Pornhub—the largest online platform for sharing sex videos—has disabled access to the site in Texas in response to the implementation of a new state law.
“We have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas,” reads a letter to users from the pornography giant.
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.
The letter claims Texas’ new law will not protect children, but Pornhub will comply with the law by restricting access to the site in Texas.
“Texas families just keep winning!” celebrated Texas Family Project President Brady Gray. “First a dominant election night for grassroots conservatives, then the 5th circuit ruling on parental consent for contraceptions, and now this. Pornhub has disabled access to its platform in Texas.”
“I’m incredibly thankful for pro-family champions like Nate Schatzline who made this a hill worth dying on in the 88th legislature and Ken Paxton, who continues to prove why he is the greatest AG in the country,” added Gray.
The new law, known as House Bill 1181, requires commercial porn websites to use “reasonable” methods to verify that users are at least 18 years of age before they access X-rated content online. Violators face fines of $10,000 a day.
Pornhub had sued Texas along with other pro-porn plaintiffs to keep HB 1181 from taking effect, claiming that the law violates the First Amendment and porn users’ privacy.
A federal district judge sided with porn industry plaintiffs and issued a preliminary injunction against enforcing the law.
Texas appealed, and Fifth Circuit judges ruled last November that Texas could enforce the law pending appeal, lifting the preliminary injunction.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals then issued an opinion on March 7 upholding the law’s age-verification requirements as constitutional.
Seven other states have passed age-verification laws: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
Rather than implement age verification, Pornhub has blocked access to all users in those states as well.
Pornhub is the target of multiple lawsuits accusing the company of profiting from uploaded videos of child sexual abuse featuring victims as young as three years old.
Pornography is a multibillion-dollar global industry.
