Pornhub has begun blocking visitors from Texas as authorities attempt to enforce a new law requiring web porn platforms to verify the age of viewers. The company called the law “ineffective, haphazard and dangerous.”
Since Pornhub pulled out, Texans have significantly increased their Google searches for tools that can mask a device's geographic location.
We've experienced age verification laws, attempts to circumvent them, and blocked access to porn platforms. In fact, Texas seventh The adult content platform operated by Canadian company Aylo (formerly MindGeek) states that the age verification requirement remains. As a result, residents of Texas and six other states were blocked from visiting popular sites like Pornhub, Redtube, and YouPorn.
there In May It would be a better way to prevent minors from accessing pornography while protecting adults' privacy and freedom of expression. But it is more complex and less likely to indiscriminately punish porn platforms, producers and performers. Surprisingly, politicians don't seem to care.
'It is not an effective solution'
Pornhub went dark in Texas last Thursday following a lawsuit filed against Aylo by state Attorney General Ken Paxton in late February. Paxton accused the company of failing to follow the state's age verification law, which requires adult content websites to verify viewers are 18 or older. A federal court ruled the new Texas law was unconstitutional. But the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals gave the state permission to enforce it, prompting Paxton to file suit.
“As you know, Texas’ elected officials require you to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” reads a message from Pornhub currently welcoming visitors from Texas. “Not only does it violate the rights of adults to access protected speech, but it also fails to engage in rigorous scrutiny by using the least effective and most restrictive means to achieve Texas’ stated purpose of protecting minors.
“While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing identity verification every time you visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting online users and will actually put minors and your personal information at risk.” It continues. “Attempts to mandate age verification without any means of large-scale enforcement give platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply, leaving thousands of platforms open and accessible. As we have seen in other states, these bills will entice users to identify minors. “It didn't protect them. From a few websites that comply to thousands of websites that have far fewer safety measures in place and some that don't comply.”
Pornhub makes a good point that prohibitionists of all stripes won't ignore. Banning products people want or putting up big barriers is not. Stop It stops people from wanting and accessing that product. This prevents people from accessing it in the safest and most transparent way possible. And this is especially true when it comes to the Internet. Because the Internet is a global phenomenon and is not easily limited.
There will always be websites that will try to provide porn without blocking viewers. These platforms are also less likely to take other steps to maintain regulatory or creator protection limits. By steering viewers away from platforms like Pornhub—sites that engage in at least some content moderation, are relatively receptive and responsive to authorities, and seek to build mutually beneficial partnerships with porn creators—age verification laws may actually reduce viewership of exploitative or other content. can increase. Undesirable Content.
“Texas Law for Verification of Age [won’t] We need to actually protect children,” Pornhub suggested. “But this…will diminish the ability of content creators to post and distribute legal adult content and directly impact their ability to share the artistic messages they seek to convey. no see.”
Age Verification Fallout
After Pornhub cut off access to Texans, “searches for the term ‘VPN’ among Texas users soared more than fourfold.” Diversity report.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, a tool used to mask the geographic location of Internet users. A VPN allows Texas residents to access Pornhub content by making it look like they're in some state where Pornhub isn't blocked.
Other states where Pornhub has blocked users have seen similar surges in interest in VPNs.
The states where Pornhub (and sister sites like Redtube and YouPorn) are now blocked include Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. These states have recently enacted age verification requirements for adult content websites. Last March, Utah became the second state to enact such a law and the first to find residents blocked by Pornhub. The Arkansas, Virginia, and Mississippi laws and Pornhub blocking began last summer. The North Carolina and Montana laws took effect in January, and Pornhub blocked access shortly before that.
The Louisiana Difference
Louisiana is the first state to enact a law requiring web porn platforms to verify the age of their visitors. However, Pornhub did not block visitors from Louisiana. why?
The difference lies in the details of compliance with Louisiana law. Verifying a visitor's age in Louisiana ~ no Requires porn sites to collect user ID directly. Rather, the state helped develop a third-party service called LA Wallet, which stores digital driver's licenses and serves as an online age verification credential that protects some privacy.
Using this service does not require people to provide their real identity to porn sites. “via LA Wallet [Anonymous Remote Age Verification] “The feature allows adult content sites to anonymously verify a user’s age,” the website explains.
This system is not perfect, but it is less invasive than alternatives. It's closer to a convenience store clerk scanning someone's ID than to creating a huge database of porn viewers linked to their actual identity. This makes it more attractive to people who visit porn platforms and to the platforms themselves.
Louisiana's law still poses privacy risks and may violate freedom of expression. But at least Louisiana tried Unlike other states that have passed age verification laws to alleviate these problems. It took time to develop a system that could anonymously verify users on adult content sites, rather than telling technology and content companies to take matters into their own hands.
A better way to develop?
It is very clear that the days of open access digital platforms are coming to an end. Proposals for online age verification, not only for porn but also for social media, are sweeping the country. Last year, age verification laws targeting adult content were introduced in at least 11 states. And so far this year, at least seven states (Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Oklahoma) have submitted proposals to issue cards to visitors to online porn platforms.
The Free Speech Coalition, an adult industry trade group, has challenged some of these laws in court, as have some porn platforms.
But Aylo, acquired by Ethical Capital Partners last year, has another idea. I would like to see age restrictions implemented. At device level.
“We believe that the true solution to protect both minors and adults is to verify the user’s age at the access point (the user’s device) and deny or allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that verification. ” Kekesi, Aylo’s vice president of brand and community, explained in an emailed statement: (He also said “this is not the end” of the Pornhub battle in Texas and that the company was “reviewing its options and consulting with its legal team.”)
Device-based verification can work in a variety of ways, but its basic advantage is that it can keep Internet pornography away from children without compromising the privacy of adult users.
In device-based systems, parents can ensure that their minor children's devices are specifically equipped with a mechanism that notifies websites that anyone using the device is under 18 years of age. This device-based trigger can achieve the goal of restricting access to some groups of users without requiring them to do so on porn, social media, or other platforms where people want to proactively restrict access to children. every Users give up anonymity.
There are also more widespread ways to perform device-based verification, which would require anyone using a smartphone or computer device to verify their age with their device provider (as opposed to making it optional). This option is obviously more unpleasant because it places a greater burden on the privacy of adult users. Jonah Aragon explains the potential problems with this approach here.
Whether specifically for children or more broadly, “this approach requires collaboration from manufacturers and operating system providers,” Pornhub noted in a statement currently open to Texas visitors.
I think this helps explain why there is less pressure on device-level authentication. Computer and smartphone companies have more political influence than porn companies. It is much easier for politicians to make special demands on the latter than on the former.
Add in the fact that 1) politicians are lazy and 2) at least some of them want to reduce porn viewing more broadly, not just among minors, and it's not hard to imagine why politicians have focused on making porn companies their card players. This is for device-based solutions.
For what it's worth, voluntary device-based technology solutions aren't just better from a civil liberties perspective. It could be so It is better to restrict access to children..
The first ruling on Texas' age verification law was “Focus on Texas' own research First Amendment lawyer Ari Cohn has spent the last year tending to show that content filtering and parental controls are more effective and tailored than age verification. And some argue that these voluntary child protection measures are ineffective. Parents are too stupid or careless to use it. Do not allow it “The government is trying to evade them with less restrictive means,” Cohn noted.