied with our children being able to click the 'I'm over 18' button," stressed Digital Affairs Minister Clara Chappaz in an interview with France Inter. For the Aylo group, the measure is "ineffective, random, and dangerous."

Independent operator

The verification proposed by the French authorities to these websites—and some, those still operating, have already implemented—consists of verification by an independent operator, which can be a mobile phone operator or a digital identity provider, of the user's age. This operator must verify it using the person's ID or another type of document, but will not know for which website they are verifying the person's age of majority. In other words, they will not know that the user requesting the verification is doing so to view pornographic videos.

The platforms denounce that the verification system puts user anonymity at risk. They warn that age verification companies or the porn sites themselves could end up gaining access to users' names and browsing history. "Data breaches occur daily," warn Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube. "Requiring you to repeatedly provide sensitive personal information creates an unacceptable security risk that we refuse to impose on our users," the three sites justify in their message to French users.

Ensuring that minors do not have access to sexual content has been one of the government's obsessions for years, but so far, no easy solutions have been found. However, the fact that the Aylo group's websites have blocked access to French users doesn't seem to matter too much to the executive led by François Bayrou. "Good wind," celebrated the Minister of Digital Affairs. The Minister of Equality, Aurore Bergé, accused the three websites of refusing to introduce age verification "even though there are technical solutions," in order to avoid losing the "millions and millions of underage connections every month."

VPN use soars

Despite the decision by Pornhub and the other two platforms, their users have alternatives. They can either search for other websites or circumvent the block by activating a VPN, an application that hides IP addresses and allows the user to disguise the fact that they are accessing the platform from France. One of the companies offering the service, the Swiss company Proton VPN, announced that half an hour after the blocking of the three platforms went into effect, subscriptions to its VPN service skyrocketed by 1,000%. "More than when TikTok blocked the Americans," the company stated in a message to X.

The French government has maintained regular contact with these platforms to enforce age verification, but has been unable to convince the Aylo group. During the pandemic, however, these websites did heed the French government's requests. The government then asked Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube—as well as streaming video platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime—to reduce video quality to avoid overwhelming the internet due to increased consumption.