Pornhub has disabled its site in Texas over objections to a state law that requires age verification to prevent access to minors, per Houseoon Chronicle.
Visitors to the site are now met with a lengthy message from the company condemning the legal change as "ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous." The company advocates for age verification by device manufacturers that allow internet access, rather than individual websites.
"Until a real solution is presented, we have reluctantly decided to completely block access to our website in Texas," the message stated.
The Republican-controlled state Legislature passed the age verification law, HB 1181, last year. It mandates that companies distributing "sexual material harmful to minors" verify that visitors are over 18 using an online system that confirms users' government-issued identification or another commercially available system using public or private data. These sites are not allowed to retain identifiable information.
Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the company that owns Pornhub to compel compliance with the state's age verification law and threatened millions of dollars in civil penalties.
"Texas has the right to shield its children from the adverse effects of pornographic content," Paxton stated when he filed the suit. "I am committed to holding any company accountable that violates our age verification laws designed to prevent minors from being exposed to harmful, obscene material on the internet."
In November of last year, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law, which includes fines of up to $10,000 per day, an additional $10,000 per day if the company illegally retains identifying information, and $250,000 if one or more children are exposed to explicit content due to the violation.
Paxton's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. A Pornhub representative confirmed that the website was inaccessible but did not specify if the takedown was permanent or temporary.
In its message, the company raised concerns that the law was enacted "without any means to enforce at scale" and would drive users to websites "with far fewer safety measures in place, which do not comply" with the law.
The company argues that the "only effective solution" would be to place the burden of age verification on the manufacturers and operating-system providers of devices with internet access, such as computers, tablets, and cellphones.
This could involve a retailer verifying a person's age at the point of sale and installing content-blocking software if they are underage, the note suggests. The data would be "stored on a network controlled by the device manufacturer or the supplier of the device's operating system."
The Pornhub representative referred Hearst to a fact sheet outlining the company's concern that jurisdictions with site-level age verification are creating a "high risk of data theft and privacy violation" for individuals who will repeatedly have to input personally identifiable information.
