The Paris judicial court has rendered its decision.
The six French Internet service providers assigned by two associations to block pornographic sites that are too easily accessible to minors will not have to do so.
E-Enfance and La Voix de l'Enfant were in fact demanding from SFR, Orange, Bouygues Télécom, Free, Colt technologies Services and Outre mer Télécom the outright blocking of any connection to the behemoths of online sex - YouPorn, PornHub, RedTube , Xvideos, XNXX, XHamster, TuKif, IciPorno and MrSexe.
Each month these different sites welcome nearly 50 million unique visitors in France alone, for more than 3,000 million pages viewed in total.
Minors who are too vulnerable
The penal code prohibits exposing minors to pornographic photos and videos and the law on domestic violence of July 30, 2020 specifies that the companies concerned cannot exonerate themselves from their responsibilities by simply asking an Internet user if he is major. However, a majority of these sites do not verify the age of Internet users or at best ask them to tick a box stating that they are of legal age. To protect minors, the associations asked the courts to shut down these websites by imposing a blocking decision on ISPs (Internet service providers). They specified in their request that these porn sites did not contain any legal notices on the names of the director of the publication or the host.
But the summary court indicated that it "was not in a position to be able to exercise the control of the proportionality of the measures requested in compliance with the principle of contradiction", explains the judge in his decision.
The applicant associations "do not establish having attempted to contact" the companies publishing pornographic content while they are "identifiable and expressly identified", argues the court.
Chance of the calendar, the government published this Friday a decree specifying that the Superior council of audio-visual (CSA) will be able, after formal notice, to impose the blocking of certain pornographic sites… for the same reasons.
