Pornhub Assessed Failed To Protect Children, European Commission Investigate Alleged DSA Violations

JAKARTA - The European Commission has officially opened an investigation into the four largest pornographic platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos for alleged violations of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The European Commission assesses that the four platforms have not implemented appropriate age verification measures to ensure the protection of minors from adult content online.

The European Commission said that this violation included the absence of adequate age verification tools to prevent children from accessing adult content, as well as a lack of risk assessment and mitigation measures against negative impacts on children.

"Online rooms should be a safe environment for children to learn and connect. Our priority is to protect minors," said Henna Vikkunen, Executive Vice President for Technology Sovereignty, Security and Democracy on the European Commission's official website.

The European Commission will now conduct an in-depth investigation as a priority and will continue to gather evidence, which could include sending additional requests for information, conducting interviews or inspections.

Not only focusing on big players, EU Member States that are members of the European Board for Digital Services also launched coordinated actions to investigate small-scale pornography platforms.

This action is under the supervision of national Digital Services Coordinators (DSC). This effort was made to ensure consistent implementation of DSA throughout the European Union.

As part of the child protection strategy, the Commission is also developing a white-label age verification application in collaboration with Member States.

The app is scheduled to be available in the summer of 2025, and will be a temporary solution until the EU Digital Wallet officially launches at the end of 2026.