WASHINGTON, DC (May 28, 2025) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) commended the European Union (EU) for investigating pornography websites Pornhub, XVideos, XNXX, and Stripchat for allegedly failing to protect children from accessing their sites in violation of the Digital Services Act.
“The EU is right to investigate these pornography tube sites for not preventing children from accessing harmful pornography. Mainstream pornography sites like Pornhub have hosted child sexual abuse material, sexual assault, rape, image-based sexual abuse, and nonconsensual content. Pornography tube sites can and should do more to ensure children cannot access this content and must be held to account,” said Dr. Marcel van der Watt, president, National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
A new NCOSE report revealed that mainstream pornography tube sites like Pornhub, XVideos, XNXX, and xHamster have fueled the global crisis of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA).
“In the U.S., to protect children from pornography, states have passed age verification laws, the App Store Accountability Act, and device level filtering laws. A Kansas mother recently filed lawsuits against four pornography tube sites for allegedly failing to implement age verification on their websites as required by Kansas law. We are encouraged that more people are realizing the harms of pornography on children and seeking to protect them,” Van der Watt added.
Online pornography is a powerful stimulus that is disruptive to children’s development contributing to numerous harms including vulnerability to sexual victimization, child-on-child harmful sexual behaviors, high-risk sexual behaviors, and compulsive sexual behaviors. [Learn more here about the harms of pornography on children.]
About National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
Founded in 1962, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is the leading national non-profit organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health harms of pornography.
