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While a system for checking the age of users of public online communication services that provide access to pornographic content is currently being trialled in France, the Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique (French audiovisual regulator – ARCOM) noted on 3 April 2023 that the websites Heureporno and xHamsterLive simply required users to state that they were adults with a single click in order to access such content, while no age checks at all were carried out by the website Folieporno. The regulator pointed out that simply requiring...

On 27 March 2023, the Samenwerkingsplatform Digitale Toezichthouders (Digital Supervisory Cooperation Platform — SDT), which is comprised of four major Dutch regulatory authorities, published its first regulatory guidance principles, in relation to online child marketing, and on ensuring effective online transparency. The SDT also announced that it had established a new regulatory Chamber to coordinate supervision under the EU’s recently enacted Digital Services Act. The SDT is an important regulatory cooperation platform established by the Autoriteit Consument & Markt (Netherlands...

On 29 March 2023, the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) published a draft Media Bill that reforms the regulatory framework for public service broadcasters (PSBs) in the UK. The Bill aims to level the playing field with streaming services and modernise longstanding broadcast legislation to reflect changes in the global media ecology. The Bill is introduced against the background of a “fierce battle to attract and retain audiences” in the broadcast market, with changes to content consumption habits that have put traditional broadcasters “under unprecedented pressure”,...

On 27 February 2023, the Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture – BMEL) presented the key elements of a proposed bill prohibiting the advertising of foods with high sugar, fat or salt content. The BMEL’s initiative follows the discovery that food advertising aimed at children very often promotes highly processed foods that contain excessive levels of these ingredients. Excessive consumption of such foods contributes to diet-related diseases (e.g. obesity, diabetes) that have high societal costs. Food advertising has a lasting...

Tabled by Laurent Marcangeli, an MP from the Horizons party, the bill “to establish digital majority and combat online hate” was adopted by the National Assembly at its first reading on 2 March 2023. During the parliamentary debate, it was revealed that, while 82% of children aged between 10 and 14 regularly use the Internet without their parents, more than 50% of them are active on social media, for which they first register at the age of 8 and a half on average. Therefore, even though a minimum age is stipulated, 60% of under-13s have a social network account. In the MPs’...