The European Commission has launched formal proceedings over EU age verification on porn sites, targeting Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos for alleged violations of the Digital Services Act (DSA). The accusation: failing to implement effective age-verification mechanisms, thereby exposing minors to sexually explicit material.
According to Brussels, these platforms have not adopted “appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and protection for minors,” in breach of the DSA’s principle that digital services must be designed with child protection at their core.
In Italy, the Communications Authority (AGCOM) has gone even further. With Resolution No. 96/25/CONS, it requires all websites and platforms distributing pornographic content in Italy—even those based abroad—to implement strict age-verification systems. The legal basis is Article 13-bis of Decree-Law 123/2023. Crucially, the law excludes the use of SPID (the Italian public digital identity system) for verification, because it conflicts with the principle of “double anonymity”: the site must not know the user’s identity, and the verifier must not know which content is being accessed.
This is not just about shielding minors. Millions of adults also have the right to access legal content anonymously—without being profiled, tracked or logged. The principle of anonymity in accessing porn is not an immoral indulgence, but a safeguard for individual freedom and privacy, values enshrined in both European and constitutional law.
Protecting minors is essential. But there is a legitimate concern that the issue is being addressed with technical and punitive tools, rather than through education. Previous generations hid risqué magazines under the bed; today, teenagers encounter sex on the internet. It’s not nostalgia, it’s observation: pornography—whether we like it or not—has long played a social role.
No one wants to legitimize underage access. But bans without education are shortcuts. Without pairing regulation with serious sexual, emotional and digital education, we risk pushing young people toward more obscure and unsafe spaces.
In practice, such regulation risks becoming another case of European over-bureaucracy: invasive, ineffective and discriminatory tools imposed in the name of protection. Porn will not disappear—it will simply become more restricted, more elitist, less free. And with that comes the danger of driving more people into illegality.
