Justice decides on the blocking of five pornographic sites

A blank page with the “French Republic” logo. This may be what five pornographic sites will have to display in the coming days as a home page on their French URL if justice agrees with Arcom, the French audiovisual and digital policeman.

This Friday, the Paris court will rule on the request to block the Pornhub, xHamster, YouPorn, Xvideos and Xnxx sites in France, initiated by the regulatory authority. A decisive step in the battle against the exposure of children to porn. And, perhaps a halt to the expansion of the “YouPorn generation”.

The judgment remains uncertain as the porn sites contest this blocking, arguing that the law is not sufficiently precise on the methods of age verification and that Arcom has not correctly notified its intentions on these blocking measures. to European authorities.

The end of a soap opera that has been going on for three years? The law of July 30, 2020 requires the implementation of an age verification system - more effective than the simple button "I am over 18" - to access these sites. But nothing was easy in the battle against these porn giants. Countless twists and turns slowed down this court decision and the application of the law: the belated decree for the application of the law, the CNIL's procrastination on privacy-friendly age verification tools, an error in procedure…

“From the point of view of child protection, the path to blocking seems far too long, notes Thomas Rohmer, director of the Observatory of parenthood and digital education (Open), the association at the origin of this procedure since it had seized Arcom in November 2020. Given the complexity of the file and the number of countries which have broken their teeth on this subject, this is not surprising. But if justice does not agree with Arcom, we will have spent several years fighting for not much. The risk is to start again for ten years of procedures and procrastination.”

In parallel, the Senate is examining this week the bill to “secure” the internet, which also includes measures aimed at limiting the access of minors to pornographic sites. The text took the measure of the difficulty of this legal battle and proposes to strengthen the powers of Arcom. The authority could order the blocking of outlaw sites without the decision of a judge. To answer the puzzle of the choice of age verification systems, Arcom should also establish “a reference system” listing the technical requirements of these systems that must combine efficiency and respect for privacy. “Be careful not to reinvent a gas plant! warns the director of the Open. Admittedly, data protection must be respected, but there is a hierarchy of priorities. Child protection must come first.”

Because on the ground, alerts on the exposure of minors to increasingly violent porn videos have multiplied. In May, a study by Médiamétrie for Arcom revealed that 2.3 million minors now visited pornographic sites each month. Nearly a third of minors (30%) are affected, including 51% of boys aged 12-13 and 31% of girls of the same age. This exposure does not spare primary school students, with 21% of boys aged 10-11 affected.

This “porno-pandemic” has significant repercussions on the youngest, points out a new survey by the gender, sexuality and sexual health center of Ifop, carried out for the 01net site on a representative national sample of 2,006 French people. “With its trivialization, pornography seems to have taken a large place in sex education, write the authors of the survey. Thus, today, more than one in two young people aged 18-24 (53%) recognize that pornographic videos have helped them learn about their sexuality, which is significantly more than in the adult population as a whole. (35%)."

Beyond practices, this normalization of porn has consequences on self-image. “More and more 25-year-old boys (51%) have already complexed about the size of their penis by watching a porn film, points out the study. And "more than one in three young girls under 25 have already been complexed about the size of their breasts (39%) or the shape of their vulva (39%) while watching an X movie." But, already, new practices are emerging. “We are witnessing a form of uberisation of the sex industry with the emergence of online platforms offering to sell its photos and videos, such as OnlyFans and Mym. Some children thus become actors in the porn industry and no longer just spectators, ”describes Thomas Rohmer, worried about the multiplication of pre-prostitutional practices among the youngest.

In a context of economic crisis, some children who lack bearings “are easily tempted by proposals to monetize nude photos, he continues. In a few days, they can earn hundreds of euros. Then, there is a risk of gearing up with videos, even meetings”.