Adult sites Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos are now registered on TikTok, X or Facebook as “very gigantic online platforms”, which have more than forty-five million active users in the EU.
Starting at the end of April, four months after the designation, sites will be required to apply stricter rules, especially for children, as part of the new European Digital Services Act (DSA).
The 3 new names on the list bring to 22 the number of massive platforms regulated through Brussels in the 27 countries, according to a report by the European Commission.
The commission will monitor how platforms comply with “measures targeting minors against destructive content and to combat the spread of illegal content,” such as photographs of rape or child abuse.
“I have been very transparent that creating a safer online environment for our young people is a precedent when it comes to enforcing the DSA,” said EU Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton.
EU vice-president Margrethe Vestager said designing the three porn sites “will allow for higher scrutiny and accountability of their algorithms and processes”.
“Very gigantic online platforms” or VLOPs are considered by Brussels to be “systemically important” due to their scale and will have to demonstrate what they are doing to comply with the DSA.
In its first reaction to the news, Pornhub protested that it had only 33 million average viewers per month in the European Union in the six months leading up to July 31 this year, less than the forty-five million that would be needed to turn it into a very giant platform.
Those who fail to comply with the rules can be fined up to six % of their total annual turnover, or even banned from operating in Europe for serious and repeated infringements.
Among their new obligations, VLOPs must analyse the specific threats posed to Europeans rights and safety by the kind of content they publish and to submit a report to regulators.
They are subject to greater transparency, with a legal responsibility to pass on their knowledge to EU-accredited researchers.
They will also have to undergo, at their own expense, an external audit once a year to check that they comply with EU standards.
Platforms will have to dedicate themselves to acting “quickly” to remove any illegal content as soon as they become aware of it, and to inform the judicial government if they find serious crimes in content submitted online.
They are prohibited from exploiting users’ sensitive data, such as their political leanings or devout faith, for targeted advertising purposes and will have to be transparent about how their algorithms recommend content.
No firm has yet been found guilty of breaching the new EU content rules.
But on Monday, Brussels opened its first “formal investigation” (DSA) into tech billionaire Elon Musk’s X social network, renamed Twitter.
Several initial investigations have also been opened for months against Apple’s parent company, Google, Facebook and Instagram, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Amazon.
(AFP)