Aylo stages digital revolt over age verification law as it shutters porn sites in France

Arrête! Censorious government is throwing a sheet over your cinéma épicé! Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!

A message in this spirit of condemnation – reported to feature a topless lady liberty, adapted from the Eugene Delacroix painting Liberty Leading the People – now greets visitors to Pornhub, Youporn and RedTube, in response to French legislation requiring adult content sites to implement age verification, including a third-party double-blind method that preserves anonymity.

Parent company Aylo says the law forces it to stop operating in the country. The Guardian quotes a company spokesperson, who says “I can confirm that Aylo has made the difficult decision to suspend access to its user-uploaded platforms (Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube) in France.”

Solomon Friedman of Ethical Capital Partners, which owns Aylo, says the splash screen denunciation is the company’s way of “communicating directly with the French people to tell them how dangerous, how potentially privacy-infringing, and how ineffective the French law is.”

Aylo believes laws requiring age assurance at the site level put people’s data at risk from bad actors, hacks or leaks.

Instead, they say, legislators should be cracking the whip at operating systems and their parent companies, such as Microsoft, Apple and Google. Friedman asserts that “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.”

Part of the problem for Aylo appears to be that some French political figures are more than happy to see them go. Culture minister Aurore Berge wrote on X that it was “so much the better” for the sites to shut down, saying “there will be less violent, degrading and humiliating content accessible to minors in France. Au revoir.”

Last week, the European Commission opened formal proceedings against Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos for suspected breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA). UK regulator Ofcom is ramping up enforcement. And the U.S. Supreme Court opinion on Paxton v. Free Speech Coalition is expected as soon as tomorrow.

The summer of going hard on regulation is finally reaching its climax.

Article Topics

age verification  |  Aylo  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  digital identity  |  France  |  legislation