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In response to a Texas law mandating age verification for users, Pornhub has temporarily shut down its services in the state.
This move comes as a direct objection to the legislation requiring the adult entertainment platform to ensure all its users are above 18, aiming to prevent minors from accessing the site. Visitors from Texas are now greeted with a message expressing the company’s disagreement with the state’s mandate, specifically criticizing Texas officials for imposing user tracking to verify ages.
The law, according to Pornhub, undermines the rights of adults to freely access content and is critiqued for not effectively safeguarding minors as intended. The company argues that the requirement for users to provide identification each time they wish to access the site does not constitute a viable solution for online protection. Instead, it suggests that such restrictions may endanger both minors and user privacy. “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,” the company’s statement said, stressing that its existing Trust and Safety measures are robust compared to what the new law proposes.
This decision to disable access in Texas was pushed further by a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub, for non-compliance with the age verification law. Paxton seeks damages of up to $1.6 million for the period from mid-September of the previous year to the lawsuit’s filing date, plus an additional $10,000 for each day since.
The legislation, enacted last year, demands companies distributing sexually explicit material harmful to minors to verify that users are over 18, either through government-issued ID or other forms of age verification.
