Commission preliminarily finds PornHub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access their services

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

The European Commission preliminarily found Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) for failing to protect minors from being exposed to pornographic content on their services.

Risk assessment 

The Commission’s preliminary findings indicate that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos did not diligently identify and assess the risks that their platforms pose to minors accessing their services. 

Even where risks were identified, Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos did not conduct a thorough assessment, as they did not use objective and thorough methodologies. For example, the assessment disproportionately emphasised business-centric concerns, such as reputational damage, rather than focusing on the societal risks to minors, as required under the DSA. 

Moreover, the findings show that in their risk assessments Stripchat, Xvideos, and XNXX misrepresented or did not consider their meetings with civil society organisations specialising in children’s rights and age assurance tools.

Risk mitigation measures 

The Commission also preliminarily found that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos have failed to implement effective measures to prevent minors from accessing their services, therefore, failing to protect minors’ rights and wellbeing.

Despite stating in their Terms of Services that their services are for adults only, all four platforms allow minors to access their platforms by a simple click confirming they are over 18. 

The Commission finds that ‘self-declaration’ is not an effective measure, and it also considers that additional mitigation measures, such as page blurring, content warnings and ‘Restricted to adults’ labels, deployed by all of these platforms, do not effectively prevent minors from accessing harmful content.

At this stage, the Commission considers that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos need to implement privacy preserving age verification measures to protect children from harmful content. 

These findings do not prejudge the final outcome of the investigation.

Next steps

In exercising their right of defence, XVideos, XNXX, PornHub and Stripchat now have the possibility to examine the documents in the Commission’s investigation files and reply in writing to the Commission’s preliminary findings. The platforms can take measures to remedy the breaches. In parallel, the European Board for Digital Services will be consulted. 

If the Commission’s views are ultimately confirmed, the Commission may issue a non-compliance decision, which can trigger a fine proportionate to the infringement which shall in no case exceed 6% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the provider. The Commission can also impose periodic penalty payments to compel a platform to comply.

Background

These preliminary findings are part of the Commission’s formal proceedings launched against XVideos, XNXX, PornHub and Stripchat under the DSA on 27 May 2025. The preliminary findings are based on an in-depth investigation that included an analysis of Pornhub’s, Stripchat’s, XNXX’ and XVideos’ risk assessment reports, internal data and documents as well as the platforms’ replies to requests for information and interviews with experts in the field.  

The Commission used the 2025 DSA Guidelines on the protection of minors as a benchmark to evaluate platforms’ compliance with the obligation to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors. The DSA guidelines identify age verification as a proportionate and effective measure to mitigate the risk of minors accessing adult content services. The Commission is developing an EU Age Verification app, which will serve as the reference standard for a user-friendly and privacy-preserving age verification method. This age verification is app is currently being tested with Member States, online platforms and other third parties. It will be fully interoperable with the future EU Digital Identity Wallets.

In the course of these investigations, the Commission’s work has been supported by relevant national authorities, including the Cypriot Radiotelevision and Digital Services Authority and the Czech Telecommunication Office, respectively the Digital Services Coordinators for Cyprus and for Czechia, the two Member States of establishment of these VLOPs. ARCOM, the French Digital Services Coordinator, and the German media authority of North Rhine-Westphalia were also consulted, being among the national regulators that had already taken steps to investigate pornographic platforms at the national level.   

In parallel, a coordinated action against non-compliant smaller pornographic platforms is being carried out by the national Digital Services Coordinators who are responsible for supervising them. This coordinated action aims to ensure that the DSA is enforced consistently across online platforms of all sizes in the EU.