I don't know anyone who grew up with abundant internet that wasn't crossing their fingers behind their back when they clicked the "Yes, I'm over 18" button. Who on earth would choose the "Get me out of here!" option? The Amish? Future saints? So this method of verification has its glaring loopholes, what's your point? Yeah, it's probably not great that there's not much stopping all seventh graders from accessing videos of people doing particularly unsavory scatological activities in their idle hours. I can agree with these Texans on that. But surely, there's a better way to prevent corruption of the youth than by requiring everyone to upload their personal information to some sketchy website?
Even the judge agreed with me! And Pornhub itself. So much so that the website (and ones like it) didn't require age verification for its users at all. Everything seemed to be going fine. Until….
Paxton said in a press release on Monday evening that his office is suing Aylo Global Entertainment, which owns Pornhub, Brazzers, YouPorn, and many other porn sites and brands, claiming the company is violating the law, and instead of verifying ages of users, "immediately presents minors who access their websites with pornographic content," the announcement said. The lawsuit, filed Monday, seeks an injunction against Aylo Global.
Texas and Pornhub have been in a legal battle since last year. In August, Pornhub, along with a group of adult entertainment activists and companies, including XVideos, and XNXX, sued to block the law from going into effect on September 1, and a judge sided with them and granted a stay, writing that Pornhub and its co-plaintiffs were "likely to suffer irreparable harm" if the law went into effect as scheduled. "A party cannot speak freely when they must first verify the age of each audience member, and this has a particular chilling effect when the identity of audience members is potentially stored by third parties or the government," the judge wrote.
Paxton then appealed the court's injunction with the Fifth Circuit, which issued a stay of the stay(!) and the law went into effect. Briefly, some sites including Vixen and Blacked displayed the pseudoscientific health warnings as demanded in the law. As of writing, those sites no longer have the warnings up. And while Aylo has pulled out of several states over age verification laws it calls a privacy and security risk — including Virginia, North Carolina, Montana, and several more — Pornhub is still accessible from a Texas IP address, which I confirmed using a VPN.
Samantha Cole, 404 Media
We'll see if this continued lawsuit business lays Pornhub up.
Man, this phrasing is getting really dicey. I apologize, it's a sticky subject.
Previously: Utah is now a giant blackhole where you cannot view PornHub
