Pornhub will cease operations in five more states this summer due to new legislation requiring age verification on adult entertainment websites. The move is in response to a wave of recently passed laws requiring pornographic websites and other platforms with explicit adult-only content to collect evidence of their users’ ages. In all of these states, that means people would have to upload a copy of their driver’s license or other government ID, or sign up for a third-party age verification service, in order to use sites like Pornhub.
of Pornhub said its latest locations for closures are , , , and . The site said it would end operations in those states in July 2024. The website shut down and also blocked access to its site in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Virginia in response to similar state legislation.
Lawmakers in these states who supported age verification laws said the rules would prevent children from viewing explicit content. For example, the Kentucky bill framed pornography as a “public health crisis” with a “corrosive influence” on children.
Pornhub parent company Aylo has responded that the approach taken by these laws puts user privacy at risk and may not actually prevent minors from viewing explicit content. After Aylo continued operating a government-backed age verification service, Pornhub traffic in the state fell 80 percent.
«These people didn’t stop looking for pornography,» Aylo told the . «They simply migrated to darker corners of the Internet that don’t ask users to verify their age, don’t follow the law, don’t take user safety seriously, and often don’t even moderate content.» The company a device-based age verification solution instead of state legislation to keep minors off adult-only sites.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation also raised privacy concerns around these bills, noting that no age verification method is completely foolproof. «No one should have to hand over their driving license just to access free websites. That’s why the EFF opposes mandatory age verification laws, no matter how well-intentioned they may be,» the organization said in a statement. .
