While Pornhub claims its exit from from France is because of privacy concerns, advocates for sexual abuse survivors are skeptical.
The parent company of Pornhub suspended service in France to protest a law requiring that adult websites verify the ages of their users.
Aylo, which operates platforms including Brazzers and RedTube, chose to block access to its websites on June 4.
“Site-based age verification does not work” and “exposes the data of millions of French people to privacy breaches and hacks,” said VP of brand and community Alex Kekesi in a press release.
In 2024, France was the second-biggest market for Pornhub. That was the same year French lawmakers enacted the law mandating that adult websites use strict age verification methods, such as requiring users to input bank card details.
Stop It Now director Jenny Coleman admitted age verification “has its limitations,” but “these types of laws are still important because they affirm the message that this type of content is not appropriate – or legal – for youth.” Stop It Now is a nonprofit organization that combats child sexual abuse and focuses on educating adults about prevention strategies and public health campaigns.
While Coleman said Aylo’s concerns about privacy may be sincere, their messaging “comes across as a lack of willingness to responsibly provide safeguards.”
Aylo proposed device-based age verification as a preferable alternative. These regulations would require Apple, Microsoft, or Google to verify a user’s age before adult content is accessible on individual devices.
Annie Chestnut Tutor, a policy analyst for the Center for Technology and the Human Person at the Heritage Foundation, said “Pornhub and other adult websites generate revenue from teen usage, so they are fighting requirements that will cut off that revenue stream.”
Arcom, a French regulatory agency, found that 12 percent of adult website users are minors. That report also found the proportion of minors accessing pornography in France has risen sharply in recent years, going from 19 percent in 2017 to 28 percent in 2022. In a separate statement, Arcom accused Aylo of shirking its responsibility to protect children.
A spokesman for Pornhub responded to an email inquiry from National Review with a link to Aylo’s press release about leaving France, but did not answer how the company is working to prevent children from accessing its website.
Clare Morell, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said Aylo’s decision to leave France is a business tactic to unite “adult users and content creators against age-verification laws.” Some French pornographic actors have spoken out against the French law and praised Pornhub for suspending its service to the country.
Gender equality minister Aurore Bergé celebrated the exit of Aylo in an X post, writing, “There will be less violent, degrading and humiliating content accessible to minors in France.” However, Proton VPN reported a 1000 percent increase in registrations shortly after Pornhub blocked French users.
The United Kingdom enacted a similar law that will be enforced starting next month. Additionally, nineteen U.S. states have enacted age verification laws, including Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Pornhub has now blocked its service at least seventeen of those states, citing privacy concerns.
Benjamin Bull, general counsel at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, provided an alternative explanation for why Aylo has left these states: “Through the use of cookies, IP Address, browser fingerprinting, tracking pixels, account tracking, and other tools, Pornhub knows who is viewing their site, down to your name, proximate age, sex, location, and viewing preferences.”
“They leverage this information through advertising and targeting. They don’t want to destroy this information as required by the state age verification laws, so they pull out of the state.”
According to a report from the American College of Pediatricians, the average age of exposure to pornography is 12 years old, while nearly three-quarters of teenagers have consumed pornography. More than half of teens report seeing violent behavior in pornography, while frequent pornography usage is associated with anxiety and depression.
The European Union recently launched an investigation into Pornhub and other pornographic websites for their inadequate age restriction methods.