The War Against Porn
Pornhub has banned itself in nineteen states to the delight of legislators.
The 404 Media headline “Pornhub Is Now Blocked In Almost All of the U.S. South” is technically correct but somewhat misleading. The impetus for the report, from Sam Cole, author of How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex:
Almost two years ago, Louisiana passed a law that started a wave that’s since spread across the entire U.S. south, and has changed the way people there can access adult content. As of today, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina join the list of 17 states that can’t access some of the most popular porn sites on the internet, because of regressive laws that claim to protect children but restrict adults’ use of the internet, instead.
The thing is, neither Louisiana nor any of the sixteen states that copied its law verbatim actually block Pornhub or any other website.
That law, passed as Act 440, was introduced by “sex addiction” counselor and state representative Laurie Schegel and quickly copied across the country. The exact phrasing varies, but in most states, the details of the law are the same: Any “commercial entity” that publishes “material harmful to minors” online can be held liable—meaning, tens of thousands of dollars in fines and/or private lawsuits—if it doesn’t “perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material.”
To remain compliant with the law while protecting users’ privacy, Aylo—the company that owns Pornhub and a network of sites including Brazzers, RedTube, YouPorn, Reality Kings, and several others—is making the choice, state by state, to block users altogether.
So, yes, Pornhub (and its affiliate sites) are blocked in those states (and others). But it’s blocked by the company that owns said sites as a means—thus far ineffective–of trying to get citizens of those states to put pressure on their state legislatures to repeal the law.
Regardless, it’s not just the South:
Regardless,
In Louisiana, sites in the Aylo network direct visitors to use the state’s LA Wallet, a digital driver’s license for Louisianans, before they can enter the site. That system has been in place since January 1, 2023. But the law is not working as the lawmakers would have us believe they intended it. Instead of protecting children from “harmful material,” it’s sending visitors elsewhere across the internet. An Aylo spokesperson told me that the number of visitors in Louisiana “instantly decreased by 80 percent” when the platform introduced age verification in the state. Instead, visitors go to sites with worse moderation practices and no requirements on identity verification for uploaders—just a few of the security and safety practices Pornhub started putting into place in late 2020 amid allegations of abusive imagery on the site and a campaign by religious conservative groups to have the whole platform shut down.
Even if someone wanted to visit Pornhub from Florida today, they could easily get around any age verification barriers with a VPN, which we consistently see searches for spike when these laws go into effect.
So, this is twofold. First, Aylo is the one blocking the sites in those states. Second, though, of course most people aren’t going to want to put their state ID into a database of people who use porn sites! Which, surely, is what the laws intended in the first place.
Which, relatedly, is presumably why Aylo’s strategy isn’t working. Citizens who want to ban pornography under the guise of protecting the children are quite willing to be public about it. Those who want to access pornography from their home computers . . . considerably less so! Indeed, if they were willing to be public about their pornography consumption, they would just submit to age verification.
Regardless, there are legal challenges underway:
2025 will be a year of intensifying legal battles against the creep of age verification laws. As such, there is some hope: Not every state where bills were introduced rolled over and allowed their constituents to face more censorship with less safety. In Arizona, governor Katie Hobbs vetoed the copycat bill there. “Children’s online safety is a pressing issue for parents and the state,” Hobbs wrote in a letter announcing her decision. “While we look for a solution, it should be bipartisan and work within the bounds of the First Amendment, which this bill does not.”
The Free Speech Coalition filed a challenge to the law in Florida earlier this month, along with several co-plaintiffs, including the sex education platform O.school, sexual wellness retailer Adam & Eve, adult fan platform JustFor.Fans, and Florida attorney Barry Chase. “These laws create a substantial burden on adults who want to access legal sites without fear of surveillance,” Alison Boden, Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition, said in a press release published in December. “Despite the claims of the proponents, HB3 is not the same as showing an ID at a liquor store. It is invasive and carries significant risk to privacy. This law and others like it have effectively become state censorship, creating a massive chilling effect for those who speak about, or engage with, issues of sex or sexuality.”
And in Texas, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton continues and will be heard this month.
It has been almost four decades since I studied the Supreme Court rulings on state efforts to ban “obscenity” and their relationship with the First Amendment, so I’m hardly an expert. I’m highly skeptical, though, that these laws won’t survive judicial scrutiny.
While I fully agree that having to share a photo ID and otherwise confirm one’s identity carries significant privacy risk that may well hinder adults’ rights to consume sexually explicit content, there is plenty of research showing that the easy availability of pornography is detrimental. And the courts have long been sympathetic to states in their efforts to protect minors, even at the cost of freedoms that are Constitutionally protected for adults.
At best, then, I could see the courts ruling that the specific verification regime at work here is problematic. But I would be shocked if the general effort to restrict minors from accessing this content was ruled a violation of the First Amendment.
Cole concludes:
Age verification bills like the ones flooding the south and beyond are regressive at best, and actively harmful at worst. They’re not just ineffective, they’re worse: they push people to sites where piracy is rampant and moderation—meaning, protection from actual harmful material—is almost nonexistent.
I suspect she’s right on that score.
Regardless, as I noted a year and a half ago, when my home state of Virginia was among the first to pass one of these laws,
[It] seems obvious to me that this is just a stupid way of going about doing something reasonable. There’s a legitimate public interest in shielding children from pornography, even if it’s almost surely a losing effort given the worldwide nature of the World Wide Web. But, rather clearly, this is mostly affecting adults. Presumably, it’s not children setting up VPNs.
While I don’t have parental controls set on my girls’ (aged 12 and 14) iPhones, I know how to do so. I had limited them to YouTube Kids for some time but finally let them download the standard YouTube app because quite a lot of perfectly harmless (or, at least, not adult) content they wanted to watch was restricted on the Kids version. Their Netflix profiles are age-appropriate but I’m sure that the 14-year-old, who’s pretty tech savvy, could bypass that if she really wanted.
As to Pornhub themselves, their claims are a bit rich. They were notorious for hosting revenge porn, child porn, and other unsavory content before public and corporate pressure forced them to crack down. They were also a major malware purveyor (although that’s common throughout the genre. The major credit card companies won’t do business with them. Social sites like Instagram won’t either. They’re not exactly an upstanding business enterprise.
Regardless, while I get Pornhub’s decision to simply block users from these states (unless they’re using VPNs claiming they’re from elsewhere), I can only imagine that the legislators who pushed these bills are happy beyond belief that they’re doing so. It’s the equivalent of self-deportation in the fight to quell illegal immigration.
It would be interesting to know the number of VPN accounts before and after the institution of these laws.
@Sleeping Dog: They skyrocked here in Virginia right after our law went into effect.
Be careful what you wish for, Dr. Joyner
This site, which features multiple queer commenters of various types openly discussing their lives, fits the Project 2025 definition of pornography, so you could very easily find yourself being declared “detrimental” at some point.
@James Joyner:
There you go, problem solved. Prohibitions never work, the censors will smugly point out that Pornhub and probably others are blocking users from their states, while nothing has changed regarding consumption.
When I lived in Missouri, I was always amused when traveling through the state by the number road signs promoting religion that were towered over by the one for such and such adult super store.
King Canute ordered the tide to stop and not dampen his slippers. Didn’t work.
Your average American straight man does seem to be a sexual mess, but ‘porn addiction’ is exactly like being on Tinder under a fake name four days before your wedding. The problems are not desire, curiosity, and boredom. I can imagine making bad decisions for sex, but it’s not the same. Guys who get really into porn are having issues other than those of just being libidinous.
And it does seem obvious that the total ill-health of people who go 100% for Trump and Pete Hegseth while also being worried about porn is part of the problem.
Unless these states have both the willingness and ability to go after offshore* porn sites that don’t do age verification, these age verification regulations aren’t going to do shit.**
* I wonder how effective Mississippi is going to be in enforcing state law in, let’s say, Costa Rica.
** Except giving a bunch of Christian hypocrites something to run on when it’s reelection time.
Just yesterday, I watched a video of Simone and Malcolm Collins looking at the massive decline in religiosity in Iran since 1980, when Shia Islam became state enforced. People identify as Shia Muslim but it is below 40% who believe in life after death, heaven/hell, etc. Compared to 80% before the takeover.
This could very well cause a similar impact over the next 40 years and actually push porn toward acceptability. Back when Conservatives and others were saying the spread of surveillance cameras would cause people “to act right”, I predicted the opposite. That the young, raised under the eye of the camera would just start not caring of being naked or whatever in public, on video. The rules of “propriety” only work as public performance. The polite “ignorance” of social peers of what others do. If you can’t keep it hidden, then many will just stop trying to hide it and fear of exposure loses its power to control. Of course, the State can use violence, but then risks loss of the People’s acceptance the State is legitimate and eventual collapse of the oppressors.
Basically, start imposing on all and within a generation, many of the young will stop caring about your tenets.
He did that in hopes of teaching his petty bureaucrats that it was beyond his or their power, but petty bureaucrats still try whether it be to ban porn or ban disfavored opinions from college campuses.
In NC they carved out an exception for Nude Africa.
While I concur that the states can be said to have a legitimate interest in curbing access to certain materials for minors, this approach has long struck me as moralizing grandstanding that is the same as taking a bucket of water out of the ocean and declaring that one is combating sea-level rise.
@Kylopod: Ha!
I’m just glad to see MAGA has two dads, which is pretty woke.
@Stormy Dragon: I’m not wishing for anything. As noted when the ban was passed–seemingly out of nowhere–here in Virginia, it’s not all that hard to institute parental controls. Or for smart, motivated teens to bypass this obstacle. I just think it’s likely to pass legal scrutiny.
@Steven L. Taylor: Oh, for sure. But they seem to have succeeded in getting Pornhub and their affiliate sites—and I suspect others—to go along with making it way harder than it used to be to access in these states.
So, I guess it will be easier for people in those states to obtain all types of guns and automatic weaponry than it will be to watch the pornography that they also love dearly?
Legally, if states can restrict minor access to sex shops, I don’t see why legally restricting access to porn sites would also not be legal.
As a practical matter, however, it’s not likely to be effective. It’s a well-known problem of the internet – it is just about impossible to control access to content. As a general principle, I think it’s bad/dumb to pass laws that are effectively unenforceable.
The bill isn’t an attempt to restrict children, but an attempt to restrict everyone, by stripping the veil of anonymity.
@Chip Daniels: I think that’s likely right.
@JKB: “petty bureaucrats”
They weren’t bureaucrats; that function didn’t exist in the 11th century. The equivalent were “clerks” and they wouldn’t have been on speaking terms with a king. Just when I was impressed that you managed to create two comments that were mostly competent…
@James Joyner:
And as others have mentioned, the very same people pushing these laws are the very same people who ban books containing any favorable depictions of queer people, not matter how chaste, as “sexualized”.
@Andy:..As a general principle, I think it’s bad/dumb to pass laws that are effectively unenforceable.
In March of 1974 my quadriplegic friend Joe and I were homeward bound during our four week road trip from the midwest to California and return. I was the full time driver of his 1970 Ford Econoline E-150 van. As we traveled east on the same Interstates and expressways that we had just run westbound three weeks earlier at 65 and 70 MPH we saw road crews placing these signs. I tried to comply but talk about draggin’ ass.
@Mister Bluster: Just think how Sammy Hagar must have felt.
@JKB:
Haha. You follow a decent comment with something dumb.
These are not “petty bureaucrats.” These are legislators. If you have to torture basic definitions to justify your worldview, your worldview is the problem, not the words.
Moreover, the legislators behind this charade are from the party that you defend. Or, at least, the party you let off the hook while you demonize their opposition.
Your bullshit is a mess. Do you stand when you defecate?
@James Joyner:..Sammy Hagar…
I Can’t Drive 55
I got my driver license when I was 17. I drove for 25 years before I got a speeding ticket. Not like I was following the law. I just never got caught.
Hol up…
There’s porn on the internet? The thing for blogs and usenet nerds?
Be back in a couple of hours.
C’mon guys, these are blog comments, not Master’s theses. “Petty bureaucrat” is a reasonable stretch for effect from the usual “courtiers” to our current situation. And his point was that Reynolds used Canute as Canute learning the limits of power. Jake’s point is correct, that it was really Canute making that point to his minions.
I’ve been hard on @JKB: , but he made two reasonable comments. I started reading OTB lo these many years ago looking for a reasonable expression of conservative positions. I find that on the rare occasions when I comment on conservative sites, someone will counter with irrelevant nitpicking. A few days ago I mentioned SCOTUS Justices being influenced by money and somebody accused me of being anti-semitic, apparently for using the word “money”. Conservatives marinade in FOX et al. They feel they know stuff we don’t and they make references we don’t get. My error was assuming commenters at Volokh know about Lenny and the Federalists. They don’t.
I’m sure our few conservative commenters will give us plenty of opportunity to correct them. When they’re reasonable, let’s be accepting.
I’m not so sure. I do agree that the courts have been philosophically willing to be less absolutist on rights when “but won’t someone think of the kids!” is in play, the text of the law should still matter. When federal courts enjoined the Indiana copycat law, Judge Young’s opinion stated:
“the Act is likely overbroad such that a substantial number of the Act’s applications are impermissible in relation to its plainly legitimate sweep.” and that “The Attorney General has not submitted any evidence suggesting age verification would prohibit a single minor from viewing harmful materials,” (while we have a particularly incompetent AG, I believe it would be a hard task for any AG to produce such evidence).
It strikes me that courts would certainly be open to laws attempting protect the kids from the sex stuff, but I hope they are not open to laws that just set up a guise of protecting kids. For instance, a state that would offer for free to all residents age-filtering software (spoiler, already free on most browsers) would not at all run into constitutional issues. And parents who have to make the effort of turning on said software and explaining it to their kids are probably doing a lot more to prevent lewd and lascivious viewing than any age filtering law does.
My issue is that these state laws are directly increasing the risk of identity theft while having no positive effect. Getting porn online is still incredibly easy and the “irresponsible” places that aren’t following the laws requiring verification are likely to have extreme and/or illegal content. So in effect these laws are increasing the chances of kids running into extreme/illegal porn and viruses/worms/trojans.
Viruses and malware have been pushed via google ads and other ad services many many times over the years. Ironically pornhub and other legit porn providers pretty much never have an issue with viruses/malware.
The difference in the discussion on the pornhub malware is that you have to actively click and install the malware. Where as some of the malware and viruses that were being run on google ads would install themselves without user interaction on top of installing viruses via user interaction.
i haven’t seen mentioned in the articles linked to above (though maybe I just missed it): when will non-porn sites that happen to publish an insane amount of porn follow suit? X.com is a HUGE porn site. As is reddit, bluesky, snapchat, etc. Pornhub’s ersatz boycott hasn’t forced the issue, but I wonder if that’ll be true when people are forced to upload their drivers license to Zuckerberg and Musk.
@Neil Hudelson: I’ve been wondering lately if that isn’t the actual end goal for some of these people. Authoritarians abhor the protections of freedom of speech and the anonymity of the internet allows for too much free speech..
I’m sure someone has done a dissertation on the phenomenon of wealth-building vices (not quite le mot juste, I know) later disavowed. See: Britain and the opium trade, Spain/Portugal/UK and the slave trade, the American colonies and tobacco, the USA and both slavery and ethnic cleansing. And of course the slaughters that spread Christianity and Islam, two ‘religions of peace.’
Porn was a big contributor to the rapid adoption of the internet, not to mention several technical advances. Now that it’s done its virtuous work it’s time memory hole it, despite essentially no deaths.
@gVOR10:
What I want to know, is that the real JKB or an imposter????
@gVOR10:
I’ve both defended and been hard on JKB. So, I agree with you in spirit. But . . .
His first post was good. The second one, not so much.
It doesn’t take a Master’s degree to recognize the difference between a bureaucrat and those who craft legislation. Especially considering that the big sticking point wrt bureaucrats is that they are unelected.
And even that argument is limited, because the legislature has the power to place constraints on an out of control bureaucracy. (yes, I realize the state of the legislative branch.)
So, no. Regardless of whether JKB is right about Canute is irrelevant to what we know about JKB’s views. He conflated the two, and it is more than just a nitpick to call that out.
@Neil Hudelson:
Posts again 19 minutes later.
I think it was an Al Franken book that mentioned that according to hotel industry sources, the average pay-per-view adult movie was only watched for 14 minutes.
@Matt:
In general, yes. But whether an authoritarian defends or attacks free speech kind of depends on the content, no?
@Neil Hudelson:
I offer a hypothetical minor: He is about to turn 18, in 2 minutes. Starting the VPN takes 3 minutes.
@Kurtz: Yes and No. In the Eastern Block during Stalinism, what was acceptable to say 6 months ago might now be no longer acceptable to have said 6 months ago.
Requiring people to retract previous statements can be a key element in keeping people in line. Anonymous speech is more dangerous.
@Gustopher: Yup.
Hence the people being removed from official photographs and such.
@Kurtz: @Gustopher: @Matt:
Most parts of America have essentially banned indoor smoking, and everywhere there is no advertising for cigarettes. I remember the Orwellian talk when cities stopped allowing smoking in bars. Twenty-some years later, does anyone miss going out and coming home smelling like an ashtray? What about advertising? And smoking can be social and fun. I used to smoke and I kinda miss it. Regardless, banning indoor smoking and advertising worked.
Hardcore porn is the exact opposite. Nobody is going to miss Pornhub and modern hardcore porn, even the people who are watching it as I type (excluding all 15-year old boys). The real defense of porn is that very few people get hung up on it in comparison to actual sex and desire, and that it’s a red herring regarding alienation and dysfunction.
@Modulo Myself: I don’t miss smoking in bars, restaurants, and airplanes (especially not airplanes), but I think designated smoking establishments wouldn’t destroy the nation. Luddite and I go to cigar bars occasionally, and my take is that I think it’s ironic that the server in the place has to move 25 feet from the entrance for a cigarette break because smoking cigarettes and pipes in a cigar bar is illegal.
There is no such research. Since the explosion of pornography, sexual violence of all types is down dramatically. The only research saying it’s detrimental is from orgs that want to ban it and redefined detrimental to the vaguest terms.
Also worth mentioning; the Fifth Circus decided that SCOTUS precedent doesn’t apply to them when they ruled in Paxton’s favor. Because they all want to be on Trump’s SCOTUS shortlist.
@Modulo Myself: You start off with an absolute red herring that has no real connection to the subject at hand. You weren’t required to give copies of your ID to every store when you bought those cigarettes nor were the stores required to keep those IDs on file which is a massive difference. From a pure security standpoint the whole concept is a nightmare that WILL negatively impact society as a whole via increased identity theft. The rest of your smoking rant is completely irrelevant to the subject at hand (HINT : Real World vs Virtual). Having said that I am glad as hell that fewer people smoke ciggerates than ever. Then again more people than ever are vaping 😛
Smoking was already on a downward trend well before the bans. The percentage of smokers in the USA had dropped from a high of 45% to under 30%. The actual amount of tobacco products being consumed was also massively dropping. The bans didn’t really do much in comparison to public awareness campaigns and changing societal norms (aka political correctness whatever). Hell you could argue the only reason the bans were allowed is because the amount of smokers in America had decreased so much it greatly reduced resistance to bans.
You’re right in a way that no one will miss pornhub because they’ll be using some porn site located in shady area of china or Asia. Unlike your smoking ban you can’t really ban anything on the internet. Between all the lawless states willing to host anything and VPNs you can’t do shit. Look at China’s continuous failure at blocking content with their “great wall”. So now people AND kids are much more likely to run into truly hardcore porn that is illegal and abusive. They are much more likely to be doxxed/hacked by foreign criminals.
So good job you’ve pushed people off of safe sites to sites that are going to expose them to abusive/illegal content while haxoring their megahurtz and potentially supporting some really bad people.
EDIT :BTW 25-34 is the biggest demographic of porn site users followed closely by 18-24. In third place would be the 35-44 demographic. Pretending that only 15 year olds are interested in porn is to ignore reality itself.
@Hal_10000: Oh shit I missed that line as I basically skipped over the OP. Glad you caught it and pointed out the truth.