For the past few hours, French internet users have been discovering an unusual page when they visit Pornhub or YouPorn. These adult entertainment giants have decided to suspend access to their content in France. The cause: the new French legislation on age verification, which the platforms consider too intrusive and ineffective. This situation paves the way for an explosion in demand for VPNs, which are tools that allow you to bypass geoblocks, as has already been observed in other regions of the world.
A strong message to French Internet users
From now on, French visitors to these sites are greeted by an image of Marianne, inspired by the painting “Liberty Leading the People,” and accompanied by an explicit message: “Starting June 4, we are suspending access to our website in France to address you, our French adult users! Your government is proposing to verify your age every time you visit our site. Isn’t that crazy? This doesn’t protect minors — on the contrary, it endangers everyone’s privacy and exposes children to risks.”
The Aylo group justifies this decision by the desire not to compromise the privacy of its users. According to them, the age verification imposed by French law requires the provision of sensitive personal information at each connection, which creates an unacceptable security risk. Aylo claims to have tried to offer more privacy-friendly alternatives, such as age verification directly on the user's device – without success with the authorities.
On the government side, firmness is required: Ministers reiterate that the protection of minors is a national priority in the face of massive exposure of young people to adult content. It is currently estimated that more than 2 million minors in France regularly visit pornographic sites with potentially serious consequences for their psychosexual development.
VPNs, the big winners of the blockage
But this closure has not put an end to the general public's demand for this content – quite the contrary. It has opened up a new avenue for VPN providers. These services, which allow you to hide your location and connect to the Internet as if you were in another country, have been booming in France since the blockage. Major players in the market, such as NordVPN and CyberGhost, are already seeing a jump in the number of downloads and subscriptions.
In the United States, states such as Texas and Florida have already imposed similar restrictions on adult sites. Result: as soon as the blocks were put in place, Google searches related to VPNs exploded with increases of more than 1000% in a few days. VPN providers thus benefited from a wave of new customers, delighted to regain unhindered access to their blocked sites.
The situation in France illustrates the tensions between the need to protect minors and respect for the privacy of adults. While the law aims to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content, it pushes many adult Internet users to seek technical solutions to circumvent the restrictions. And VPNs will come out on top.
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