European Union cracks whip on adult websites including Pornhub

The European Commission has said that adult content companies including Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos need to carry out risk assessment reports and implement measures for addressing systemic risks linked to their services to comply with the new EU online content rules.

As per a Reuters report, these three adult content companies were designated as’very large online platforms’ last December under the Digital Services Act (DSA). As per this act, the very large online platforms are required to do more to remove the illegal and harmful content.

Both Pornhub and Stripchat have been asked to comply with these DSA obligations, among the strictest on April 21 and XVideos on April 23, an EU executive told Reuters.

“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,” the European Commission said in a statement.

The adult content companies will also have to meet additional transparency obligations, including related to ads, and providing access to data for researchers. Companies risk fines as much as 6% of their global annual turnover for the Digital Services Act breaches.

Last December, the EU had added these three adult websites to its list of online platforms that are ‘large enough’ to come under tougher safety regulation.

As per the report, these platforms should analyse the specific threats posted to the European rights and safety by the kind of content they publish and submit a report to the regulators.

The very large online platforms should agree to act promptly to remove any ‘illicit’ content as soon as they are aware of it, and inform the legal authorities if they spot serious criminal offences in the content submitted online.