Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos to be policed under EU’s stringent digital rules

The three adult content companies join the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Google and Elon Musk's X on the bloc's list of platforms with more than 45 million average monthly users in the EU.

Brussels will now be able to police the sites' compliance with its strictest set of rules under the landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), including on protecting minors and addressing the dissemination of illegal content.

"I welcome the designations of Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat as Very Large Online Platforms. It will allow for higher scrutiny and accountability of their algorithms and processes," Commission vice-president Margrethe Vestager said.

The move is an important step in Brussels' bid to crack down on a notoriously deregulated industry, amid increasing concerns about lax age verification mechanisms and the circulation of child sexual abuse material and AI-generated revenge porn.

Canadian-owned Pornhub and global webcam service Stripchat, whose EU headquarters are both in Cyprus, had claimed that their monthly users did not reach the 45 million threshold, with Pornhub citing 33 million monthly users in the bloc.

A senior European Commission official confirmed Wednesday that based on alternative data sources, the EU executive had "reasonable certainty" that the platforms' methodologies for calculating user numbers were flawed and that both had monthly users "above and beyond" 45 million.

But in response to the decision on Wednesday, Pornhub rebuffed the Commission's assessment and maintained their initial claim: "As of July 31, 2023, Pornhub has 33 million average monthly recipients of the service in the European Union, calculated as an average over the period of the past six months," the statement reads.

After initially refusing to