Pornhub, Xvideos and Stripchat face stricter regulations because they have been assessed as having at least 45 million monthly users in EU countries.
EU rules mean firms of that size have to take extra steps to protect children.
It says that could mean the sites introducing age checking tech.
"An example of efficient measures in this respect could be age verification tools, to prevent minors from accessing pornographic content," a spokesperson for the European Commission told the BBC.
The spokesperson said one "potential" solution for a person proving their age would be the upcoming European Digital Identity wallet.
"Once it enters into force, it will offer solutions for all EU citizens, residents, and businesses in the EU," they said.
"Citizens will be able to prove their identity and share electronic documents from their European Digital Identity wallets with the click of a button on their phone."
[...] EU Digital Commissioner Margrethe Vestager welcomed the companies' designation, saying it would "allow for higher scrutiny and accountability of their algorithms and processes".
"I have been very clear that creating a safer online environment for our children is an enforcement priority under the DSA," she added.
[...] These companies are the second batch of firms to be designated VLOPs [Very Large Online Platforms]. In April, an initial 19 tech giants - including Facebook, Google and YouTube - were told the new rules applied to them.
For that initial round of companies, the DSA came into effect in August.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by weirsbaski on Thursday December 28, @06:06AM (1 child)
It should be "Porn Viewers in EU May have to Prove Their Identity".
Because the morality-police want to shame people into toeing their line.
(Score: 3, Funny) by isostatic on Thursday December 28, @02:24PM
cameltoeing their line?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday December 28, @06:43AM (2 children)
Honestly... it takes one search and 2 seconds to realize there's a metric fuckton of porn all kinds hosted on an almost infinite number of sites other then Pornhub or XVideo that will never ask you any ID or age verification, because they plain don't give a shit.
Not to mention, some of the best porn you can get comes out of Reddit, Tumblr and Snapchat. You don't even have to visit any porn site.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday December 28, @07:06PM (1 child)
Aren't reddits with questionable/adult content flagged such that you have to log in to view them? Asking your age when you create an account isn't that far away from asking you to prove that age.
I've no idea if Tumblr or Snapchat are in the same category.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Friday December 29, @02:22PM
Reddit frequently changes policies. A while ago they tried forcing users to log in, but all a user had to do to get around that was visit old reddit. Currently, for NSFW stuff it'll pop up a question asking whether the user is over 18. It's silly -- there is no way their site can verify the visitor's age. No website can do that. They just take the users at their word.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Opportunist on Thursday December 28, @08:01AM
Me?
My VPN says I'm from ... say, India.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday December 28, @12:06PM (11 children)
Kids viewing porn is, as far as anyone has been able to measure, mostly harmless. Prepubescent kids go "ewww!" and move on with their lives for a few years, and the teenagers get themselves off and move on with their lives without having impregnated anybody or passed along an STD.
Kids appearing in porn messes them up for the rest of their lives, assuming they even survive it. It's an entire nasty industry of trafficking and statutory rape, typically run by international criminal syndicates, and only slightly less awful than the often-legal sex tourism industry.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Thursday December 28, @01:27PM (6 children)
Indeed, the age verification and records keeping requirements were more than enough to solve the issues of kids in porn. I think it's odd that it's somehow now an issue when many kids found their parent's stash of Playboys previously, that's the first exposure that I had to any sort of porn.
It's especially jarring since they probably still allow nudity in advertising.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday December 28, @05:11PM (4 children)
If only.
Yes, those requirements definitely helped for the high-budget stuff produced in the United States and Europe. But there's also a lot that isn't produced in those countries, and a lot of places where the requirements are enforced laxly if at all. And if they do send somebody to, say, Thailand on a mission to verify the performer's ages, you can bet that the right amount of cash slipped into the right hands will make the investigation go away.
Nudity and porn aren't the same thing. Not all nude people are engaged in sexual acts or even sexual display, and not all people depicted engaged in sexual acts are nude.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Thursday December 28, @08:10PM
Children need a safe space in which to be children. They have the rest of their lives to be adults and are entitled to their childhood. Adulthood will come around soon enough. Any adults who exploit children, denying them that childhood, and affecting the rest of their lives, need to be held to account. Parents have the responsibility of preparing their children for the big, scary, wide world and it has to be done gradually over many years. Society also has a responsibility to its children. It takes a village to raise a child.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Saturday December 30, @12:52PM (2 children)
I'm pretty sure that topless women touting sex chat lines counts as porn. I'm not talking about National Geographic coverage of people in places where clothing is optional.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday December 30, @05:30PM (1 child)
I was thinking more along the lines of showing somebody in the shower when you're advertising a shampoo. Like, yeah, people are naked in the shower, that's normal.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday December 30, @06:37PM
I could definitely see a naked body in that sort of commercial being more acceptable in some areas, I was more thinking of materials that used nudity for titillation. It was rather jarring to be watching a few minutes of the pink panther cartoon while resting and have a phone sex ad with topless women.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28, @06:08PM
The cheeky peek at the Playboys has been supplanted by hours of BBC cuckold sissy hypno brainwashing porn.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday December 28, @07:18PM
The style of porn viewed can also affect what the viewer considers to be normal or acceptable. Stuff like domination, violence, and autoerotic asphyxiation is relatively prevalent in pornography, more than in most domestic settings. But it that's part of the "self-learning material" youngsters are browsing online, that can be problematic.
In my neck of the woods, Sex Ed isn't so concerned with the anatomy side of things (which is on readily on-show online) these days, but more with relationships, consent, and personal boundaries/acceptance.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Thursday December 28, @08:58PM (1 child)
Were we talking about pr0n industry or the USA Democrat party?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29, @10:50PM
Pssst: you're mixed up, the Zieglers are actually in the Republican party.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28, @10:02PM
You obviously do not know what you're talking about. Adult porn harms children psychologically. They learn to objectify people, eliminating their humanity and treating them only as sex objects. It teaches them all the wrong things about how to have healthy sexual relationships. I speak from experience. I was exposed to porn when I was six and was immediately hooked so don't tell me that all prepubescent kids go "ewww!" when exposed to it; they don't.
Now, having said all that, I'm the last person to say that porn purveyors should be required to verify the age of the person viewing it. Such rules creates a privacy nightmare and opens the door to abuse of the information collected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28, @01:11PM (2 children)
Is this finally some sort of benefit of Brexit?
(Score: 5, Informative) by isostatic on Thursday December 28, @02:11PM (1 child)
Well the UK is ahead of the curve: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60293057 [bbc.co.uk]
Porn websites in the UK will be legally required to verify the age of their users under new internet safety laws.
The legislation, which is part of the draft Online Safety Bill, aims to give children better protection from explicit material.
The measures, to ensure users are 18 or over, could see people asked to prove they own a credit card or confirm their age via a third-party service.
Sites that fail to act could be fined up to 10% of their global turnover.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28, @08:00PM
Erika Lust makes you click a button to prove you're 18 or over.
(Score: 5, Funny) by VLM on Thursday December 28, @08:55PM (2 children)
I bet the age-detection solution will be captcha based.
"Click on all the images of a CB radio"
"Click on all the images of an 8track tape"
"Click on all the correct images of a manual transmission shifting pattern"
"Click on all the images of an oil can spout"
"Click on all the valid images of an AM radio dial"
"Click on all the images of Cabbage Patch Kids"
"Click on the correct images of original members of the A-Team"
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29, @03:21AM (1 child)
All good...until I hit these:
> "Click on all the images of Cabbage Patch Kids"
> "Click on the correct images of original members of the A-Team"
No clue about either of them, I must be too old (70) or maybe I should have watched TV? No tv for me, for nearly all my life.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Nuke on Saturday December 30, @05:12PM
That's fine because it creates an age window : they think that you can be too old to watch porn too. Could cause a heart attack.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by DadaDoofy on Friday December 29, @02:48PM
It's poetic justice that the very people who consider themselves to be on the cutting edge of sexual freedom, but Americans to be Puritanical prudes, are enacting draconian restrictions on who can look at boobies.
Of course, we all know the Digital Identity Wallet has little to do with saving "the children" from porn. This is to get people onboard with digital currency. A digital currency, to which your access can be revoked by the un-elected authoritarians in Brussels, if you don't goose step to their political and social agendas.