Unless you use a virtual private network and hide your location, the most visited pornography site in the world, Pornhub, is no longer available to people in Texas.
Shortly after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a state law requiring pornography sites to verify the ages of users, Pornhub blocked access to the website in Texas, claiming the law “impinge[s] on the rights of adults to access protected speech.”
Texas is one of several states that have passed age verification laws in the past two years, with more likely to join this year. And in nearly every case, Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek have disabled the site in each state rather than implement age verification software to prevent minors from accessing the site.
Pornography addiction and use has inflicted tremendous harm on families, relationships, and the habits of people everywhere. The average age of exposure to internet pornography seemingly lowers every year, with children who are not yet teenagers regularly exposed to increasingly hardcore and violent pornography. It is a public health crisis that cries out for action.
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As state and federal lawmakers consider more age verification bills in the coming months and years, they should remember to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Lawmakers in some states have fretted that these laws will lead to privacy concerns or that they are unenforceable.
But as Pornhub’s reaction to these age verification laws has shown, they don’t have to be perfect to be effective. As Texas and other states have shown, sometimes the mere threat of legal liability is enough to force the perfidious pornography industry to stand down. Lawmakers should take note. Shutting down Pornhub in their state is a win no matter what. They should keep that in mind when worrying about the enforcement mechanisms in each bill and whether or not they work.
