- Last week, a Texas appeals court upheld the law and the fight is now likely to continue. The appeals court has struck down a law requiring users to read a health and safety warning before logging in
The world’s largest adult content website, Pornhub, has banned users from the site and its sister sites in Texas over a dispute over an age verification law the Lone Star State passed in 2023.
Last week, a Texas appeals court upheld the law and the fight is now likely to continue. The appeals court has struck down a law requiring users to read a health and safety warning before logging in.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office appealed this decision. Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law in October 2023.
Those who tried to access Pornhub in Texas on Thursday were greeted with a message explaining the Canadian-based company’s position. A 2023 survey found that 58 percent of Americans have watched porn.
“As you may know, your elected officials in Texas require us to verify your age before you can access our website.”
“Not only does this infringe on adults’ rights to access protected speech, it also fails in strict enforcement by using the least effective and yet most restrictive means to achieve Texas’ stated goal of so-called protect minors,” the message reads.
Pornhub is owned by Aylo Holdings and is based in Canada
Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill requiring age verification into law in October 2023
The message that greets users trying to access Pornhub in Texas
The post goes on to say that Pornhub believes age verification “is not an effective solution to protect users online, and will in fact put minors and your privacy at risk.”
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately fired back at X.
“PornHub has now disabled its website in Texas. Sites like PornHub are on the run because Texas has a law aimed at preventing them from showing harmful, obscene material to children. We recently won a major victory over PornHub and other sites that tried to block this law…,” he wrote.
The Texas law is one of several similar age verification laws passed in other states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Louisiana.
Texas law provided for fines of up to $10,000 per violation, which could be increased by a minor to $250,000 per violation.
Utah’s law was upheld by a federal judge who dismissed a lawsuit challenging the law last month.
An Arkansas law, which would have required parental consent for children to create new social media accounts, was struck down by a federal judge on Thursday, and a lawsuit challenging the Louisiana law is ongoing.
Opponents have argued that age verification laws for adult websites not only infringe on freedom of speech, but also pose a threat to digital privacy because it is impossible to ensure that websites do not retain user identifying information.
In 2023, Pornhub’s owners paid $1.8 million after admitting to profiting from sex trafficking and agreeing to make payments to women whose videos were posted without their consent in a New York court.
“States are trying to end the First Amendment by outsourcing censorship to citizens,” Alison Boden, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, said in 2023.
‘It is a new mechanism, but a very flawed mechanism. Government efforts to chill speech, regardless of method, are prohibited by the Constitution and by decades of legal precedent.”
Also in 2023, Pornhub’s owners paid $1.8 million after admitting to profiting from sex trafficking and agreeing to make payments to women whose videos were posted in a New York court without their consent.
Aylo Holdings, the website’s parent company, reached a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve a charge of engaging in unlawful monetary transactions involving sex trafficking proceeds.
Prosecutors said Aylo has agreed to pay the victims compensation, but details such as who is eligible and how to apply will be forthcoming.
The charges stemmed from Aylo’s role in hosting videos and accepting payments from GirlsDoPorn.