- The EU Commission has new orders for Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat – they need to create a detailed risk assessment report and take measures to mitigate systemic risks in their service
- Pornhub and Stripchat will have to comply with the order by April 21 and XVideos will have time until April 23.
- The penalty for failing to comply is 6% of their annual global revenue
On Friday, the EU Commission imposed new obligations on popular porn platforms like Pornhub, Stripchat, and XVideos under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
In an official statement, the Commission said “These specific obligations include submitting risk assessment reports to the Commission, putting in place mitigation measures to address systemic risks linked to the provision of their services.”
As per the definition given by the DSA, systematic risk includes:
- Illegal content
- Content that threatens public health
- Compromises physical and mental well-being
- Encourages gender-based violence
- Threatens public security and electoral processes
- Compromises fundamental rights
On top of this, all three companies will have to maintain full transparency in matters related to advertisement and also give free data access to researchers.
The deadline to comply with these new directions has been set on April 21 for Pornhub and Stripchat and April 23 for XVideos.
If they fail to comply with the rules within the stipulated time period, a risk of up to 6% of their global turnover will be imposed on them.
Why Only These Websites?
There are plenty of adult content sites online so you might wonder why only these three were targeted. Well, the reason is that these 3 platforms are classified as ‘very large online companies’
Under the DSA, websites that receive more than 45 million users per month in the EU will be recognized as very large organizations (gatekeepers) and will face stricter rules.
For example, these sites will need to:
- Maintain a public database of all their ads
- Get independent audits at least once a year,
- Share their data with the Commission and other national agencies for monitoring purposes, and so on.
- Update their numbers (i,e, the total number of monthly users they get) every 6 months.
In case they have less than 45 million monthly users for the entire year, they will be removed from the list.
The reason for such stricter rules is pretty simple. The bigger a company is, the larger its user base and the influence it has on the public. Such power cannot be left unregulated.
The EU has earlier named six tech companies as ‘gatekeepers’ – Amazon, Google, Meta, Byte Dance, Apple, and Microsoft.
A Little about the Digital Service Act
The DSA was first introduced in November 2022 and finally came into effect on August 25, 2023. It aims to create a safe and trustworthy online ecosystem in the EU.
It’s a user-centric directive that will ensure customer complaints are taken seriously, they have a pleasant online experience and the companies are transparent with their users.
There has been some resistance to the new rules. For example, companies like Amazon and Zalando claim that they have been wrongfully classified as very large online platforms, but the Commission is standing firm on its decisions so far. Even TikTok had challenged its status as a gatekeeper under the act.
So far, there have been no instances of any serious breach. However, with the EU clamping its hold on the Act, this can change very soon and we might see heavy penalties being imposed.
