June 12, 2025 – Thousands of users across Spotify, Discord, Google Cloud, and several adult camming platforms experienced service disruptions Thursday, as Cloudflare confirmed a third-party issue caused by a Google Cloud outage.

The incident, monitored by Downdetector, peaked with outage reports from 46,000 Spotify users, 14,000 Google Cloud users, and 11,000 Discord users. Additionally, services such as Snapchat, Character.ai, and major adult streaming platforms, including Chaturbate, Stripchat, and CamSoda, also saw widespread downtime.

A Cloudflare representative clarified that their core services were not impacted, but that “a limited number of services at Cloudflare use Google Cloud and were affected.” One of the affected components was Cloudflare Workers KV, a backend data storage tool that temporarily went offline.

Google Cloud, which accounts for 12% of the global cloud services market, acknowledged the problem, stating: “We are currently investigating a service disruption.” Users were referred to the public Google Cloud status dashboard for ongoing updates.

By Thursday afternoon, recovery began across several platforms. Cloudflare confirmed progress on their status page, and Spotify redirected users to Google’s dashboard for context. Similar recovery signals were noted across impacted camming sites, which rely on Google Cloud and Cloudflare infrastructure to deliver low-latency, high-reliability streaming.

This outage highlights the broad dependence on cloud giants like Google, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure. Past incidents — including an AWS outage in 2021 and a Cloudflare disruption in 2020 — have shown how interconnected platforms, including those in the adult entertainment industry, are equally exposed to upstream failures.

The incident serves as a reminder that platform resilience and service redundancy remain crucial in today’s cloud-powered digital ecosystem.

Source: Downdetector, CNN, Chaturbate

Aylo, the operator behind major adult platforms including Pornhub, announced it is halting operations in France starting this Wednesday. The decision comes in response to a newly enforced French law requiring pornographic sites to implement enhanced age verification measures for their users.

An Aylo spokesperson described the legal requirements as posing a significant privacy risk, suggesting that age verification should be conducted at the device level rather than through invasive personal data collection.

Pornhub, the world’s most visited adult site, counts France as its second-largest market after the United States. The regulatory pressures facing Aylo and similar companies continue to grow globally, with the European Union now investigating whether platforms like Pornhub are sufficiently safeguarding minors.

Aylo has also withdrawn services from several U.S. states for similar reasons related to age verification mandates. In the UK, upcoming legislation will soon enforce stricter “age assurance” standards for all adult content providers.

The company, formerly known as Mindgeek and now owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners, operates other well-known sites such as YouPorn and RedTube, which will likewise become inaccessible to French users.

Solomon Friedman, vice president of compliance at Aylo, criticized the French law as “dangerous,” “potentially privacy-infringing,” and “ineffective.” He argued that major tech companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft already have the capability to verify user age at the device or operating system level.

While Aylo supports the concept of age verification in principle, executives have expressed concerns over the collection of sensitive data, such as credit card information or government-issued IDs, as part of the verification process.

In response to the platform’s withdrawal, French Minister for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé commented “au revoir” on X, adding that the move would reduce minors’ exposure to “violent, degrading, and humiliating content” in France.

Source: bbc.com

The European Commission has opened an official probe into four major pornography platforms — Pornhub, Stripchat, XVideos, and XNXX — over concerns they may be failing to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), particularly regarding the protection of minors.

According to the Commission, these sites appear to lack effective age verification systems and have not implemented sufficient measures to safeguard the rights, privacy, and safety of children online. Current “click-to-enter” disclaimers, such as those used by Pornhub, are deemed inadequate by regulators.

The probe highlights potential non-compliance with DSA rules requiring risk assessments and harm mitigation for vulnerable users — particularly minors — and may lead to fines of up to 6% of annual turnover if violations are confirmed.

Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, has stated it is aware of the investigation and remains “fully committed” to child safety and legal compliance. As of now, Stripchat has not issued a public statement in response.

While Stripchat will no longer be classified as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) due to recent updates, the Commission confirmed that the investigation into its compliance will still proceed.

This move comes amid growing international pressure on adult content sites to adopt more rigorous age verification technologies. The UK’s Ofcom recently announced similar investigations, and Pornhub has already restricted access in several U.S. states following new legislation.

The EU Commission reiterated its commitment: “Our priority is to protect minors and allow them to navigate safely online.”

This investigation marks another major step in holding adult platforms accountable under Europe’s toughest digital content rules to date.

Source BBC.com