DUSSELDORF, Germany — xHamster signaled today that it is willing to work with German media authorities towards preventing minors in that country from accessing adult content.
While not yet promising specific measures, the Cyprus-based company announced that it shares, “without restriction,” the goal of "youth media protection" and intends to continue talks with the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia towards determining future steps.
The announcement was reported today by German newspaper Berliner Zeitung.
As XBIZ reported, the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia has targeted xHamster as part of a crusade to require age verification for viewing sexual content in Germany. The drive has been spearheaded by agency director Tobias Schmid, a one-man War on Porn described as having “a fetish for order,” whose efforts led to a court issuing a “network ban” and blocking access to xHamster last March.
Leading daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine noted at the time that “the network ban is the harshest sanction provided by the German Telemedia Act” and that it is “unpopular and is quickly classified as ‘censorship.’”
“Of course, blocking the network is a dramatic intervention,” Schmid told the paper. “With this offer, however, the right to freedom of expression should not be affected too much. It is simply a business with pornography, and done at the expense of children and young people.”
Today xHamster representatives told Berliner Zeitung that they are willing to discuss “effective and legally permissible technical protective measures” with the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The State Media Authority in Düsseldorf declined to comment on xHamster's announcement, Berliner Zeitung reported.
Main Image: North Rhine-Westphalia bureaucrat Tobias Schmid (Source: LMA)