Germany’s state media regulators are taking aggressive new steps to cut off access to adult content platforms, including Pornhub and YouPorn, by targeting the financial systems that support them.

Officials now seek to block payments from all users—including adults—as part of a broader crackdown under the Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media (JMStV).

Marc Jan Eumann, chair of the Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM), told the Evangelical Press Service (epd) that financial pressure is being used as leverage to force adult content companies into compliance with stricter age verification standards.

“Only if the porn providers lose reach and revenue can we get them to give in on youth media protection,” Eumann said.

The campaign follows a series of regulatory and legal actions stretching back five years. In 2020, the North Rhine-Westphalia State Media Authority (LfM) issued a cease-and-desist order to Aylo, the Cyprus-based operator of Pornhub and YouPorn, for failing to implement sufficient age verification. The enforcement has since escalated, with DNS blocking orders imposed by various state media authorities in 2024.

Despite challenges from the platform operator, multiple German courts have backed the state regulators. Three administrative courts and two higher administrative courts have rejected urgent motions from Aylo seeking to suspend the DNS blocks. Most recently, the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) of Rhineland-Palatinate ruled that access to Pornhub and YouPorn through provider 1&1 should remain blocked.

While technically easy to bypass, DNS blocks have been supported by authorities as a legal signal. In response, the company has attempted to evade enforcement using mirror domains, websites with slightly altered addresses that replicate the original content.

Eumann said these tactics are also being targeted. The amended JMStV, which took effect in part earlier this year, enhances regulators’ ability to pursue enforcement against mirror domains and other circumvention methods.

In addition to domain blocking and financial restrictions, German states are now debating a controversial new amendment that would require pornography filters at the operating system level, essentially building age gates into devices themselves. The legislation is currently under discussion in state parliaments and is expected to take effect on December 1, 2025, if passed.

Eumann defended the approach by citing research showing that pornography is more distressing to minors than other forms of explicit media.

“Studies show that pornography disturbs minors more than, for example, non-sexually motivated depictions of violence in a television crime drama,” he told epd.

The most recent move, pressuring banks and payment processors to deny transactions to adult websites, raises new legal and ethical concerns. While aimed at child protection, critics say the financial blockade infringes on the rights of adults to access legal content.

The legal foundation for the financial restrictions remains uncertain, particularly as adult content itself is legal in Germany. The proposed actions mirror tactics previously criticized when used in other jurisdictions, such as the U.S. Operation Choke Point, for circumventing legislative due process via financial pressure.

So far, it is unclear how or when the payment blocks would be implemented, or which financial institutions may be involved. No timeline has been announced.

As the December deadline for expanded filtering approaches, the debate over media regulation, age verification, and access to adult content in Germany is likely to intensify.