XVideos, stylized as XVIDEOS, is a

pornographic Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,

video sharing An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content on the Internet, often via a structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally u ...

and viewing website. Founded in Paris in 2007, the website is now registered to the Czech company WGCZ Holding. , it is the most visited pornographic website and the tenth most visited website in the world. WGCZ Holding also owns Bang Bros, DDF Network, ''Penthouse'' magazine,

Private Media Group Private Media Group, Inc. is a Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedi ...

, and Erogames and has a controlling interest in the productions gathered under the Legal Porno brand.

History

XVideos was founded in Paris in 2007 by the French owner Stephane Michael Pacaud. XVideos serves as a pornographic media aggregator, a type of website which gives access to adult content in a similar manner as YouTube does for general content. Video clips from professional videos are mixed with amateur and other types of content. By 2012, XVideos was the largest porn website in the world, with over 100 billion page views per month.

Fabian Thylmann Fabian Thylmann (born 5 June 1978) is a businessman from Germany who was founder and managing partner of the Internet pornography conglomerate Manwin (now MindGeek). In October 2013, he sold his stake in the company, which was at the time the la ...

, the owner of

MindGeek MindGeek (formerly Manwin) is a Luxembourg-based, privately held company with Canada as its center of operations that primarily focuses on pornography. It is owned by Feras Antoon, Bernd Bergmair (Bernard Bergemar), David Marmorstein, and — m ...

, attempted to purchase XVideos in 2012 in order to create a monopoly of pornographic tube sites. The French owner of XVideos turned down a reported offer of more than US$120 million by saying, "Sorry, I have to go and play ''

Diablo II ''Diablo II'' is an action role-playing hack-and-slash video game developed by Blizzard North and published by Blizzard Entertainment in 2000 for Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS, and macOS. The game, with its dark fantasy and horror the ...

''." In 2014, XVideos controversially attempted to force content providers to either pledge to renounce the right to delete videos from their accounts or to shut down their accounts immediately.

Web traffic and ranking

, XVideos was the most visited porn website and the seventh most visited website in the world, as ranked by

SimilarWeb SimilarWeb Ltd. is an Israeli web analytics company specializing in web traffic and performance. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, the company has 12 offices worldwide. Similarweb went public on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2021. History The c ...

. XNXX, another site owned by WGCZ Holding, is the tenth most visited website overall and the second most visited website in the adult category. Both XVideos and XNXX were also the world's most visited websites for

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

videos in 2021.

Censorship

Algeria

In 2019, the

Algerian government Politics of Algeria takes place in a framework of a constitutional semi-presidential republic, whereby the President of Algeria is head of state while the Prime Minister of Algeria is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by th ...

banned XVideos for no stated reason, but the website remains accessible to the public via

IP address spoofing In computer networking, IP address spoofing or IP spoofing is the creation of Internet Protocol (IP) packets with a false source IP address, for the purpose of impersonating another computing system. Background The basic protocol for sending ...

Bangladesh

On 19 February 2019, the

Bangladeshi government The Cabinet of Bangladesh ( bn, বাংলাদেশের মন্ত্রিসভা) is the chief executive body of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The cabinet is the collective decision-making body of the entire government under ...

blocked access to the site along with 20,000 other pornographic sites as a part of their anti-porn war.

China

In December 2009, the Chinese authorities banned 60,000 pornographic websites.

France

On 20 January 2022, France announced that it will be banning all pornographic websites unless they ensured their users were over 18 years of age. The appeal court rejected this ban in May 2022

India

In 2015, the company was censored by the

Indian government The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the Government, national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy lo ...

on a list of 857 pornographic websites, which also included non-pornographic websites such as

CollegeHumor CollegeHumor is an Internet comedy company based in Los Angeles. Aside from producing content for release on YouTube, it was also a former humor website owned by InterActiveCorp ( IAC) until January 2020, when IAC withdrew funding and the websi ...

. In 2018, major Indian

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s also blocked access to XVideos and other porn sites.

Lebanon

In 2014,

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

's Minister of Telecommunications ordered internet service providers to block six pornographic websites including XVideos. Some internet providers did not oblige, while others like Mobi DSL did.

Malaysia

In 2015, the

Malaysian government The Government of Malaysia, officially the Federal Government of Malaysia ( ms, Kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia), is based in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya with the exception of the legislative branch, which is located in Kuala Lumpur. Mala ...

banned XVideos for violating the

Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 The Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 ( ms, Akta Komunikasi dan Multimedia 1998), is a Malaysian law which enacted to provide for and to regulate the converging communications and multimedia industries, and for incidental matters. Structure ...

, which bans "obscene content" from being digitally distributed.

Philippines

On 14 January 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte blocked XVideos as a part of Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Law.

Russia

After some threats, on 17 May 2022, Russia blocked XVideos and other sites.

Venezuela

On 14 June 2018, the telecommunications and internet services company

CANTV CANTV () is the state-run telephone and internet service provider in Venezuela. It was one of the first telephone service enterprises in the country, founded in 1930. The largest telecommunications provider in Venezuela, it was privatized in 19 ...

blocked access to the website without giving any statement in this regard.

Vietnam

Since November 2019, ISPs have silently blocked access to every major pornographic website, including XVideos. Most ISPs declined to comment and denied blocking the sites. Most users assumed that this was a result of a secret Government mandate. Despite that, the sites are still accessible through the use of a

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Xvideos Gratis pornography Czech erotica and pornography websites Internet properties established in 2007 2007 establishments in France Companies based in Prague Internet censorship in India