Pornhub Disabled in Texas After State Requires Age Verification
By Movieguide® Contributor
Popular pornography site Pornhub has disabled its content for all Texas users.
The change comes after a legal battle in Texas, which documents state “imposes new standards on commercial pornographic websites, requiring them to verify the age of their visitors and to display health warnings about the effects of the consumption of pornography.”
Pornhub claims the law “impinge[s] on the rights of adults to access protected speech, [and] 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.”
Its message continues, “Until the real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas. In doing so, we are complying with the law, as we always do, but hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users.”
The law has been in the works since the summer of 2023, but pushback has left it ineffective until now.
Variety reported, “The Texas law was signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in June 2023. The legislation, Texas H.B. 11811, was scheduled to go into effect on Sept. 1, but it was on hold after the lawsuit filed by the Free Speech Coalition (a group that includes Pornhub’s parent company) resulted in a preliminary injunction staying its enforcement. The law applies to online publishers whose content is more than one-third ‘sexual material harmful to minors’ and requires them to verify the age of all visitors using a government-issued ID or ‘public or private transactional data.’”
Texas senator Angela Paxton, who sponsored the bill, said, “My bill created an age verification requirement for online pornography websites in Texas to protect minors from accessing their harmful content.”
My bill created an age verification requirement for online pornography websites in Texas to protect minors from accessing their harmful content. After insistent fighting against it, the pornography industry is being forced to comply with the law. #txlegehttps://t.co/dbYrnfFIe1
— Senator Angela Paxton (@AngelaPaxtonTX) March 14, 2024
“After insistent fighting against it, the pornography industry is being forced to comply with the law,” she added.
Texas isn’t the only state to take action against pornography. Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Virginia and Utah have similar laws in the works, and therefore, the site has also been restricted in those locations.
Movieguide® previously reported on the harmful effects of pornography:
As porn becomes more accessible, parents can protect their children from its detrimental effects by understanding the long-term consequences and protecting their children through parental control settings.
The Wall Street Journal explains that “younger people’s brains are more wired for pleasure than adults, with higher spikes of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine released in anticipation of enjoyable activities…”
The accessibility of porn through the internet and other devices compounds these effects. As Dr. Baehr writes in The Media-Wise Family, ‘As the internet grew from being merely a service for sending text data by modem into the primary video delivery method for the mass media of entertainment, its use for spreading pornography has become ubiquitous. The quantity, and high-definition quality of, pornography has exploded and one of the results has been a growth in human sex slave trafficking. As the number of men driven to the depths of pornography soars, so too does the demand for ‘something more.’”
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Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
