Report from CBC News
In Brief – The European Commission has announced that they have preliminarily found four large adult content platforms to be in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) for failing to protect minors from being exposed to pornographic content on their services. EU officials say the companies, which are designated as Very Large Online Platforms under the DSA and therefore face the strictest regulatory requirements and enforcement directly by the commission, failed to implement effective safeguards to prevent minors from accessing explicit material. Regulators criticized the platforms for relying on weak age-verification methods, such as self-declaration clicks. In the announcement, EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said that children are encountering adult content at younger ages and so adult content platforms “must put in place robust, privacy-preserving and effective measures to keep minors off their services.” The platforms could face fines and be required to bring their systems into compliance in ways directed by the commission.
Context – Online age limits and the technical age verification tools they require are on the march globally. While social media age limits are grabbing headlines, porn is often a first and easier target. It was the first step to age verification in France and was the subject of the landmark decision by the US Supreme Court. France and Texas are already both pushing to implement social media age limits. Australia’s strict 16-year-old threshold to have social media accounts is the highest profile global online age limit and officials from Spain and the UK to Indonesia, Brazil and Egypt are citing Australia’s mandate as an inspiration. It’s worth noting that age checks are now also being mandated in Australia for search engines like Google because search can lead to porn. European Commission President von der Leyen says that the Commission will explore an EU-wide social media age limit and has announced a five-country pilot of an age verification app that is the unicorn that also protects privacy. Most privacy and civil liberties advocates continue to argue that it’s one or the other.