Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube to block their sites in France starting Wednesday

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2025/06/03/pornhub-youporn-and-redtube-to-block-their-sites-in-france-starting-wednesday_6741968_13.html

by LeMonde_en

32 comments

  1. **Aylo, the publisher behind the three pornography sites, has decided to block access to them in France to protest the implementation of age verification requirements for users.**

    Aylo, the online pornography giant that operates Pornhub, RedTube and YouPorn, will block access to its content in France starting Wednesday, June 4, in the afternoon, it said Tuesday at a press conference. The move continues a series of actions taken in recent years by the leading porn company, which has strongly opposed laws requiring it to verify the age of visitors to prevent minors from accessing pornographic content.

    Instead of the usual homepage on the three sites, French users will see a lobbying message accusing France of endangering consumers’ privacy by imposing intrusive and unreliable age verification mechanisms. Most specialized audience measurement services rank Pornhub among the top five most visited websites in France.

    Since July 2020, French law has required porn site publishers to take measures to ensure that users viewing adult photos and videos are of legal age. It is no longer sufficient for users to simply click on a declaration of good faith, as was previously the industry standard.

    Aylo, along with some other voices in the porn industry, has argued that it should not be up to the sites themselves to carry out age checks, but rather that the verification should happen at the level of the user’s smartphone or computer, effectively passing the responsibility to Apple, Google and Microsoft.

    For nearly five years, French authorities and part of the adult entertainment industry have been at odds over whether such measures can actually be implemented. France’s media regulator, ARCOM, recently published a technical guide for publishers, highlighting methods it considers to be respectful of privacy.

    **Read the full article here:** [**https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2025/06/03/pornhub-youporn-and-redtube-to-block-their-sites-in-france-starting-wednesday_6741968_13.html**](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2025/06/03/pornhub-youporn-and-redtube-to-block-their-sites-in-france-starting-wednesday_6741968_13.html)

  3. The internet is like 50% porn. I think its pretty good that the majority of mainstream porn is concentrated on a few sites that are able to control the kind of content is posted.

    More kids will now wonder off to sites that will contain god knows what ungodly content.

  4. People are just dumb thinking blocking something will prevent people from accessing the content. Moreover, blocking something will just make people to find another way of accessing it. Remember that when countries blocked The Pirate Bay, its usage actually skyrocketed because by blocking it you also advertised it to people that didn’t know what it was.

    This is why online censorship doesn’t really work; there are so many ways you could escape it without any problem. Even if censors suddenly blocked all VPNs that exist in the world (mission literally impossible), there is torrent protocol which always works and is also impossible to block. The only efficient way to censor information is to completely isolate the network, cut off access to outside web, but then you cut yourself from accessing the outside web as well.

    Internet is made with this in mind; that some governments and/or companies will try to manipulate it. Which is why there is always alternative way of accessing the content.

  6. “Democracy” Lol. Come on guys vote for right wingers and let them weaken unions this will surely solve your problems :d

  9. Let’s prepare for an ungodly amount of NordVPN ads in the next days…

  10. Ironically those websites are somewhat moderated at least. So if you block these there’s gonna be 1000 more different ones, some of them with questionable content.

  12. Promotion European porn industry. Porn made in Europe 💎💦

  16. No smoking, now no porn? Death of French culture is upon us.

  17. When I was a kid and there were no internet (we had something like dial-up which was shit) – we where sending porn to eachother via Bluetooth and CDs, even VHS tapes. I remember that one of my classmates had more than 10 gb of porn on his nokia phone so we called him Pornoman 😂

    What are they trying to do by banning pornsites again? 😂

  21. How is an honest Frenchman gonna butter his baguette from now on?

  22. Can’t goon in peace because some parents are too dumb to give their kids unrestricted internet access. What will we do now without the only three porn tubes online??? 😔

  24. LOL and Reddit laughed and ridiculed at Texas when Pornhub blocked it there.

    Now look at who has to find other sites to jerk off.

  25. I don’t understand, where are all the insults and bigoted comments about how France is a totalitarian shithole?

    Hé, tu as une licence pour ça ?

  26. Nobody in their right mind will upload their personal data (ID or credit card) on some sketchy porn website to verify their age.

    There’s literally thousands of websites that host free porn. 3 of them going away won’t make a difference, nevermind still being able to access them with a VPN regardless of the block.

  31. As a resident of Russia I say: welcome to the club, comrades.

  32. Shit like this never works. There’s so many alternatives, and you can’t block them all.

    Also you close the slightly moderated shit, guess what you create a black market where all the really dodgy shit will go. Maybe the devil you know is better than the one you don’t.

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