The EU threatens with a millionaire fine websites like Pornhub for allowing access to minors

BrusselsThe European Commission continues to put pressure on technology and web platforms. Brussels announced this Thursday that the pornographic websites XVideos, XNXX, PornHub, and Stripchat are in breach of European regulations on child protection and digital matters. In a preliminary investigation, the Community executive accuses them of not implementing effective measures to prevent minors from accessing their portals. If these companies do not implement reforms, the European Commission can impose multi-million euro fines.

Brussels particularly criticizes the measure used by the platforms to prevent minors from accessing their web pages. The statement published this Thursday by the executive assures that the only protection is a declaration made by the users themselves just before entering, which consists of clicking on a tab where the citizen indicates they are over 18 years old. "It is not effective. It does not effectively prevent minors from accessing harmful content," points out the European Commission.

Following these preliminary conclusions, the affected companies can coordinate with the European Commission to implement the measures that the authorities consider must be put in place, thus complying with the legislation and avoiding an economic penalty. If they do not wish to cooperate and continue to infringe the European Union's law on child and digital protection, the platforms may face fines of up to 6% of their worldwide annual turnover.

On the other hand, the European Commission has also announced that it has opened an investigation into the social network Snapchat due to indications that the platform may be "exposing minors to recruitment attempts for criminal purposes" and they may find "information about sales of illegal products, such as drugs, or products that are subject to age restrictions, such as electronic cigarettes or alcoholic beverages".

Veto on sexual images with AI

This Thursday, the European Parliament also voted in favour of prohibiting the creation or manipulation of "sexually explicit or intimate" images of real people without consent using artificial intelligence. The Council of the EU – the community body representing member states – has already given its approval to the measure, proposed by the European Commission. Therefore, the regulation is expected to be finally approved.

On the other hand, the Eurochamber has approved postponing a large part of the law on artificial intelligence until 2028, at the request of the European Commission last November. Most of the regulations were to enter into force in August, but it received numerous criticisms from the technology sector and Brussels has yielded in giving more room for adaptation.