The adult site Pornhub has blocked access to users in Texas to comply with a new age verification law. This comes after a federal court upheld House Bill 1181 last week.
The bill requires that users upload photos of their government IDs in order to access a pornographic website. It also requires these sites display a health warning that claims porn impacts human brain development. According to lawmakers, this is an attempt to protect minors that are visiting the sites.
Pornhub addressed these concerns in a statement on its website. The company said that the new law is detrimental to minors and poses a security risk.
“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.”
Pornhub described its Trust and Safety measures as “robust.” It encouraged Texans to learn more about device-based age verification.
“Contact your representatives and demand device-based verification solutions that make the internet safer while also respecting your privacy,” the company wrote.
This verification includes using a device to login through a one-time passcode via SMS. This authentication does not verify that a person is who they claim to be — instead, it just proves that the person has access to the device.
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
Last year, Pornhub sued Attorney General Ken Paxton to block the age verification law from being enacted.
In a tweet, Paxton claimed that sites like Pornhub are “on the run” because they’re harming children.
The decision has divided Texans, with some claiming that Pornhub has allowed for videos of sexual assault and child pornography to be posted.
Others are concerned this is a violation of the First Amendment and a blow to the livelihoods of pornographic actors.
This decision also affects other adult websites used by Texans.
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