- The French government is considering labeling X (formerly Twitter) as a pornographic platform due to its acceptance of adult content since 2024, which would subject it to strict age verification laws.
- France's 2023 SREN legislation requires pornographic platforms to verify users' ages via a third-party, double-blind system to protect minors. Noncompliance can result in fines, search engine delisting or being blocked in France.
- Digital Minister Clara Chappaz announced on French TV that X will soon receive a formal notice to comply with the same rules as sites like YouPorn, meaning it must restrict explicit content or implement age checks.
- Major adult sites Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube, owned by Aylo, have suspended access in France, replacing content with a protest message criticizing the law as privacy-infringing and ineffective.
- Aylo and its parent Ethical Capital Partners argue that responsibility for age verification should lie with operating system providers like Apple, Google and Microsoft, not individual websites.
The French government is considering formally designating X (formerly Twitter) as a pornographic platform – a controversial move that could force the platform to implement strict age verification measures, including digital ID checks for users or risk losing access to younger audiences in the country altogether.
According to Digital Minister Clara Chappaz, X admitted that it has been accepting the "distribution of pornographic content" since 2024. Therefore, she concluded, that this platform, must be treated as such. (Related: X-RATED: Elon Musk's X now allows porn content.)
Under the 2023 French government legislation (SREN), any platform offering pornographic material must verify that users are over 18 or face penalties ranging from hefty fines and unlisting from search engines to outright geo-blocking. These must include a third-party "double-blind" method, designed to keep personal data separate from the websites themselves, to protect minors from explicit material. The law officially took effect June 7.
In line with this, Chappaz confirmed in an appearance on the popular French TV show Quotidien on Thursday, June 5, that X would soon receive "the same pretty papers as YouPorn," referring to the formal notice that the platform must either restrict explicit content or implement age-gating mechanisms.
If the designation is finalized, X would be legally required to comply with the tough online safety laws of France, which mandate that pornographic platforms verify users' ages through official documentation or third-party systems to shield minors from adult content online.
Aylo refuses to comply with SREN due to privacy concerns
As the law took effect, three of the world's largest adult websites, including Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube, were also blocked in France after their parent company Aylo refused to implement user-age verification on the pornographic websites through a third-party system.
Solomon Friedman of Ethical Capital Partners, which owns Aylo, said the company's protest splash screen is aimed at "communicating directly with the French people to tell them how dangerous, how potentially privacy-infringing, and how ineffective the French law is." Friedman argued that age checks at the site level are inherently risky, exposing users to the threat of surveillance, data leaks and misuse. He then added that these laws put people's privacy at risk from bad actors, hacks or leaks.
"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," Friedman explained.
Instead, Friedman said lawmakers should be pressuring tech giants like Apple, Google and Microsoft, companies whose operating systems already contain age verification tools.
"Google, Apple and Microsoft all have the capability built into their operating system to verify the age of the user at the operating system or device level. I understand that those three entities are large and they’re powerful, but that is not an excuse for France to do what they have done," he said.
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Watch this video that explains why Twitter allows the promotion of child torture, child sexual exploitation and other nefarious practices.
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