France Could Block Porn Sites That Do Not Verify User Age

The French government has issued a decree stating that it may block pornographic websites that are unable to verify that minors cannot access their content.

The Senior Audiovisual Council (CSA), a French government regulator of electronic media, will be able under a new French government decree to block websites that do not have sufficient measures to stop minors from accessing them.

“Users… to which access is prevented are directed to an information page of the High Council of audiovisual indicating the reasons for the blocking measure,” the decree states, according to a report from the newspaper Le Parisien.

Under the decree, the CSA will be able to first send a formal notice to the websites or companies, which will, in turn, have 15 days to comply and take measures to ensure that minors do not have access to their material or face being blocked.

Previously, the CSA was required to go to a judge in order to demand a website be blocked, but the new decree will allow the regulator to bypass this and request the blocking themselves.

The decree comes after a court ruling on Friday in Paris that rejected claims brought by two children’s associations that demanded restrictions on pornography websites to prevent children from accessing them.

The associations brought a case against French telecom companies, arguing that the current system of simply clicking a box to prove a user’s age was not sufficient. The court, however, rejected the claim after arguing that the publishers of the pornographic websites had not been heard.

One of the websites involved in the claim is the streaming site Pornhub, which came under scrutiny earlier this year in the United States when over 30 women sued Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek over allegations that it published child pornography and violated federal sex trafficking laws and accused the company of racketeering.

In December of last year, financial giants MasterCard and Visa announced they were investigating claims that Pornhub had allowed child abuse videos to be published on its platform as well.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com