Some of the main pornographic sites on the web, including Pornhub, YouPorn and Redutube today announced the cessation of the activity in France as a sign of protest against the French law on the verification of the age of users.
The parent company of the sites in question, Aylo, said today that the activity of spreading pornographic content will end today at midnight in France and that instead of the contents of the platforms the French will find the image of a “Marianne” from tomorrow, a symbol of the French Republic, with the word “freedom has no off buttons”. Aylo defines “irresponsible, disproportionate and ineffective” French legislation on the verification of the age of those who attend websites.
Pornhub, the main platform of the group with 7 million daily visitors, together with the other components, hopes to “start a direct dialogue” with French users but also to convince other governments of the goodness of their position on age verification.
The Aylo company, which belongs to the Ethical Capital Partner group, with its unilateral decision, intends to react to the French legislation that obliges platforms to verify the users of users at each connection. Pornhub and other sites are also in the sights of an investigation by the European Commission who accuses them of not having adopted sufficient measures for verifying the age of users, with the consequent prohibition on minors to access its contents.