France May Classify Bluesky, Reddit as Porn Platforms

PARIS—France could force mainstream social media platforms Bluesky and Reddit to verify the ages of their users or be banned from the country's digital space due to their policies related to hosting pornography, sexually explicit materials, and nudity. French Digital Minister Clara Chappaz and her office confirmed this in an interview for the European Union edition of Politico on Wednesday. Her office told the political news outlet, "Our focus is age verification for any platform that distributes or enables the sharing of pornographic content."  Bluesky quickly turned into a more sex-work-friendly platform compared to X, formerly Twitter, reached higher levels of popularity at the end of 2024 due to the U.S. Presidential Election that saw Donald Trump returning to the White House thanks in part to the financial backing of Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October 2022. Reddit is another popular mainstream social media platform that allows uncensored nudity with trust, safety, and user verification left up to volunteer moderators. Chappaz additionally threatened Musk's X with similar classification as a porn platform if the company doesn't begin verifying the ages of its users. AVN reported a few days ago that Chappaz's team is “examining the designation of X in the decree concerning pornographic sites that must verify the age of their users.” Failure for platform compliance with the age verification law that was adopted in 2023 would lead to platforms being fined, delisted from search engines, or blocked. French age verification statutes are under the SREN law adopted by lawmakers that year.