Anti-Porn Crusaders worldwide keep winning important fights, alarming an industry under siege already. Now two relatively liberal countries also cave in and start discriminating against sex work and adult entertaintment. In both countries, politicians moved forward with proposed mandates to block adult sites. The winning strategy used by anti-porn activists remains: hiding behind youth protection and targeting politicians and payment processors.
Two court cases in France and Germany are getting a lot of attention by adult entertainment companies wolrdwide. The decisions there, expected soon, could be a sign what to expect for the future of adult content and free expression on the internet.
A court in Paris will next month rule on a difficult case concerning free speech as well the government’s right to censor what people can see on the internet. The French media regulator Arcom wants to get the right to block access to international porn sites in France if these sites cannot »guarantee they can prevent minors under 18 from accessing them«.
While age-verification is mandatory for adult content in France, as well as in Germany, international websites often don’t offer age-verification that could guarantee that minors can’t access them. And while there is age verification software that can kind of make sure that the person accessing a site has a document or a credit card that makes it likely that this person is an adult, it’s next to impossible to guarantee a complete block for minors.
The case in Germany though is long-running and rather absurd. A Higher Administrative Court in the city of Münster has dismissed xHamster’s appeal seeking the reversal of a ban on its site by a lower court in Düsseldorf. xHamster remains blocked but can still be accessed, even from Germany, with alternative webaddresses. While the case is nonsensical it still shows a danger: politicians and government agencies try to move against adult entertainment without having any clue about what they are doing, basically operating on false information or bigottery.
With the recent attacks on Pornhub’s mother company Mindgeek in the US and elsewhere, the international adult entertainment community sees increasing threats by anti-porn crusaders winning territory.
In France, so-called “children’s rights” organizations work together with anti-sex-work groups like SWERF. Both activists seek an alliance with catholic and other religious groups to bring down free speech and change the internet as we know it. They found their ideal target in sometimes questionable platforms like XVideos, xHamster, Pornhub, Tukif and others.
The Paris court is expected to rule on the subject on October 4. If Acorm loses this case, it is expected that the French regulatory agency will appeal the court’s decision immediately.
Marc Rees, a French journalist writing for Next INpact, thinks that if the court will decide that authorities could block access to websites it would violate the fundamental legal principle of freedom of expression and would be constitutionally challenged.
The court in Münster upheld the questionable decisions of the Düsseldorf Administrative Court handing Tobias Schmid, head of the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, a notorious anti-porn crusader, a temporary victory.
The well-respected daily newspaper FAZ sees this as problematic and commented that »the network ban is the harshest sanction provided by the German Telemedia Act«. The newspaper regards the decision as immensely unpopular and thinks that it represents censorship.
VAN will keep you updated on these developments.