May 28, 2025 10:53:00

Pornhub and XVideos under EU investigation for child protection reasons

The European Commission (EC) has announced that it has launched formal legal proceedings against adult sites Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos for failing to comply with measures to protect children.

Commission opens investigations to safeguard minors from pornographic content under the DSA

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1339

Under the European Union's

Digital Services Act (DSA) , all marketplaces, social networks, content distribution sites, etc. targeting the EU are obligated to deal with illegal content and protect minors.

In particular, platforms that reach more than 10% of the EU's 450 million consumers are designated as ' very large platforms ' and are subject to special rules. The investigation this time targeted Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos, which are among the designated platforms that mainly handle adult content.

According to the EC, the platforms in question have not implemented age verification tools to protect minors from adult content and have not sufficiently complied with risk assessments and mitigation measures for adverse effects on children's rights and users' mental and physical well-being.

The EC has previously investigated the platforms, but has decided that it is appropriate to move to legal proceedings based on the results of risk assessments and audit reports submitted in the past. The EC will continue to prioritize its investigations of the platforms, requesting additional information, conducting interviews and inspections, and gathering evidence.

The EC said: 'Protecting young people online is a key priority under the DSA. Platforms must put children's rights and interests at the heart of the design and functioning of their services. Failure to comply with these requirements is a breach of the DSA.'

In parallel with this, the EC is developing an age verification app. This app will be available to platforms targeting EU member states and will allow them to verify that users of the platform are over 18 years old. Once this app is developed, each platform will no longer need to implement an age verification tool at their own expense. The app is expected to be available by the summer of 2025.