Pornhub has temporarily suspended its operations in Texas after the state made it mandatory for the site to use government IDs for age verification
The same law has been passed in 7 other states and Pornhub has subsequently disabled its services in all those states
A similar law has been imposed by the EU, but Pornhub decided to sue them in response
Pornhub has shut down its services in Texas after the state made it compulsory for the site to verify the age of the users by using government IDs. The website went offline on Thursday.
If anyone tries to visit the site from Texas now, it displays a message asking users to show their ID for verification purposes to visit an adult site.
However, Pornhub believes this is not an effective solution to protecting minors from such content.
It looks like the shutdown is temporary because one of the representatives from the company said that they are only disabling the website until a real solution is offered – because operating under the current laws has become very difficult.
While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not effective for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk.Pornhub
Pornhub also said that they are more than willing to comply with the local laws, as they always do, but are waiting for a solution that does not compromise user convenience for security.
For the same reason, Pornhub has been urging its users to get in touch with their local representatives and ask for device-based age verification.
Read more: New UK law to combat harmful AI pornography
What Is This New Age Verification Law for Adult Websites?
In June 2023 in Texas, a new law by the name of House Bill 1181 was passed that made it mandatory for adult websites to use better age verification to ensure that all users visiting the site are definitely over the age of 18.
The law also requires adult sites to display health warnings such as ‘porn impairs human brain development’
If any company fails to comply, they’ll be liable to pay a fine of $10,000 per day along with an additional $10,000 per day if they store user information.
Plus, if a child is accidentally exposed to adult videos owing to the company’s failure to implement age verification, they’ll have to pay another $250,000.
Texas isn’t the only state to pass this law. It’s the eighth in line after:
Arkansas
Utah
Montana
Mississippi
Louisiana
North Carolina
Virginia
After the law was passed in each of these states, Pornhub disabled its services in all of them.
The final straw for the company was when Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Aylo group (the company that owns Pornhub) last month for not accurately verifying the ages of the users visiting the site.
A way around Texas’s Pornhub restrictions: people in Texas can use the best porn VPN to spoof their IP address and change their digital location from Texas and access Pornhub without any restrictions.
Pornhub’s Problem in the EU
Apart from the USA, Pornhub is also facing issues with The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) over age verification. This law regards platforms like Pornhub to be ‘very large’ (because they average around 45 million users a month).
So, the EU might make it mandatory for Pornhub to take down illegal content and get a better age verification process in place.
Breaching any of these requirements will cost the company 6% of its global annual revenue.
To challenge its designation as a large online platform, Pornhub has sued the EU in response.
Additionally, both Pornhub and xvideos (another popular porn site) have urged the courts to pull the plug on another law that would require them to build a detailed public database of all the ads they run on their websites.
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