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.[8][9] Video clips from professional videos are mixed with amateur and other types of content.[8][9] By 2012, XVideos was the largest porn website in the world, with over 100 billion page views per month.[10] Fabian Thylmann, the owner of MindGeek, 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 $120 million by saying, "Sorry, I have to go and play Diablo II."[9] 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.[11][12][13]
As of August 2021, XVideos was the most visited porn website and the seventh most visited website in the world, as ranked by SimilarWeb.[5]
XNXX, a mirror site of XVideos, is the tenth most visited website overall and the second most visited website in the adult category.[14]
See also: Internet censorship
In 2019, the Algerian government banned XVideos for no full reason, the Algerian government has given no official announcement regarding this fact, but the website remains accessible to the public via software that can swap the IP address.
On February 19, 2019, The Government of Bangladesh blocked access to the site along with 20,000 other pornographic sites as a part of their anti-porn war.[15]
Further information: Internet censorship in India
In 2015, the company was censored by the Indian government on a list of 857 pornographic websites, which also included non-pornographic websites such as CollegeHumor.[16][17] In 2018, major internet service providers also blocked access to XVideos and other porn sites.[18]
In 2014, Lebanon's Minister of Telecommunications ordered Internet service providers to block six pornographic websites[19] including XVideos. Some internet providers did not oblige, while others like Mobi DSL did.
In 2015, the Malaysian government banned XVideos for violating the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which bans "obscene content" from being digitally distributed.[20]
On January 14, 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte blocked XVideos as a part of Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Law.[21]
On June 14, 2018, the telecommunications and internet services company CANTV blocked access to the website without giving any statement in this regard.[22]