The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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PARIS — The president of French media regulator Arcom announced on Thursday that the agency will expand its enforcement of age verification rules to cover smaller adult sites, beginning in late 2025 or early 2026.
Since launching enforcement under France’s Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN) law, Arcom has focused on major high-traffic platforms such as Pornhub, YouPorn, xHamster, XVideos, XNXX, xHamsterLive and TNAFlix.
Between the end of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, however, the regulator will initiate the next stage of its efforts, targeting sites “a little less frequented” than its initial list, Arcom President Martin Ajdari revealed during a public event titled “Minors Online: What Risks, What Protections?”
Arcom will “methodically apply the same procedure” to these smaller sites, Ajdari explained, investigating compliance with age verification rules, issuing formal notices, and ultimately blocking or delisting noncompliant platforms if needed.
“Arcom’s mission is not to intervene on the content itself but to ensure that platforms established in France respect their obligations,” he said. “Today, all the targeted sites have either been blocked (one of them), or have decided to shut down their service in France (this is the case for Pornhub and YouPorn), or have complied.
“In just a few months, we have changed the situation, without of course claiming to have solved everything,” he added.
Ajdari also emphasized that the regulator has continued its work despite “numerous legal proceedings.”
Earlier this year, Cyprus-based Hammy Media, operator of xHamster, challenged the application of France’s age verification rules to companies based elsewhere in the EU. The Paris Administrative Court temporarily suspended enforcement, but the French government appealed to the Council of State, which rejected the company’s arguments.
On Sept. 18, in a separate case involving WebGroup Czech Republic, operator of XVideos.com, and NKL Associates, operator of XNXX.com, an advocate general of the European Union’s Court of Justice advised France’s top administrative court that the country may require pornographic websites headquartered in other EU states to comply with its age verification laws.
