HOUSTON – The second-most visited pornography website in the world is no longer available to Texans.
Pornhub pulled out of the Lone Star State on Thursday.
The Canadian-owned pornography website now shows a lengthy message when consumers log onto their website.
“As you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” the message reads in part. “Not only does this impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors.”
The creators of Pornhub are referring to Texas HB 1181, a bill that aims at “restricting access to sexual material harmful to minors on an Internet website,” according to the text.
Texas HB-01181 by Gage Goulding on Scribd
Introduced at the beginning of 2023, the bill was passed in June and took effect in September 2023.
Lawmakers made it mandatory for pornographic websites to verify the age of consumers before allowing them to view sexually explicit content.
“Unfortunately, the Texas law for age verification is ineffective, haphazard and dangerous,” Pornhub said in their statement.
“I don’t really watch that much porn,” Thomas Morales said. “But it’s cool to watch porn sometimes.”
He’s not alone. A survey among Americans of all ages found that 58% of people have watched porn at some point in their lives.
But why would Pornhub pull out of Texas on a random Thursday in March?
An injunction filed against the State of Texas stopped enforcement of the law. However, last Friday, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that a court ruled in favor of the state in a lawsuit filed by pornography companies, including Pornhub.
PornHub has now disabled its website in Texas. Sites like PornHub are on the run because Texas has a law that aims to prevent them from showing harmful, obscene material to children. We recently secured a major victory against PornHub and other sites that sought to block this law…
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) March 14, 2024
“Applying rational-basis review, the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography. Therefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment.”
Now, the law allows the State of Texas to enforce penalties of up to $10,000 per day that pornography is available without age restriction. In addition, the law also allows for penalties of $250,000 penalties for violating the law and allowing minors to access pornographic content.
When it comes to age verification requirements, there’s also a $10,000 penalty for retaining identifying information.
“As we’ve seen in other states, such bills have failed to protect minors, by driving users from those few websites which comply, to the thousands of websites, with far fewer safety measures in place, which do not comply,” Pornhub said in their statement.
The other states they refer to include Arkansas, Montana, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia.
Instead of requiring users to verify their age every time they visit pornographic websites, Pornhub calls on lawmakers to verify the age on the user’s device to work across all websites.
“While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk,” said Alex Kekesi, Vice President of Brand and Community at Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo. “We will always comply with the law, but we hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users.”
“I think because the website is the one delivering type of content, they really need to be on top of making sure that only people of age can access it,” Michelle Mayer said while weighing in on the topic. “If you want to use a website, then give that information. If not, then, don’t use the website.”
While Pornhub is no longer accessible in Texas, the website’s parent company says this isn’t the end for porn in the Lonestar State.
“Despite impinging on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors,” Kekesi said. “This is not the end. We are reviewing options and consulting with our legal team. We would be happy to share further information as it’s available. Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must ensure minors do not access content intended for adults and preserve user safety and privacy. We believe that the real solution for protecting minors and adults alike is to verify users’ ages at the point of access—the users’ devices—and to deny or permit access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that verification.”
Consumers aren’t the only ones left in the dark.
Pornhub says that content creators are also missing out on big-time money from the second-biggest state in the country.
“We will continue to fight for our industry and the performers that legally earn a living, and we will continue to appeal through all available judicial recourse to recognize that this law is unconstitutional,” Kekesi said.
Read the full statement from Pornhub:
Dear user,
As you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. Not only does this impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors.
While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk.
Attempting to mandate age verification without any means to enforce at scale gives platforms the choice to comply or not, leaving thousands of platforms open and accessible. As we’ve seen in other states, such bills have failed to protect minors, by driving users from those few websites which comply, to the thousands of websites, with far fewer safety measures in place, which do not comply. Very few sites are able to compare to the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place. To protect minors and user privacy, any legislation must be enforced against all platforms offering adult content.
Unfortunately, the Texas law for age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Not only will it not actually protect children, but it will also inevitably reduce content creators’ ability to post and distribute legal adult content and directly impact their ability to share the artistic messages they want to convey with it.
The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the only effective solution for protecting minors and adults alike is to verify users’ age on their device and to either deny or allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that verification.
We call on all adult sites to comply with the law. Until the real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas. In doing so, we are complying with the law, as we always do, but hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users.
We encourage you to:
- Learn more about device-based age verification* solutions that make the internet safer while also respecting your privacy.
- Contact your representatives and demand device-based verification solutions that make the internet safer while also respecting your privacy.
*Device-Based Age Verification refers to any approach to age verification where the personal information that is used to verify the user’s age is either shared in-person at an authorized retailer, inputted locally into the user’s device, or stored on a network controlled by the device manufacturer or the supplier of the device’s operating system. Whether through pre-installed content blocking and filtering software, the disabling of web-browsing permissions, or other means, the user will then be prevented from accessing age-restricted content over the internet unless they are age-verified. To come to fruition, such an approach requires the cooperation of manufacturers and operating-system providers.