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The TV streaming service Roku will ban any channels that show adult content from March 2022, bowing to pressure from multiple sides.
While Roku has never explictly allowed adult content, its Private Channels option allowed pretty much any media company to create a channel on the service, if it wished. Roku has until now effectively turned a blind eye to the many Roku porn channels that have made use of this developer option.
The reason for the ban, which comes into effect in March next year, wasn’t given by Roku, but it has come under pressure in the past from both religiously-backed anti-porn campaign groups, and its own stakeholders for not ensuring this loophole had been closed.
In tandem with the change to private channels, Roku is finally attempting to bring its service up to date with competitors by integrating a new developer IDK (Independent Developer Kit) that support IoT devices and other smart home-focused devices and services, just as long as they’re not ‘adult’ in nature.
Despite the ban in a few months’ time, it’ll likely make little difference to the availability of streaming porn — whether that’s on a Chromecast, Google TV, Amazon’s Fire devices, or indeed, still on Roku but via the many aggregator channels that show third-party content.
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