As of this writing, it seems a drop in porn site viewership has occurred in the EU. A drop that might ironically prove beneficial to the same sites presently losing viewers.
Pornhub, XNXX, StripChat, and XVideos all just reported major drops in traffic in their recently submitted “transparency reports.” These reports are required in the EU, via the Digital Services Act or DSA, brought to bear under a sprawling EU commission, that went into effect two years ago.
Because of the amount of viewership they were enjoying the commission that oversees the DSA, formally designated Pornhub, Stripchat, and XVideos (XNXX designation came a bit later) under DSA law. Without the DSA, the commission’s operating laws are much more relaxed, but when these sites fell under the designation of being a DSA VLOP (very large online platform) they were mandated to ‘up their game.’ Working to better regulate children’s access to pornography (something most porn sites already work hard to enforce), having to allow for annual independent audits, and indeed providing those regular transparency reports, were just some of the DSA’s stricter mandates.
But ironically the drop off in business for these platforms (XNXX reported 46 million average monthly users in the EU, a drop from 77 million users since August; XVideos—the same company that owns them owns XNXX—recorded 31 million average monthly users in the EU, a drop from 84 million users since August; PornHub reported that as of January they averaged 26.6 million users, and Stripchat the same) means that only XNXX would fall under the DSA designation of a regulated VLOP.
A site must average 35 million users to qualify for the larger DSA designation.
An un-designation designation is not automatic and takes several steps. But as the EU commission spokesperson, Thomas Regnier, told Euractiv “…If a VLOP falls under the threshold, un-designation is indeed possible, and then the general DSA obligations would apply to such a platform.”
‘General,’ is a less restrictive term for sure. So, in this case, is a drop in business better for porn businesses?
