BRUSSELS (CN) — The European Union opened a formal child safety investigation into Snapchat on Thursday, putting the app in the same regulatory crosshairs as Pornhub, XVideos and other major pornographic websites — simultaneously found in breach of the bloc’s internet content law.
The targets — Snapchat, PornHub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos — all stand accused of leaving minors exposed to harmful content through lax age-checking, inadequate safety settings or worse.
In the case of Snapchat, regulators suspect choices baked into the platform leave children exposed to grooming, criminal recruitment and illegal content: Minors are automatically recommended to strangers through the “Find Friends” feature; push notifications run by default; and new users get almost no guidance on privacy settings.
Age-checking is equally lax — Snapchat asks users to confirm they’re at least 13, but Brussels suspects the system neither stops younger children from joining nor flags users under 17 for stricter protections.
Content moderation isn’t keeping up either. The commission suspects Snapchat’s tools miss posts pointing children toward drugs, vapes and other illegal products, and that reporting mechanisms are buried — possibly designed to discourage use.
The investigation absorbs a Dutch probe opened in September into vape sales to minors, and carries no set deadline. The commission can demand interim measures, issue a noncompliance decision, or accept commitments from Snapchat if it moves to address the concerns.
“The safety and well-being of all Snapchatters is a top priority,” a company spokesperson told Courthouse News, adding the platform had “fully cooperated with the commission to date — engaging proactively, transparently and working in good faith to meet the DSA’s high safety standards.”
The Digital Services Act, which entered into force in 2023, sets strict rules for online platforms on how they assess and manage systemic risks — with a particularly high bar when it comes to children. The most stringent obligations apply to so-called Very Large Online Platforms (VLOP)— those with more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU. Platforms found in breach face fines of up to 6% of their global annual turnover.
Porn sites ’ tick-box failure
The porn sites face a more immediate reckoning. For the four adult content platforms, regulators’ core finding is the same: Asking users to tick a box saying they’re over 18 doesn’t cut it.
All four sites relied on that kind of self-declaration as their primary age gate, and Brussels found additional measures like blurred thumbnails, content warnings and “restricted to adults” labels equally inadequate. Children, in other words, could access explicit material with essentially no pushback — and under the DSA, that is no longer acceptable.
“When a kid in Poland can access your website at 7 years old, there is a fundamental issue with your age verification tools,” commission spokesman Thomas Regnier told reporters Thursday. “In Europe, self-declaration is not enough anymore to prove your age.”
Investigators also found the platforms’ risk assessments methodologically shoddy, focused on reputational rather than societal harm. Stripchat — owned by Cyprus-based Technius, XVideos and XNXX — both part of Czech group WGCZ Holding — went further still, either misrepresenting or ignoring input from civil society groups on children’s rights.
“The European Commission is asking us to commit suicide for nothing,” an XVideos spokesperson told Courthouse News Thursday, accusing regulators of “blatant discrimination” for singling out adult platforms while sparing mainstream rivals.
“Age checks on four sites out of a million does nothing to prevent minors from accessing adult content, as we know they will simply move to other, less safe sites that are completely out of reach of regulators,” the spokesperson said.
“We are determined to be part of the solution,” Aylo said in a statement shared Thursday with Courthouse News, defending its moderation practices as “among the most thorough on the internet.” A spokesperson for Stripchat declined to comment.
All four can now review the investigation file and respond in writing before any final decision; if the findings stick, fines follow.
It’s a familiar battle for Pornhub. The site pulled the plug in France in June 2025; German courts have blocked its platforms over youth protection violations; and Italy brought in mandatory verification for Pornhub and 44 others last November.
“Effective enforcement is not possible, circumvention is rampant, privacy is compromised, and new, unregulated sites quickly fill any gaps left by responsible operators,” Alex Kekesi, Pornhub’s vice president of Brand and Community, said in January, calling instead for age checks to be built into devices.
The EU’s recent standard is demanding: age verification for porn and gambling, private-by-default accounts for minors, recommender systems that don’t push kids toward harmful content, and engagement-boosting features — streaks, autoplay, push notifications — switched off by default.
The EU’s antitrust chief, Teresa Ribera, is currently on a week-long trip to the United States, where she met with the CEOs of Google, Meta and Amazon, among others.
In a parallel move Thursday, the European Parliament backed a proposal to ban AI-powered “nudifier” apps — tools that generate nonconsensual intimate images of real people — as part of a broader package of changes to the bloc’s AI rules.
Courthouse News correspondent Yuval Molina is based in Brussels, Belgium.
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