The French parliament has agreed a new law requiring age verification on pornographic websites to prevent access by children under 18. The censorship law has the support of President Emmanuel Macron, who called for such a measure in January.
The
French law gives sites discretion to decide how to perform that age verification.
The law gives French regulators the power to create a blacklist for overseas sites that don't comply with the new rules. If a site doesn't respond to a warning from
French officials, they can ask the Paris Court of Justice to send an order to telecom operators to block the access to these sites from France.
A major sticking point in the UK's failed age verification law was privacy. Critics pointed out that it
wasn't a great idea to force adult consumers to turn over their credit card numbers to porn sites that might not have the strongest privacy protections. It's not clear what privacy protections will be offered to consumers under the French law.
In
order to enforce the law, the French audiovisual regulator CSA will be granted new powers to audit and sanction companies that do not comply -- sanctions could go as far as blocking access to the websites in France with a court order.
The Senate
has already voted on the bill. Following an agreement between senators and lawmakers from the lower house National Assembly, a final vote will be held again in the Senate where the bill is expected to pass.
Mia Khalifa says she regrets the adult films she made at 21, and now almost 1.5 million people have signed a petition demanding they are taken down from porn sites.
Khalifa made 11 videos during her three months as a porn star in 2014. Despite
retiring from the adult industry six years ago, her videos - for which she says she was paid $12,000 - remain extremely popular in places such as Pornhub and she is one of the site's most searched-for performers.
A video in which the Christian Mia
wore a hijab, which she claims she was pressured into doing, has gotten her death threats from ISIS.
Mia's supporters recently created a Change.org petition demanding the films be taken down from porn sites. Titled Justice for Mia Khalifa, it has
attracted more than 1,392,000 signatures.
Pornhub has launched a new premium couples service billed as helping lovers spice up relationships while stuck in coronavirus quarantine.
The site's new initiative will allow couples to share a membership account and a lover's playlist. The playlist
offers the opportunity for members to exchange their favorite action clips based on the genres their partner likes. Users will also be able to enjoy standard Pornhub Premium features such as exclusive and high definition videos and an ad-free experience.
Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said in a press release that couples who play together, stay together. He continued:
We decided to introduce our Premium Lovers membership in order to provide couples with a resource
that can not only help spice up their relationships in quarantine, but also to help each partner learn even more about their lover on a sexual level.
Pornhub's Premium Lovers membership has a seven-day free trial. The shared account
will cost $14.99 a month once the trial period ends.
Utah was one of the first states to pass legilsation promoting a modern day morality message that porn harms public healthl. The state went on to pass a somewhat watered down bill requiring porn producers to add a warning to any porn films sold in the
state.
Now Pornhub has responded to the new legislation by pre-fixing a warning to its porn films, at least for those reading from Utah. The websites also requires a tick box consent that a reader is over 18.
The Italian Senate is set to take up new legislation to block all online porn sites in the country, requiring internet users to specifically request that the porn blocks be removed The proposed new censorship law was introduced by Senator Simone Pillon,
a member of Italy's nationalist Northern League party, led by former Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.
The law would require all makers of internet-connected devices, including computers, cell phones, and smart TVs, to install software that would
automatically block all porn sites. Users would have to file a specific request to remove the software in order to view porn online, under the proposed law.
It is not yet clear whether this internet censorship measure has a realistic chance of
becoming law.
The lower house of the Italian parliament has approved an agenda item by the ruling PD's Enza Bruno Bossio to prevent the passage of a controversial amendment that would have required all adult sites to be automatically blocked by
device manufacturers, and at the ISP level, with the proposal that subscribers would be required to individually request the block to be lifted.
The amendment had been inserted, as XBIZ reported earlier this week, at the legislative committee stage by
Simone Pillon, a representative from the Lega party, and it was due to come to a vote by Monday.
La Repubblica opined that the matter is not yet settled, though Bossio's agenda item is an important roadblock to the Lega's attempt to censor all adult
content on the Italian internet.
Momentum had been building in New Zealand over recent months for a nationwide law blocking internet porn, but the effort spearheaded by Interior Affairs Minister Tracey Martin appears to have hit a roadblock. Martin said late last year that she planned
to bring her porn ban bill before New Zealand's parliament prior to the 2020 elections, which are scheduled for September.
Martin created a draft proposal to require blocking of porn sites by internet service providers for anyone under 18 years of
age. But when she circulated the paper among members of the governing coalition including her own centrist New Zealand First Party, as well as the liberal-progressive Labor and Green Parties, she found a lack of interest. She now says she will not
attempt to push the porn-blocking plan any further.
Despite her inability to win support for her porn-blocking proposal, Martin still says that she favors an age-verification system for online porn, according to the Herald report.
As adult performers realize they can create their own content and make money sans studios or dangerous agents, directors and performers, the future of porn may be worker-driven. By Aurora Snow
Creators working with adult content are reportedly being kicked off OnlyFans as the previously x-rated site booms in popularity during the coronavirus crisis.
Adult content creators claim they are being booted off the website which allows them to
monetize their interactions with fans because of a surge of new users.
Things have already changed and the top content creators are now no longer sex workers but celebrities/YouTubers, says Mrs. Hell, a model and dominatrix. That's very
problematic. Many adult content creators say they Many adult content creators say they're not breaking the rules but their accounts are still being deleted.
Creators are being removed with some unlikely sounding explanation citing
suspicious/fraudulent activity on their accounts but with no further details. Those affected described how they were unable to access funds owing after the deletion..
Collective Shout is a feminist campaign group based in Australia. Its latest post promotes the latest DeepNude app:
A new app called Deepnude.to allows users to turn images of clothed women into nude imaages It follows an earlier app,
Deepnude, which was taken offline last year after the developers faced significant backlash.
Deepnude.to users can transform images of clothed women into nude images for free, [but with obtrusive watermarks proclaiming 'fake'], or
can pay $20 a month to create unlimited nude images. The developers are anonymous, and transactions take place via Bitcoin.
The app is premised on the violation and humiliation of women. Its purpose is to create pornographic
images of non-consenting women.
Similar Deepnudes style novelty apps are available on Apple and Google app stores. Twitter hosts the official Deepnudes.to account, promoting the app: No downloads, no registration, no bullshit.
Your daily fix for #deepnude content! Instagram also hosts accounts dedicated to Deepnudes themed-content, as well as hashtags to assist users in easily finding fake nude images of women.
An anti-porn campaign group, misleadingly name Freedom United, has joined in the campaign against Pornhub. Several feminist groups are petitioning for banks to act as moral censors by refusing payment service to porn companies.
Thanks to Alan who
comments:
Take a look at this bullshit . As lovely a piece of authoritarian feminism as you could wish to find.
Pornhub directors might like to consult m'learned friends about defamation, especially in the UK.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has called on the US government to confront supposed harms wrought by the pornography industry, which has experienced a surge in website traffic because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an April 30 letter to
Attorney General William Barr, the Conference urged the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce obscenity laws, investigate website owners for criminality, and to encourage state and local governments to crack down on the industry.
The Conference
also accuses porn companies of exploiting people's growing sense of isolation and heightened levels of stress caused by the worst public health crisis in more than a century. The letter says:
As pastors, we frequently
see the pain that results from a pornography habit. Marriages that are injured or even broken by a spouse's pornography use, which some divorce lawyers report as a factor in over half of their cases, have a ripple effect on children.
As pornography becomes more mainstream, so do its potential dangers. Unprecedented, unlimited, and anonymous access to pornography via modern technology has led users to seek more and more extreme videos. Thus, non-enforcement or lax
enforcement of obscenity laws against producers and distributors may provide a gateway for this demand to metastasize, increasing the incidents of trafficking, child pornography, other abuse, and broader unjust conditions.
The porny Uncensored film festival has been forced to have a rethink for 2020 due to coronavirus. Rather than simply cancel it has come up with an interesting change of direction. Uncensored explains:
How are you
navigating intimacy, sex and desire in isolation? Have you ever thought of your home as a set for a porno?
It's time to be UNCENSORED and bring our sweetest and dirtiest fantasies to life. Let's laugh, lust, feel, play and
COME TOGETHER. Stay home...stay horny... Let's make it HOT!
Explore new erotic narratives... Reinvent and experience the space around you as a temple of pleasure, let your garden become the heaven of sin and transform your veggies
into sex toys.
UNCENSORED Festival is excited to launch an open call for pornos and erotic movies realised in isolation. Open to both amateur and seasoned filmmakers.
The French parliament has agreed a new law requiring age verification on pornographic websites to prevent access by children under 18. The censorship law has the support of President Emmanuel Macron, who called for such a measure in January. 
Pornhub has launched a new premium couples service billed as helping lovers spice up relationships while stuck in coronavirus quarantine. 
Utah was one of the first states to pass legilsation promoting a modern day morality message that porn harms public healthl. The state went on to pass a somewhat watered down bill requiring porn producers to add a warning to any porn films sold in the
state. 
The Italian Senate is set to take up new legislation to block all online porn sites in the country, requiring internet users to specifically request that the porn blocks be removed The proposed new censorship law was introduced by Senator Simone Pillon,
a member of Italy's nationalist Northern League party, led by former Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. 
Momentum had been building in New Zealand over recent months for a nationwide law blocking internet porn, but the effort spearheaded by Interior Affairs Minister Tracey Martin appears to have hit a roadblock. Martin said late last year that she planned
to bring her porn ban bill before New Zealand's parliament prior to the 2020 elections, which are scheduled for September. 
Creators working with adult content are reportedly being kicked off OnlyFans as the previously x-rated site booms in popularity during the coronavirus crisis. 
Collective Shout is a feminist campaign group based in Australia. Its latest post promotes the latest DeepNude app: 
An anti-porn campaign group, misleadingly name Freedom United, has joined in the campaign against Pornhub. Several feminist groups are petitioning for banks to act as moral censors by refusing payment service to porn companies. 
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has called on the US government to confront supposed harms wrought by the pornography industry, which has experienced a surge in website traffic because of the coronavirus pandemic. 
