Pornhub, RedTube and YouPorn have started blocking French users in protest against a new law requiring adult websites to verify the age of their visitors.
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Instead of videos, users in France now see a message explaining the new rules. Parent company Aylo began the suspension on Wednesday afternoon.
The move comes ahead of a 7 June deadline. From that date, all porn sites available in France must prove they are keeping underage users out.
“We're not stigmatising adults who want to consume this content, but we mustn't do so at the expense of protecting our children,” France’s deputy minister for digital technology, Clara Chappaz, told Europe 1.
Privacy dispute
Until now, users could access explicit content by simply clicking a box saying they were over 18. Under the new rules, that will no longer be enough.
Instead, users must verify their age using a credit card or a government-issued ID. This check must be carried out by an external service, not the porn site itself.
This system, referred to as “double anonymity”, means the porn site receives only a yes-or-no confirmation that the user is of legal age. The age-check provider knows who the user is, but not which sites they visit.
France’s losing battle to stop children accessing porn online
Aylo says it supports age verification in principle, but argues it should happen on users' devices rather than on individual websites.
Solomon Friedman, a partner at Ethical Capital Partners, which owns Aylo, told reporters on Tuesday that the French law was “dangerous”, “potentially privacy infringing” and “ineffective”.
He said: “It’s a matter of putting our values first, and that means communicating directly with the French people to tell them what their government is refusing to tell them.”
Government pushback
In a post on X on Tuesday, Chappaz accused Aylo of spreading false claims about the new system.
“Lying when one does not want to comply with the law and holding others hostage is unacceptable,” she wrote. “If Aylo would rather leave France than apply our law, they are free to do so.”
She said other adult sites were already working to comply.
Pornhub’s internal data from 2024 shows France is its second-largest market after the United States.
France’s media and digital regulator Arcom estimates that 2.3 million minors visit porn sites in the country each month – about 12 percent of all users.
Aylo has not said how long the suspension will last but said it hopes to find a solution to restore access soon.