Pornhub, one of the largest porn websites in the world, is no longer available to users in Texas. The platform's move comes after a Federal Appeals Court reaffirmed that pornography sites in Texas must apply age verification to prevent minors from accessing adult websites.
The state attorney general, Ken Paxton, celebrated the event and maintained that it is a great victory in defense of children. "PornHub has now disabled its website in Texas. Sites like PornHub are on the run because Texas has a law that aims to prevent them from showing harmful, obscene material to children," Paxton wrote on his X account.
"We recently secured a major victory against PornHub and other sites that sought to block this law from taking effect. In Texas, companies cannot get away with showing porn to children. If they don’t want to comply, good riddance," Paxton added.
PornHub has now disabled its website in Texas. Sites like PornHub are on the run because Texas has a law that aims to prevent them from showing harmful, obscene material to children. We recently secured a major victory against PornHub and other sites that sought to block this law…
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) March 14, 2024
But it's not just about Pornhub. All of the Aylo giant's other porn sites, such as YouPorn and Brazzers, are now also blocked in the state. When trying to access these pages in Texas, a statement is presented criticizing the state's age verification mandate.
"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," reads the statement obtained by Axios.
Meanwhile, it was learned that the company is reviewing possible avenues to go against Texas. Alex Kekesi, Aylo's vice president of brand and community, said in a statement to Axios that the law - in his opinion - is ineffective. However, he stressed that he agrees with verification, but that it be carried out in a different way.
"Not only will it not actually protect children, it will inevitably reduce content creators' ability to post and distribute legal adult content," Kekesi said.
