The high-reach porn portal xHamster is threatened with a network block due to disregard of the protection of children and young people.
"At xHamster we have a definitive decision against which no legal remedies are possible," said Tobias Schmid, the director of the State Media Authority in North Rhine-Westphalia, of the German press agency.
Other portal operators are currently still suing the notices affecting them before the Higher Administrative Court for North Rhine-Westphalia.
The legal situation is "pretty clear" from the point of view of his authority: "It's pornography, there is no age verification and German law is applicable," said Schmid.
Because xHamster has so far refused to communicate with the supervisory authority and has not implemented any of the measures to make its offer legal, the network operator has now been approached.
These include Vodafone and Telekom: “We have informed you of the fact that there is illegal content in your networks that must be blocked and we are currently listening to them.
Then we decide. "
"We got exactly zero answers"
"We only implement access barriers technically if they are legally ordered," said a Telekom spokesman on request. At Vodafone it was said: "We are currently working on the legal assessment." The court had found the state institution to be right.
In response to a dpa request, xHamster announced that network blocking was “far from an optimal solution”.
Through them, young people would only switch to smaller sites where they would be exposed to more extreme content.
The company is ready to work with the German authorities.
Currently, age checks are the only way to keep young people away from adult content.
Such a technology can be used.
But this must be done across the industry.
"I hardly know anyone to whom we have sent more letters and emails than xHamster and we received exactly zero responses," said Schmid on the other hand.
However, the portal is free at any time to comply with the law and thus to end the proceedings against itself.
He was "somewhat astonished" that one of the network operators hired a law firm to extend the deadline and "did not accept his socio-political responsibility any faster," said Schmid.
After all, it is about the endangerment of children and adolescents.
"A business model that makes use of an illegal practice"
It would be regrettable if they remained defenseless for months.
“After all, the content is clearly illegal.
If that doesn't work better now, the legislator has to look at it again, ”said Schmid.
"Every 12-year-old today has a smartphone and can switch from Tiktok to these offers."
In the past, access to the network was via the home PC.
"But the parents no longer have access to it today." The situation has simply changed.
"This is not about freedom of expression, but about a business model that makes use of an illegal practice."